Paso Robles gets it right, eventually, on downtown parking

In early May, the Paso Robles City Council voted 5-0 to repeal its five-year-old parking ordinance and restore free parking to downtown. This decision came after several false starts, legal challenges, and a petition drive opposing the parking plan that eventually gathered an estimated 2,400 signatures. And it came over the opposition of the town's Mayor, who commented to the San Luis Obispo Tribune, “It appears this is how a small group of Roblans with little business sense wants to manage downtown public parking for their own gain or in reality, loss” and “I am absolutely done with parking.”

How did we get to this bruising debate? And why did it take so long to come to a conclusion that was overwhelmingly supported by both residents and visitors? The good news is that, in the end, I think they came to the right decision. As for why it became such a saga and why it took so long to come back to where things were at the beginning, that's for me a fascinating story that boils down to the intersection of local politics and market economics. The effort to understand what happened gave me a good chance to dust off my old economics degree, as it pitted two different core theories of economic behavior against each other. 

Back in 2019, in response to the frustrations of some downtown merchants, the city of Paso Robles implemented a kiosk parking system for the eight square blocks immediately around our downtown park. These business owners were worried that their customers were being displaced by employees parking all day in prime downtown spots. So, between 10th Street and 14th Street, and between Spring Street and Pine Street, the city installed 35 kiosks where you could register your license plate for two hours of free parking, or you could pay by the hour for more. The goal was to incentivize employees to park a little further away from the most in-demand parking spots, leaving those spots open for customers. The kiosks were active weekdays during business hours (9am - 6pm). This is a classic implementation of the economic Theory of Price. One of that theory's core postulates is that the optimal market price is the point at which the total number of items available can be reasonably consumed by potential customers. In this case, the marketable good is parking. And the potential customers are parkers. When the price of that parking is zero, it encourages overconsumption, in the form of the employees of downtown business choosing to take up prime spots all day and displacing those stores' potential customers. In theory, raising the price should reduce the demand for those parking spots, meaning that enough of the spots should be open when a customer is looking that they don't have to circle endlessly or park several blocks away. The city quoted a goal of having 85% of the spots filled at peak times.    

From the beginning there was unhappiness with the plan. The kiosks and the downloadable app that paired with them were clunky; the WayToPark app has a 3.2/5 star rating on the App Store, and the fact that there are only 17 reviews is an indicator of how few places used it. It became routine to see worried-looking visitors hurrying from their cars to the kiosks to make sure they figured out what they needed to do before they got ticketed. Older residents filled comment sections of local newspapers saying they just wouldn't go downtown. And the kiosks weren't making enough money to pay for their enforcement, let alone repay the cost of putting them in. In 2021, the City Council expanded the active hours to include weekends and weeknights until 8pm after reporting that the kiosks generated only $45,000 in parking fees during the first 18 months the parking ordinance was in effect, and that the loan balance for the program's research, purchase, and installation was nearly $600,000. To help enforce the parking, it also authorized three part-time enforcement officers (estimated annual cost: around $60,000) to supplement the parking supervisor (annual salary: around $80,000).

Fast forward another two years. By late 2023, significant resistance to the parking plan had grown among residents. And I get it! I'm tech-savvy, and I understand the town of Paso Robles and could usually find a free place to park. I don't think I ever paid for parking, and never got a ticket (though I did have to argue my way out of one when I parked in a loading zone, hazards on, to pick up some take-out). But I still thought it was a mistake. In September of 2023 I sent a note to some community leaders pointing out that we were in a competitive market for tourist visitors, and any friction created by the parking system put us at a disadvantage. I had noted in trips in the fall of 2023 that other attractive California tourist destinations had a simple 2-hour parking limit. The relevant piece of my note was:

I think that the parking app/regulation we have in Paso is a mistake, and puts us at a disadvantage compared to other wine destinations. As I've been traveling around California, I've noticed that towns like Healdsburg, and Sonoma, and Carmel all have a simple 2-hour parking limit in their downtowns. No app to download. No need to text. No payment required. Just move your car after two hours. I don't know the finances of what we have, but I'm guessing it doesn't bring in enough money to pay for itself. And if it leaves a slightly frustrated feeling in visitors' minds as they try to navigate it, that's going to color their experience of visiting Paso overall and make it (by I'm sure a very small margin) less likely for them to want to come back. In this environment where every guest is valuable and we know everyone is worried about traffic, I think we need to be advocating for town policies that benefit us. If I've noticed recently how much easier it is in other places, I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I evidently wasn't the only one expressing my opinion. The City Council had already responded to constituent feedback by creating an ad hoc committee to investigate parking options, which held several sessions soliciting community input. They presented their recommendations to the City Council at a meeting on November 21st. Perhaps not surprisingly, the recommendations that they said had universal support all carved exceptions out from the parking requirements, including free parking on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, more free parking permits for local seniors, free parking in the city lot behind City Hall and the Paso Robles Library, and better signage. After the head of the committee presented the committee's recommendations, the City Council opened the floor to public comment. One commenter after another gave impassioned pleas to urged the city to do away with paid parking in favor of something simpler and friendlier to visitors and locals alike. Against at least 20 comments opposed to the parking plan, there was just one in support of it.

After the commenters were done, the City Council members weighed in. Everyone agreed that the current system was nearly universally unpopular. And yet the decision that emerged was somehow even more onerous. New City Councilmember Sharon Roden asserted that the parking plan didn't satisfy anyone because it was too easily manipulated, that there was a convoluted system in place that people had to navigate which still didn't bring in enough money to cover its costs. She proposed a $2/hour parking charge from minute one. Her plan, she said, would actually achieve the goal of forcing people to think hard about how much they valued downtown parking spots, and would have the additional benefit of raising over $1.1 million dollars to fund the program and pay for another project, adding better lights downtown. Although some council members expressed doubts -- I was impressed, particularly, by Councilmember Fred Strong's reconsideration of his support for paid parking after listening to his constituents -- the Council decided to implement her plan, though at only $1 per hour rather than $2. You could hear audible gasps from the audience.

From an economic standpoint, she wasn't wrong. Putting a value on a scarce commodity encourages its responsible use. But she (and the majority of the Paso Robles City Council) had fallen victim to another classic economic theory: the sunk cost trap. People, businesses, and governments have psychological biases toward evaluating the future value of a project in part through the past costs that have been invested in it. It doesn't matter if those costs can't be recovered. The fact that they were spent means that there is extra incentive to continue forward to justify the past expenditures. In this case, the more than half a million dollars that the city was carrying on its balance sheet that was earmarked as due from the downtown parking program encouraged the city councilors to try to take actions that would repay those costs, even if those actions did not help their constituents.

To me, it was clear that this latest change would result in more harm to their constituents. If even the relatively cost-free system that was in place tended to discourage people from going downtown, adding costs while requiring the use of the same clunky app and kiosks couldn't improve people's experience. We (the city of Paso Robles) are in a competitive market for out-of-town tourists, and compared to the ease of parking in a comparable destination like Sonoma, or Carmel, or Healdsburg, the hassle of dealing with the kiosks, and the potential for a ticket, would act in a small way to color visitors' impressions of their experiences. If even 1% of visitors left with a less-happy memory of their visit here, we had lost their future business. The community had lost their referrals. And the town had lost their future tax revenue. 

If City Council members were in doubt of the community's viewpoint, that doubt was dispelled with the outpouring of glee from residents and businesses that greeted the town's announcement in February that all parking fees would be suspended due to the receipt of a cease and desist letter from a community member that pointed out that the proposal to overhaul the parking system wasn't on the published agenda of the November meeting, and therefore the decision violated the Brown Act. The parking free-for-all was originally supposed to be temporary, but after hearing from business owners at the May meeting that their traffic improved during the free parking period, and receiving the petition signed by 2,400 residents asking them to restore free parking, the city council voted to end it permanently. And now the 35 kiosks are for sale. If you want to track the former footprint of these kiosks, their locations are individually numbered around the downtown square:

Even though I agree with the City Council's decision to restore free parking, it's hard to be happy about the process it took to get here. The city of Paso Robles paid a consultant hundreds of thousands of dollars to decide on a system that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars more. It hired multiple people to enforce a system that never covered its expenses, let alone recouped its initial investment. The debate that resulted pitted business owners against each other and many locals against the out-of-town customers who drive so much of our local economy. The system's clunkiness likely resulted in some degree of guests feeling like a visit to downtown Paso Robles was cumbersome, while a small number of guests likely have an acutely unpleasant memory of a parking ticket. And all because some business owners complained that employees were taking up too many prime parking spots -- and yet couldn't make the case to those employees that they needed to park elsewhere.

As much as I've enjoyed just pulling into a downtown parking spot over the last six months -- and I feel compelled to point out that I haven't once had to park more than a block away from my destination -- it's worth wondering if we're just going to find ourselves back in the same situation the original parking system was designed to address. It seems possible. Maybe businesses will do a better job of instructing their employees where to park. But I'm hopeful that the experience of sourcing, implementing, staffing, and ultimately decommissioning this kiosk-based system would encourage the city to take a different approach should they revisit the issue. If they do, I hope they look to the neighboring communities that I've mentioned a few times in this post, and look to a simple two-hour parking limit. If you overstay your limit, you are subject to a ticket. It doesn't seem like a system like this would require a lot of enforcement, or much in the way of implementation cost.

While it may not be an economic theory, there is a final principle that I think could shed some light on where things went wrong. That principle is Occam's Razor, which states that when presented with multiple solutions to (or explanations for) a problem, the simplest tends to be the best. In this case, a simpler solution seems like it should have been tried before the plan that was adopted. Meanwhile, take a visit to downtown Paso Robles. Spend that minute you saved not having to enter your parking info enjoying the beautiful downtown park. And if anyone you know is in the market for a used parking kiosk, I know where they can find one.

Remembering John Munch: A Paso Robles Legend

By Chelsea Franchi

On Saturday, August 17^th, some 300 friends, family, and members of the Paso Robles wine community gathered to celebrate the life of John Munch. The gathering included people from the many diverse interests that John pursued, from food and wine to music to motorcycle riding and woodworking.

The thriving Paso Robles wine community of today owes its pioneering spirit to that of its founders. As is the case with so many beloved and dynamic wine areas, Paso is a region founded by renegades and dreamers. We are fortunate that so many, from Gary Eberle to Ken Volk to Niels and Bimmer Udsen, are still a part of that fabric. We at Tablas Creek are humbled and honored to call these renegades and dreamers our mentors and peers. And perhaps no one in that founding group was as creative and unconventional a dreamer as John Munch.

John became a winemaker, as he told it, by accident: agreeing to help friends from France make sparkling wines at the old Estrella River Winery, where Gary Eberle was head Winemaker. From there he became a founding partner and winemaker at Adelaida Cellars in 1981, making Adelaida one of the first ten wineries in the region. Less than a decade later, while still running Adelaida, he launched his own small winery, Le Cuvier, on his Adelaida Road property just a few miles west of Paso Robles. But even while he was winemaker at Adelaida, John was a person who always had a few irons in the fire; in the mid-1980s he had already planted Syrah on his own property, and according to lore, a barrel tasting that the Perrins and Robert Haas had of the 1988 vintage of that Syrah was influential in their decision to search the west side of Paso Robles for the property that would become Tablas Creek.

His connection to Tablas Creek was important in other ways. In 1991, John gave our very own Neil Collins his first winemaking opportunity. Neil tells the story of the day he rolled up to his interview in a 1965 Volvo held together by baling wire and duct tape. John apparently took one look at Neil’s vehicle and concluded that if he could keep that thing running, he could certainly keep a winery running. Neil got the job that would change the trajectory of his life and the lives of countless others; the ripple effect of mentorship in a tight community like Paso Robles creates far-reaching and indelible changes. 

Some things never change: to this day, a cold beer and good conversation remain the gold standard after a hard day's work

While Neil and John were working (and likely getting into plenty of tomfoolery) together at Adelaida, Tablas Creek was making forward progress. Bob Haas and the Perrins had purchased land, and vines imported from the nursery that supplied Beaucastel passed quarantine at Cornell University. While those vines were being propagated in our nursery, the partners selected a handful of Rhone varieties available in the US from trusted sources to plant and get some grapegrowing and winemaking experience. Today, we use the acronyms AV and VF to differentiate between “American Vines” and “Vignes Française” (French Vines). The American vines, planted in 1992, bore fruit starting in 1994, and Bob and the Perrins reached out John to rent space at Adelaida Cellars for an interim home to make their first vintages. The partners would fly out for harvest, and there are amazing photos from this era of Bob Haas and Jean-Pierre Perrin sitting on tanks, holding hoses, driving forklifts and operating pumps, like the one below. But they would have admitted, even then, that most of the hands-on winemaking was done by John and by Neil. And in 1997, when we finally built our winery, it was with John’s encouragement that Neil reached out to Bob and started the conversation which ended up with Neil as Tablas Creek’s winemaker, which he is to this day. Given that John mentored Neil and Neil has mentored me, I owe a personal debt of gratitude to John Munch.

Jean Pierre Perrin topping Tablas Creek barrels

Those first few vintages of wine from Tablas Creek grapes, made at Adelaida Cellars, were bottled under various labels including Adelaida Hills, Vineyard Drive, and Tablas Hills. In advance of John’s celebration of life, we pulled some of the original bottles he had helped craft, with the goal of picking one to provide to his celebration of life. My notes on the three wines we tasted, which were amazingly vibrant given they were all nearly 30 years old and made from third- and fourth-leaf grapevines:

1994 Adelaida Hills Assemblage Rouge
On the nose, tobacco leaf, forest floor, iodine, anise, blackberry and pomegranate. The palate is pleasantly minty and herby with dried flowers and undertones of blue fruit with cloves. The wine carries a cool dustiness with vibrant acidity but there’s a slight oxidative note on the finish. Very chewy.

1995 Vineyard Drive Red Table Wine
The nose opens with dried rose petals, stewed plum and meat drippings. The palate is dense and meaty, with iron and flint notes softened by wild strawberry and mint.  The tannins feel velvety and plush, but still carry enough of a grit to hold tight. This wine is beautiful and still going strong. 

1995 Tablas Hills Cuvee Rouge
A lovely meaty character on the nose, accompanied by lilacs, rib eye steaks, cola and clove. On the palate, cranberry and plum skin are tempered by a white pepper and black licorice spiciness. The finish seems to tumble forth and stretch forever, adding raspberry and bramble with thyme sprig. Good acids, grippy tannins, powerful. This was the wine we chose to share at the memorial.

The three wines we tasted

I asked Neil to tell me a little bit about the John Munch he knew, since the two of them had been close friends since that fateful interview in 1991. Neil described John as fearless, innovative, and hilarious. He said John was never one to gloat despite the fact that he was a brilliant musician, an incredible writer, and a great speaker. All of us who knew him remember John fondly as being an animated and passionate human with a deep well of knowledge and ability.

Neil (left) and John (right) at tastings through the years

I think John would have been delighted to taste the wines he helped Tablas Creek create. Thirty years later, they are beautiful and strong with just enough wildness to them. Cheers, John. Thank you for helping to pave the way for the next generations of renegades and dreamers of Paso Robles and beyond.

When co-workers are friends, the line between work and play becomes blurred.  Or in this case, completely non-existent

A Pillar of Tablas Creek Gets his Due: John Morris

By Ian Consoli

On May 23^rd of this year, our longtime Tasting Room Manager, John Morris, received the 2024 Hospitality & Tourism Award for Visitor Experience in the wine category presented by Travel Paso. The award noted John's long-term commitment to "creating guest experiences that are above and beyond expectation." This award followed John's recent feature in Tasting Panel Magazine and an invite to speak at the Tasting and Tap Room Expo in May. The award and recognition are long overdue. As the Tasting Room Manager at Tablas Creek for over 17 years, John has been responsible for the positive experience of our guests through the training and development of our tasting room staff. Congratulations, John!

When John Morris started as the tasting room manager at Tablas Creek in 2007, he had no idea what an impact it would have on his life. He knew the brand, was familiar with the wines, and was excited for the new opportunity. I asked him recently if he thought he'd be here 17 years later. “Not necessarily,” he noted, “but I do recall a particular moment in my first month here. Everyone had left for the day, and I was enjoying a glass of wine, looking out across the parking lot at the rolling hills of Tablas Creek, and thought to myself, you made it."

Indeed you did, John.

He fully embraced the opportunity, developing a system for hiring and training tasting room employees that would create a unique tasting experience that best represented Tablas Creek. Those types of experiences are what bring guests back to our tasting room time and time again. From the nomination anonymously submitted by John's peers in the Paso Robles community:

"John Morris has run a successful tasting room for Tablas Creek Vineyard for nearly two decades. His ability to educate, train, and motivate his employees has helped make the Tablas Creek tasting room a staple on any "best wineries to visit" list. Visitor experiences continue to rate highly on Yelp, Google, Trip Advisor, and various other visitation sites. He has made a significant impact on Paso Robles tourism with his emphasis on positive customer experience."

It is safe to say that he interviewed, hired, and managed hundreds of people over his tenure. Some got their start in wine here, and others used their experience as a stepping-stone. We’re proud to have seen some of our longest-tenured employees come through his hiring process. Some remained in the tasting room, and others went on to work in other departments at Tablas Creek, such as the vineyard, winery, wine club, and marketing (that's me!). Whatever their situation, for 17 years and counting, John Morris was the first face people saw when they wanted Tablas Creek to be a part of their wine career journey.

John had this thought when receiving his award:

"I’ve been in hospitality, customer service, whatever you want to call it most of my life. I think customer service is hospitality and vice versa. Every place I’ve been there’s been someone saying ‘I can’t wait to get out of customer service.’ I’ve always thought to myself, ‘I like this. I really like this.’ So for those who are just passing through hospitality on your way to another career, that’s fantastic. Enjoy the ride. For those of you who this is your work, be proud. It’s good work, legitimate work, and it’s fun work. I am grateful to be where I am. Thank you all so much.”

Taking Paso Robles on the Road to Japan and South Korea

This past Wednesday at around 6:30pm, I got home, on the same day and at almost exactly the same time that I'd left Seoul roughly 17 hours earlier. This miracle of time travel (thank you, International Date Line) was just the final marvel in what was an amazing 10-day trip through three cities in Japan and South Korea in support of the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance and the California Wine Institute's Export Program, which promotes California's wines abroad. The specific program was their "California Alive" tour that brings the wines of California to Tokyo, Osaka, and Seoul. 

While the California Alive tour happens each February, the event features a different California wine region each year. This year, the featured region was Paso Robles, and so representatives from ten local wineries made the trek across the Pacific Ocean for the tastings (which were open to all California wineries and their importers) and for a dedicated Paso Robles seminar in each city, along with media, influencer, and consumer events that were organized for us by the Wine Institute around the three trade tastings. The events were spaced out enough that there was time in each city for us to work with our local importers and even do a little sightseeing. Given that this was my first trip to Asia, that was very much appreciated. Even better, my brother-in-law Mark Dunn flew up from Bangkok to help me pour and explore:

The event began in Tokyo. Six of us got in at more or less the same time on Sunday evening, and our introduction to the local food was an informal but delicious dinner at a local place orchestrated by the Wine Institute's Hiro Tejima:

The next morning, I woke up early enough thanks to jetlag that I had a chance to explore the Imperial Palace grounds before my work responsibilities started:

My sightseeing itch scratched, I headed to the offices of of our Japanese importer Jeroboam for a staff training for their sales team and a lunch visit to a one of the restaurants that sells Tablas Creek in Tokyo, all before our first formal Wine Institute event: a tasting with local influencers at one of the Tokyo locations of the Weber Grill Academy:

After the event, I hopped in a taxi to get to Cellar Door Aoyama, the Tokyo retailer and restaurant owned by Jeroboam, for what turned out to be an amazing dinner:

The next day included the first of the big tastings, where I was assisted by Jeroboam's PR & Marketing Director Yoko Yamashita (foreground left):

The next day, we hopped on a bullet train and headed to Osaka to repeat the program. Somehow, I didn't get many photos of the official events, just all the delicious food that we ate before and after (for that, you can check out my Instagram feed). Then, we headed to the Osaka airport and flew to Seoul. As in Tokyo, the first event was a media and influencers event in conjunction with a Weber Grill store. This is the full Paso Robles plus Wine Institute contingent who made the Korea leg of the trip:

The next day was Sunday and our first day off since we'd arrived, which meant a chance to see the city. The owner (Yongbin Choi) and our brand manager (Katie Kang) of our South Korea importer Shindong Wine gave us an amazing insider's tour of the city, from palaces to markets to an end-of-day visit to Seoul Tower for an amazing view overlooking the city: 

The Wine Institute tasting was outstanding again and included a terrific seminar where we got to dive into what makes Paso Robles unique:

That was the end of the official events, but I stuck around Seoul one more day to take the Shindong Wine team through the Tablas Creek story, visit one of the enormous and gorgeous department stores through which most of the wine in South Korea is sold, and host a lovely, intimate dinner at another Hyundai Department Store location:

I came away from my visit with a new appreciation for the work that goes on behind the scenes in helping a region thrive. California wineries, whether they are members or not, all benefit from the tireless promotional work that the Wine Institute does. Looking at their 2024 calendar is eye-opening, with events in 14 countries this year as well as programs that bring sommeliers, retailers, media, and importers to California to experience our wine country as well as ongoing promotion to spread the word about what's going on here to the world. Similarly, the amount of work that the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance team put in to make this tour happen was enormous, and the fact that it went off without a hitch a testament to their planning. I love this photo, of the four people most responsible for the tour's success. Clockwise from left, Joel Peterson, PRWCA Executive Director, Chris Taranto, PRWCA Communications Director, Hiro Tejima, Wine Institute Joint Regional Director, North Asia and Australasia, and Madoka Ogiya, Wine Institute Joint Regional Director, North Asia and Australasia:

It's important to get out into the broader world in order to realize that while Paso Robles has made great strides in recognition domestically, when it come to international markets we're still just getting started. Very few of the knowledgeable and worldly guests I met on the trip had ever visited Paso Robles, and the majority didn't know where it was or what made it special. Now there are thousands more members of the wine trade in Japan and South Korea who've been exposed to Paso Robles, and you can feel it rippling out from there. I came away inspired by the potential of both markets and with a new appreciation for all the work that goes on behind the scenes in making this possible.

Thank you, Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance. Thank you, Wine Institute.

That Wine Enthusiast headline about $50 average tasting fees in Paso Robles is… just not true.

Last week, the Wine Enthusiast published a piece by Matt Kettmann celebrating the recent decision by Matt Trevisan to lower his base tasting fee at Linne Calodo Cellars from $40 to $20 in order to entice newer wine drinkers to experience his wines. I applaud Matt (Trevisan)'s decision, and think it's great that Matt (Kettmann) decided to write about it. In his intro, Matt (Kettmann) says "Tasting room fees have jumped to more than $50 per person at many wineries, even reaching $100 in some cases, triggering alarm amongst tourists and industry folk alike." While I'd quibble with his characterization of there being "many" wineries in Paso with $50+ tasting fees -- I'll share the actual numbers shortly -- that's a judgment call. But then the Wine Enthusiast made a much more inflammatory claim on social media. Do you notice it?

The authors of articles don't generally write their headlines, let alone the copy that's used to promote the articles over social media. But saying that many fees are high is a far cry from saying that the average tasting fee is that high. And (spoiler alert) this second claim just wasn't true. This information isn't hard to find or verify. According to the 179 listings on the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance winery guide, the most common tasting fees are between $20 and $29.99, with an average of $24.36. Eight wineries (4.5%) show tasting fees of $50 or more:

I became aware of the controversy through British wine writer Jamie Goode's Twitter post, which has as of this morning received 49 replies, 21 re-tweets, and 176 likes. I was sure it wasn't right, given what I see around town, and made a quick response, breaking a self-imposed Twitter hiatus to do so:

Coming late to this, but the headline is simply untrue. Average tasting fees in Paso are in the $25 range. And nearly all are comped on a purchase or club signup, as well as for members. At @TablasCreek only 15% of guests pay our $25 fee. Still, that doesn’t change that… 1/2

— Jason Haas (@jasonchaas) October 8, 2023

The reaction to the Wine Enthusiast's posts was predictable. There was a chorus of voices saying, essentially, "California wineries are all greedy and overpriced" while another chorus of people with connections to Paso Robles pointed out, with varying degrees of outrage, that this data didn't seem right. A few of the 49 comments to the Wine Enthusiast's Facebook post will give you a sense:

Finally, this morning, there was a correction posted to the Facebook post, adding "UPDATE: A previous version of this post indicated that average tasting room fees jumped to over $50 per person. This was misleading and has adjusted accordingly." No correction yet on Twitter that I can find. But to my mind, the damage has already been done. The original characterization became a lead story in the widely-distributed industry news roundup Wine Industry Insight and continues to echo around the wine ecosphere:

To what extent does this color the general perception of a place like Paso Robles? It's not insignificant, I don't think. The Twitter post got something more than 34,000 views. Facebook doesn't make view counts public, but given Wine Enthusiast’s 417,000 fans and the number of comments, reactions, and shares their post got, it's probably even more. And then there's the reach of the emails, which mostly go out to people in the business and in a position to further influence consumer behavior. I suggested to the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance that they ask for a public retraction, but don't know if they will.

All this matters because it plays into a narrative that is convenient and ultimately destructive. The Lettie Teague article Who Can Afford Napa Now? Not This Wine Columnist in the Wall Street Journal last April -- to which I wrote a response on this blog -- is probably the highest-profile such piece. The temptation is to look at the most expensive options in a region and conclude that those are representative. But they are no more representative than the least expensive, such as the local example that Eberle Winery still doesn't charge a tasting fee. And wine is always susceptible to claims of elitism, given its historic association with aristocracy and the way it's often portrayed in popular culture. Perception drives customer behavior, and if people think that Paso Robles (or Napa) has gotten too expensive, they'll decide to go elsewhere. 

All this is why I think that what Matt Trevisan is doing is such a good thing. I wrote about the dilemma wineries face in my response to Lettie Teague's piece:

Do they raise their prices to keep up and risk losing their historic audience? Do they keep their prices and risk being seen as less elite than their neighbors? Or do they try to split the difference (as, if I read between the lines in the article, it seems that the lovely, historic Spottswoode Winery has done) and feel guilty about it? Unfortunately there's not a great solution once a critical mass of wineries has set dramatically higher prices for themselves.

But the same way that having a critical mass of wineries raising prices on visits puts pressure on their neighbors to do the same, having wineries publicly cutting those prices leaves room for other wineries to forge their own path. That's likely to keep visits to Paso Robles approachable, which should help set us up as an appealing destination whether you're a first-time visitor to wine country or a regular who makes several trips a year.

So, kudos to Matt. Go visit Linne Calodo. And thanks to all of you out there who stuck up for Paso Robles over the last few days.

The Benefits of Marketing Interns in the Wine Industry

By Ian Consoli

Over the past two summers, we have extended the opportunity for one individual to participate in a marketing internship at Tablas Creek. We contacted local universities, and posted on LinkedIn, Paso Wine Careers, and other job listing sites. The response to the listings was immediate and enthusiastic, as individuals looking to make their start in wine marketing found the post and applied. This September, our second marketing internship concluded, and for the second internship in a row, the accomplishments we made during the three months created a lasting impact on our marketing program. Two internships may be a small sample size, but it is enough for me to realize we are on to something.

One of the purposes of this blog is to share success stories, whether in sustainability, farming, recipes, wine marketing, or an array of other categories. With a general feeling of success, I thought we would share how and why we developed an internship program, its structure, and its results. My hope is for other wineries to feel inspired by our results and create a wine marketing internship program of their own.

Video: Day in the Life of a Wine Marketing Intern

The idea

Marketers ponder. (In fact, that pondering time is crucial for marketers to develop innovative ways to help brands develop, but that’s a piece for another time). In one of those ponderings, I thought back to my marketing internship in college and the value it brought me with the suffix, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could offer that opportunity to someone?” The answer was that we absolutely could. In fact, we might be one of the better-positioned wineries to offer one. We are large enough to employ a full-time marketing person (me) yet small enough that one marketing person is responsible for every aspect of the department. The idea made sense, but we needed to ensure the benefits outweighed the cost of bringing someone on board. We developed a program with three potential beneficiaries in mind:

Benefits to the candidate. The candidate would study and observe all parts of marketing throughout our organization. We employ one of the most intensive social media programs in the wine industry, with daily postings on three major platforms and weekly contributions on four more. What an opportunity for someone to learn every aspect of a professional marketer!

Benefits to the company. That intensive social media program requires many ideas and a lot of time. Social media is always changing, and the next generation fuels much of that change. We felt a current student or recent graduate would give us a Gen Z perspective, refresh our social media, and help us better understand social media’s current climate. If we repeat the program every summer, we will continue to refresh that understanding. After a month of shadowing, the candidate should be comfortable enough to contribute to our social media, email campaigns, website, public relations materials, and more. That alleviation of the marketer’s workload means more time for those pondering sessions.

Benefits to the industry. Summer internships are, by design, temporary positions. If we do not plan on employing the intern after three months of work, then what’s the point? Well, that temporary position could translate into a permanent position at another winery in the region. My personal philosophy is that the wine industry, at least locally, has a long way to go when it comes to understanding and respecting the value of employing a full-time marketer. I also believe that as more dedicated marketing professionals emerge, the better our marketing as a region will become. By power-training an enthusiastic candidate, we may help that candidate emerge as one of the top wine marketers and make significant contributions to the wine industry.

The Execution

For this internship to be well-rounded, we needed to look at every aspect of a marketing director’s duties, strip them down to their basic intent, and format a learning program that gets to the fundamentals of those duties. This practice is, within itself, a benefit to the marketing team and the company. Here’s a shortened description of the responsibilities we came up with:

1. Social Media: Assist and implement daily social media posting and focus on developing a video strategy.
2. Content Creation: Develop photography, videography, and copywriting skills (complete one piece for the Tablas Creek blog).
3. Print Media: Assist with inserts for our wine club shipment and participate in printer negotiations.
4. Public Relations: Write one press release and present it to local news outlets.
5. Email: Observe, collaborate on, and take the lead on monthly email campaigns.
6. Hospitality: Spend one day a week in the tasting room to connect front-of-house and back-of-house mentality.
7. Events: Participate in one on-site and one off-site event.
8. Major Project: Pick one significant project to complete over the course of the three-month internship.

We feel these responsibilities give our interns a taste of most of the daily tasks of a wine marketer while allowing them to focus on their primary skillset.

The Results

We hired two interns with entirely different skill sets. The first, Nadia Nouri, specialized in social media. She joined the team in the summer of 2022 when short-form videos started to gain recognition in the wine industry. That medium was a second language for her, one she spoke fluently. We developed multiple series and videos during her internship.

The understanding we developed inspired me to speak on short-form video at the DTC Wine Symposium in 2023. Our following grew by over 2,000 people, engagement was up, reach was up, and, more importantly, our content had a burst of life. That’s something a new perspective always brings. Here are a couple of my favorite posts from that time.

 

Shelby Burns was our most recent intern, and is a graphic design and communications specialist finishing her last quarter at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. I can navigate the Adobe suite of design tools, but working side-by-side with a collegiately trained graphic designer helped simplify processes and improve our print media. Her big project was developing a single booklet combining three handouts into one. The booklet she created will minimize our printing, saving resources and money in the long run. My favorite piece from her project was a consumer-facing vineyard map that will help guests enter our vineyard in a fun and educational way. I mean, check it out!

Key takeaways

Not all interns are the same, and thank goodness they aren’t! Lean into the talent of your interns. In going from a social media specialist to a graphic designer, we realized both interns would benefit more if we focused on developing their specific skill sets while giving them a taste of all other aspects of the position.

Evaluating your processes is always a good thing. Nothing drives your expertise home like teaching. Developing this internship program forced us to take a good look into what we were doing, and helped us tighten up our marketing efforts. Also, sharing what you have learned always feels good.

You can always use a fresh perspective. It is rewarding when one of your key motivators becomes a key takeaway. We felt that adding a fresh perspective to our content room (my name for the marketing office) would help us grow, and we were right. More perspectives bring more understanding. We can’t wait for next summer’s marketing intern to add to what we’re doing at Tablas Creek.

Assessing the 11 Paso Robles sub-AVAs after their first decade

In September of 2013, the TTB published a notice of proposed rulemaking that gave a preliminary stamp of approval on the Paso Robles wine community's proposal to subdivide the Paso Robles AVA into 11 new sub-regions. I celebrated this milestone with an article on this blog where I laid out why I thought it was such an important development for our region. It's worth remembering that at the time there was some resistance to the proposal as being disproportionately complex given that up until that point everyone had used just the single overarching Paso Robles AVA. I tried to summarize why I thought it was important:

These new AVA's will be a powerful tool for wineries to explain why certain grapes are particularly well suited to certain parts of the appellation, and why some wines show the characteristics they do while other wines, from the same or similar grapes, show differently. Ultimately, the new AVA's will allow these newly created sub-regions to develop identities for themselves with a clarity impossible in a single large AVA.

The proposal was ultimately approved in October of 2014, and we started using our own sub-AVA (the Adelaida District) on the labels of our estate wines with the 2014 vintage. Our Patelin de Tablas wines, which are sourced from several of the sub-AVAs, continued to use the umbrella Paso Robles AVA. Of course, there was no requirement that wineries use these sub-AVAs. From my conclusion of that 2013 blog:

Wineries who wish to continue to use only the Paso Robles AVA are welcome to. And many will likely choose to do so as the new AVA's build their reputation in the market. Not all the AVA's have a critical mass of established wineries, and it seems likely that a handful of the new AVA's will receive market recognition first, while the reputation of others will take time to build. But I believe that it will be several of the currently less-developed areas that will benefit most in the long term, through the ability to identify successful winemaking models and build an identity of their own. We shall see; having a newly recognized AVA is not a guarantee of market success, just a chance to make a name for yourself.

All this came back to me last week when I fielded a call from veteran writer Dan Berger, asking my thoughts on the success of the AVAs given that most of the big Cabernet producers he sees haven't been using them. To my mind, that's neither here nor there, since those producers are typically large enough that they're sourcing grapes from multiple sub-AVAs and therefore can only use the umbrella Paso Robles AVA anyway. And there are exceptions even to this, most notably Daou, which uses the Adelaida District AVA on all its estate wines. But it did make me wonder the extent to which the different AVAs were appearing on labels and therefore being presented to consumers as a point of distinction. 

The best way to measure this would be label approvals from the TTB, but I don't think there is a way to search their publicly available database by AVA. Origin, sure... you can search, for example, by California. But not by Adelaida District. But there are proxies available that can give a good indication: the major publications to whom wineries submit thousands of wines each year. So I dove into the review databases at Wine Enthusiast, Wine Spectator, and Vinous. Because each publication receives and reviews a different subset of the wines that are produced, I've included a summation of all three, with the number of reviews that a search for each sub-AVA produces for vintages since the new AVAs were announced. The total for the Paso Robles AVA (reviews that don't list a sub-district) is at the bottom:

Paso Robles Wines Reviewed, by AVA, 2013-2022 vintages
	Wine Enthusiast	Wine Spectator	Vinous	Total	% of Total
Adelaida District AVA	611	249	773	1633	16.8%
Willow Creek AVA	427	261	674	1362	14.0%
Templeton Gap AVA	154	26	115	295	3.0%
Santa Margarita Ranch AVA	49	33	38	120	1.2%
Geneseo District AVA	34	5	55	94	1.0%
El Pomar AVA	45	2	40	87	0.9%
Paso Robles Highlands AVA	44	9	27	80	0.8%
Estrella District AVA	28	2	49	79	0.8%
Creston District AVA	8	0	25	33	0.3%
San Miguel District AVA	5	0	14	19	0.2%
San Juan Creek AVA	0	0	0	0	0%
Paso Robles AVA	3531	709	1691	5931	60.9%

So, nearly 40% of all the wines reviewed by these publications carried one of the 11 new AVAs on their label. Is that surprising? I'm not sure, but I do think it's an encouraging sign that the producers here think that the AVAs are or will become meaningful in the marketplace. When you figure that many of the rest of the wines (like our Patelins) weren't eligible for one of the sub-AVAs, the clear implication is that most Paso Robles wineries are using the smaller, newer designations when they can. Even J. Lohr, whose founder Jerry Lohr was quoted in Dan's article as saying "We’re not selling our Cabernets based on the sub-appellations," has used the El Pomar AVA on at least three wines, the Adelaida District on at least three others, and the Estrella District on yet three more.

And yet, while all the new AVAs except San Juan Creek have appeared on labels, it's worth considering why more than three-quarters of the wines that use the sub-AVAs are coming from the Adelaida and Willow Creek districts. Some of that is the profile of the wineries who have settled in these two AVAs, which include many of Paso Robles' highest-end producers often making dozens of small vineyard-designated bottlings each year. Willow Creek wineries -- including Saxum, Denner, Epoch, Caliza, Paix Sur Terre, Thacher, and Torrin -- and Adelaida District wineries -- including Daou, Alta Colina, Adelaida Cellars, Law, Villa Creek, and Tablas Creek -- account for a much more significant percentage of the wines reviewed in these databases than they do the percentage of production within the broader Paso Robles AVA. The choice that these high-profile wineries have made to put their AVAs on their labels encourages their neighbors to do the same.

Will the other districts -- many of which have more planted vineyard acres than Adelaida and Willow Creek -- eventually catch up? I'm not sure. As long as much of that acreage is going into wines whose production is measured in the hundreds of thousands or millions of cases, and therefore being sourced from multiple sub-AVAs, maybe not. But I've always thought that some of the AVAs with the most to gain are ones like El Pomar and Creston whose cooler climates and higher limestone soil content makes them more akin viticulturally to the more prestigious regions to the west, but whose location on the east side of the river tends to get them lumped in with warmer, sandier regions like Geneseo and Estrella to their north.

Paso Robles AVA map from the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance website

Ultimately, time will tell whether more of the 11 Paso Robles AVAs join Willow Creek and the Adelaida District as something that people look for on their labels. Meanwhile I think it's healthy that Paso Robles as a region remains centered in people's awareness. Although in Dan's article Gary Eberle implies that the decision to advance a conjunctive labeling law -- which requires that Paso Robles be used on the label alongside whatever sub-AVA is used -- was a controversial one, I don't know any producer here who opposed it. It's a good thing that the recognition for Paso Robles continues to grow even as people start to understand what makes the different parts of the broader AVA unique. And promoting Paso Robles isn't incompatible with also building recognition for the diversity within it -- in fact, doing so will help consumers understand why the wines that they love have the character that they do, and give them guidance for how to further explore this region.

What it comes back to, for me, is that the science for subdividing the Paso Robles region is pretty conclusive. This morning's Paso Robles agricultural forecast, as an example, shows different weather stations within the region recording high temperatures yesterday ranging from 74.2°F to 92.9°F, low temperatures yesterday morning ranging from 42.9°F to 55.7°F, and heat accumulations for the growing season from 1533 growing degree days to 2510. Vineyards in Paso also vary by elevation (between 600 feet and 2400 feet), rainfall (between 7 and 30 inches annually) and soils (a dozen major soil types encompassing everything from high pH calcareous to low pH alluvial and loam).

The roughly 60 local vineyards and wineries who together commissioned and funded the Paso Robles AVA proposal -- which included both Gary Eberle and Jerry Lohr -- agreed, as a region, to bring scientists in from UC Davis and Cal Poly, and to defer to their findings as to where the lines should be drawn between the different AVAs. We knew at the time that this would likely mean that there would be AVAs drawn that didn't have a critical mass of wineries yet to help spearhead that sub-AVA's recognition. And we decided that this was OK. If the lines were drawn in the right places, over time, the AVAs that were capable of doing so would achieve recognition in the marketplace. Back in 2015, I laid out in a blog why the wisdom of this decision would only play out over time. A decade in, I think that we're well on our way.

Since when does Paso Robles get "May grey" and "June gloom"? Welcome to 2023.

If you live in California, you're not going to be surprised by this update. But it's been chilly so far this year. Sure, the winter made headlines, with record-breaking rains and cold temperatures. But even since then it hasn't exactly felt like sunny California. After a more-or-less normal April, we've gone back to a weather pattern in much of May and June that feels more like March -- or Mendocino -- than midsummer. Today we've had a heavy overcast as an unusual late-season low pressure system drifts over our area. This is not a sky that you expect to see in conjunction with this landscape:

It's not just the lack of sun. Since May 1st, temperatures here averaged nearly 7°F lower than normal, with only 12 days above seasonal highs and 22 below:

The cool pattern looks likely to persist through at least the middle of the month and perhaps longer, as it's the result of longer-term phenomena (static high pressure systems over the sub-arctic and low-pressure over the sub-tropics off the coast of California). For a more in-depth explanation, I recommend Daniel Swain's Weather West blog and Twitter feed:

New Weather West post out today: Unusual June pattern this week with some showers and thunderstorms possible in unusual places (though fire concerns are low); more cool weather could continue through much of June.#CAwx #CAwater #CAfre https://t.co/cKy6wsb9Ak

— Daniel Swain (@Weather_West) June 5, 2023

The last six weeks or so have been characterized by a deep marine layer and on-shore flow, which has meant that even our warmer days have usually started out foggy. That's not unusual in the early spring here, but it's typically not the case even by early May. And having deep gray clouds over lush green grapevines in early June is even more unusual:

The net result has been that the growing season, which got off to a slow start before catching up a bit in mid-May, has fallen further behind again. We're now something like a couple of weeks behind average, and more like three or four weeks behind most recent years. For a good comparison, check out the blog I published June 3rd, 2022 about fruit set, with pea-size berries in Grenache. By contrast, Grenache is still in mid-flowering today:

Our biggest worry right now is that cool, breezy weather isn't ideal for berry fertilization, and raises the risk of shatter. But no one I talk to is particularly concerned. It hasn't been all that windy (the last month has had only one day with a top wind gust over 20mph), we've had warmer days interspersed between the chilly ones, and it hasn't rained. Even if we do get a passing shower tonight or tomorrow, it doesn't look like it will be much, or that it will stick around for long. Plus, everyone is seeing what we are: unusual vigor in the vineyards thanks to all our winter rain, with large clusters and plenty of leaf area. If we lose a small percentage of that crop, we can afford that better than we would have been able to the last few years.

Finally, there's plenty of runway left in the growing season. We've gotten used to starting to pick in August and finishing by mid-October. But in the 2000s it was more normal that we'd start in mid-September and finish in early November. In Paso Robles that's not a huge risk, since the rainy season doesn't usually start in earnest until around Thanksgiving. That's a big part of why we chose this location. So if we need to wait, we wait. There are even benefits to doing so, as the grapes will spend longer on the vines and we're more likely to be picking in cooler weather.

Meanwhile, we'll enjoy the unusual backdrop to our vineyard activities. "May grey" and "June gloom" aren't normal features of Paso Robles weather. But it seems like in 2023 we're getting a taste of both.

The Adelaida District's Limestone Layers Laid Bare

On Friday, Winemaker Neil Collins poked his head into the office we share, looking excited, and said, "Hey, you got a minute?" I did, and we hopped into the ATV and Neil piloted us south across the creek and along the south side of the reservoir the property's previous owner made back in the 1950s. He stopped near the dam, and we headed out on foot. What he had found was remarkable: that Las Tablas Creek had become an exhibit for the local geology.

This has been a banner year for Las Tablas Creek. After three years where it barely ran, the series of storms that we got in late December and early January got it flowing fast:

During a break in the storm Viticulturist Jordan Lonborg got down to shoot this video of Las Tablas Creek… and it’s moving fast, has filled up our reservoir and is now flowing through the spillway for the first time since early 2019! pic.twitter.com/mTWzT1o9hJ

— Tablas Creek (@TablasCreek) January 5, 2023

A week later, after another storm had dumped six more inches of rain in about 24 hours, it burst its banks and flowed over Adelaida Road just outside the winery, producing impressive enough footage that it made it onto several national networks as an illustration of the widespread California flooding:

All that water flowing down the creek and into (and out of) the reservoir changed the landscape in in visible ways. In the creekbed it's clear how high the water came because everywhere below that line it scoured away the topsoil and exposed the limestone layers underneath:

At the far end of the lake is a spillway through which the water flows once it has filled the reservoir. It's a remarkable illustration of the local geology. Most of the calcareous soils that underly the Adelaida District are soft, as much clay as rock, which has given rise to the (incorrect) theory that none of it is limestone¹. While it's a good thing that we don't have solid limestone underneath us, as limestone is too hard for vines' roots to break up or break through, there are bands of limestone that run throughout the region. The previous owner made use of one of these layers in the creation of the spillway, which follows the slanting descent of the layer from dam-level down to the original creekbed. Here are two views: on the left from above the spillway in late January, and on the right from below last week:

In both photos, though most clearly from below, you can see the many layers of softer rock that the water has eaten away over the years, while staying above the harder limestone layer. 

A side-stream that flowed into the creek showed another good example of the mix of harder and softer calcareous layers, and the step-like pattern that is repeated in creekbeds throughout the region:

While the softer layers crumble and decompose, the harder limestone bits stay in the topsoil. Most wineries remove them before planting anything, as otherwise they chew up tractors at an alarming rate. The rocks that are removed are the raw materials for the walls you see at Tablas Creek and around the Adelaida District:

All this rock is sitting there year-round, just a few feet below the surface. Thanks to the rain we've received (and continue to receive) this winter it's easier to see than ever. 

Footnote:

1. If you're interested into a deep-dive into the chemistry and geology of the calcareous soils out here, check out my 2020 blog Why Calcareous Soils Matter for Vineyards and Wine Grapes.

After two of our five rainiest months ever, we're ready for a break... but grateful for the moisture

I left California three weeks ago, just after Christmas, to spend some time in New England with family. At the time, I was feeling cautiously optimistic about how our winter was shaping up. We'd banked nearly 13" of rain and were at something like 170% of the rain we'd have expected at that point in the winter. The day I left, it started raining and essentially hasn't stopped. With the two-thirds of an inch that we got today, this makes 20 of the last 21 days we've seen measurable precipitation. The end-of-December rain pushed us to 13.28" for the month, making it our second-wettest December in the 25 years since we installed our weather station and a top-5 rainfall month overall.

Then came January. A series of atmospheric river storms paraded across the Pacific and slammed into California. Some were aimed farther north, but still dropped a couple of inches of rain. And one arrived on early in the morning of Monday, January 9th with its plume of moisture directed squarely at the Central Coast. We tallied 5.65" that day, including more than 4" in its peak between 1am and 10am. And when we arrived to see how things looked at the winery that morning, we realized that we couldn't even get there because Las Tablas Creek was flowing over Adelaida Road:

We are getting pummeled by this storm in Paso Robles wine country. This is Vineyard Drive near the entrance to our vineyard. All along Vineyard and Adelaida there are trees and branches down, water spilling over, and mudslides like in the last scene on Adelaida Rd. pic.twitter.com/QVydqd3qfU

— Tablas Creek (@TablasCreek) January 9, 2023

It wasn't until Wednesday that we could make it into our facility, and Thursday that we could reopen our tasting room. Thanks to some great work by our neighbors at Halter Ranch the debris blocking the culvert that was causing the creek to flow over the road was removed before the road was critically damaged. There was a section of Adelaida Road a few miles east of us that wasn't so lucky. And we had to close again this past Saturday because a new storm made access to the winery unsafe. Residents and businesses out here are still picking up the pieces, and what we're seeing is minor compared to the scale of damage around the state, with 19 deaths so far and floods forcing people from their homes from Sacramento to Santa Barbara.

Still, while we wish it had been spread out more, we're grateful to have received the rain. And when I got out in the vineyard today, it was stunning: lush and green from the saturated soils yet with minimal signs of erosion even on our steepest slopes:

There wasn't really any standing water, even at the bottom of the hills, thanks to the remarkable ability our calcareous soils have to transport enormous quantities of water from the surface to deeper layers. That said, there was some water slowly trickling downhill in blocks like this head-trained Mourvedre at the northern edge of the property. It was wet enough that I nearly lost my boots getting this shot:

For all its beauty now, it's clear that things were pretty wild a week ago. You can see the deep cuts in the channels where valleys became rushing creeks (left) and the impact of 36 hours of water flowing over Adelaida Road (right):

With nearly half the month still to come, January 2023 is already our third-wettest month in our history, trailing only January 2017 and (from before I started writing this blog) February 1998. We're at 281% of expected rainfall for this point in the winter and above our full-winter long-term average. After three years of drought, that's a huge relief.

You can see from the rainfall distribution above why this season is so critical for us. We get three-quarters of our annual rainfall between December and March. If we have an extended winter dry stretch, it's almost impossible to make it up later. And drought impacts are cumulative. Grapevines generally do fine the first year of a drought cycle, thanks to their accumulated vigor. But starting the second year, you see the reduction in yields, and by the third year you start to see impacts on vine health and mortality. That's played out for us the last three years. 2020 saw roughly average yields. But 2021 saw yields off by 26% and 2022 saw them decline another 8%. A quick look at our available wines shows many more sold-out than for sale. And that's before we've even gotten to the 2022 vintage, from which there will be several wines we just won't be able to make. So getting rain this winter was particularly important.

Vineyards themselves are typically resilient in the face of extreme rainfall events. Those events typically come in winter, when the vines are dormant, and grapevines' deep roots play an important role in helping hold soil in place. Vineyards that are regeneratively farmed tend to do even better. Both no-till farming and planted cover crops (one or the other is required for regenerative certifications) keep surface erosion to a minimum. The focus on building up the organic matter in your soils helps them hold more moisture. And the biodiversity in regenerative farming systems tends to create a denser web of life than monocultures. Witness this section in the middle of the vineyard, which a decade ago was one of our most erosion-prone areas but which we planted to a mix of perennial crops that would act as attractors for beneficial insects. The combination of shrubs and deep grass, already well-established because it hasn't been tilled in years, made for one of the least-soggy sections of the vineyard:

Looking forward, we're supposed to get a few more showery days and then a solid week at least of sun. That will be welcome for everyone, from vineyard to residents to businesses. It should give the county a chance to get out and repair the damaged roads. It should shift the cover crop into overdrive, and make for some very happy sheep. It will give the soils a chance to transfer the water to deeper layers and free up space at the surface for the next storm. It might even give us a chance to get started on our pruning, which we've been unable to do because pruning in wet weather encourages the spread of fungal diseases. But as happy as we are with what we've received, we're hoping this isn't the end of the rain. The local reservoirs still have significant room; while Lake Nacimiento is at 87% capacity, Lake San Antonio is only at 32%. At Tablas Creek we're chipping away at an accumulated rainfall deficit of 28" from the last three years of drought. Plus there would be benefits during the growing season, as soils with high moisture content stay cool longer in the spring and delay budbreak, which would reduce our risk of frost damage. And on a purely aesthetic level, there's a particular character to the green here after winter rain that I love. Who wouldn't want more of this?

If you were negatively impacted by these storms, please know you have our deepest sympathy. It's been a rough couple of weeks for California. But if you were worried that the vineyards here would be suffering, hopefully we can at least put that to rest. We have high hopes for the 2023 vintage.