Napa at Last Light

by James Conaway

  The state under Governor Jerry Brown set strict standards for measuring greenhouse gases, which have to be below 40 percent of 1990 levels by 2030. Loss of carbon sequestration occurs when trees are cut, but Napa County has upwards of 130,000 acres of oaks. Pointing this out didn’t placate opponents of cutting even one. The county was working on all emissions, including what would be required of the almost five hundred brick-and-mortar wineries, and as many as two hundred more operating out of other facilities. Relatively few were aware of what those emissions amounted to and what would eventually have to be done about it.

  Dave once asked a group of Napa vintners how many of them would accept an offer of two, even three million dollars an acre for their land. Only one hand had gone up, even though they could have built a winery somewhere else, put thirty million in the bank, and still gotten a 98 Parker score with the cult wine formula. They all wanted to be in Napa, where many wineries operated not for business but for vanity. So the economics had broken down because irrationality had been introduced.

  2.

  A week before Dave Morrison’s announcement on Walt Ranch was due, the county held its local election. The sitting supervisor in District 4, the bellwether, was Alfredo Pedroza, the establishment candidate. Already acting chairman of the board, Pedroza represented the extraordinary elevation of a twenty-nine-year-old novice by an unapologetic wine and tourism industry. According to one voter who talked to but didn’t vote for Pedroza, he was “clueless but seemingly pliable.”

  The Winegrowers of Napa County openly endorsed him, and although the Napa Valley Vintners’ policy didn’t allow endorsements, Pedroza was their favored candidate as well. Two decades before, the Vintners had stood on principle as much as expediency, but since then the differences between that organization and the secretive Winegrowers had blended in a haze of entitlement. Political decisions concerning the material well-being of the collective memberships trumped all else. This alienated some among the Vintners’ more than five hundred members who objected to what one called “power plays,” but they hung on to their memberships because they needed a trade organization to push their wines.

  The notoriety of the Vintners’ annual wine auction had burnished the Napa brand outside the valley, but it excluded county residents by virtue of cost and association. Once envisioned by Robert Mondavi and other founders as a countywide celebration of Napa’s arrival in the world of fine wine, the auction had become a spectacle under glass for fawned-over billionaires manqué whom vintners were eager to have buy their lavishly presented wares. Bidding was manipulated by individual vintners while a carefully culled journalistic cohort was kept at bay, relegated to peripheral seats and denied access to bidders who didn’t want the outside world, including their own employees, to know the price of their frivolity.

  Locally, the auction was perceived as proof that the valley was divided into two distinct classes: vintners and their fellows from the corporate world, and everybody else. One resident referred to this event, mimicking Oscar Wilde’s denunciation of fox hunting, as “the unspeakable in pursuit of the undrinkable.” Millions were spent on bottles, travel, and dinners with vinous stars. The money went mostly toward medical care in the valley, and though no one denied the good this did, the spectacle was something else: a safe zone for vintners avoiding the most pressing long-term problem, climate change, which was bound to radically alter not just quality of life but also the valley’s most famous product.

  Pedroza was known for his ready smile and often irrelevant answers to questions, having never before run for county office. He had been appointed to the board by Governor Brown to fill a vacancy left by the departing supervisor Bill Dodd, who was running for the California Senate. Dodd raised money from the same people who backed Pedroza, and now had more of it than any other senatorial candidate in the state.

  A Republican backed by the Winegrowers before he flipped to the Democrats, Dodd, too, had been largely ignorant of agriculture when first elected and voted for almost every developmental project that came before the board. Changing parties had been a breathtaking display of ambition in a state where Democrats reigned, but his backers didn’t care which party he belonged to. They knew their man, just as they knew his replacement, Pedroza, perceived as Dodd’s doppelgänger.

  The fact that Pedroza was Latino had greatly improved his likelihood of being appointed, but it disappointed progressives and environmentalists who saw Mexican workers as the unsung but crucial element in Napa’s long-running success. They would have preferred someone interested in land preservation, but many Latinos whose fathers and grandfathers had labored in the fields went speedily over to the interests of the ricos when they got the chance. This was viewed as the natural acculturation of a minority gaining access at last to the engine of commerce, but others saw it as a reaction of aspirants more interested in affluence than good land use.

  Much of Pedroza’s financial support had come from developers like Craig Hall, but also from Charlie Wagner of Caymus Vineyards, which had settled an overproduction claim for one million dollars and had lucrative issues pending with the county. So did Palmaz Vineyards, which had been fighting neighbors on Hagen Road for years to get an unlawful helipad and had backed Pedroza, as had Silverado Resort, Pedroza’s new neighbor, a California real estate PAC, and the president of Syar Industries, which was seeking to expand its mining operation within the city of Napa. Syar didn’t wish to undertake expensive alterations to reduce emissions despite the fact that Napa had a high incidence of cancer among California counties.

  Among the Democrats was, for now, the place for aspiring politicians to be, regardless of their beliefs. The state legislature was firmly in Democratic control and Hillary Clinton expected to prevail over the bumptious Donald Trump in the presidential election. When in the valley the Clintons stayed at Craig and Kathryn Hall’s, whose neighbor above Rutherford, Nancy Pelosi, was minority leader of the House of Representatives, another friend and social companion. For them, Napa’s land-use problems were pennies on the tracks of the presidential express.

  * * *

  On the June night of the local election, it looked early on as if Pedroza would garner more than half the vote and so avoid a runoff. The collective total for the green candidates—Diane Shepp, a founding member of Napa Vision 2050, and environmentalist Chris Malan—reached 43 percent, where it stalled. A concentrated effort by the two women might have built a unified movement and encouraged the dispirited electorate confused by their dual candidacy. Chris, for all her accomplishments, had proven the persistence on the Left of “Nader Syndrome,” which it is said had cost Al Gore the presidency years before.

  A victory party was held at Ristorante Allegría in Napa, the crowd flowing out onto the patio. The Register reported that “a smiling Pedroza stood amid the cool of the night as election results came in. . . . He talked about listening to the people who didn’t vote for him. While other candidates could take positions on such controversial issues as the proposed helipad, he couldn’t because these matters could come before the Board of Supervisors in coming months.”

  Diane Shepp’s summation of the election was “same-old, same-old,” which summed up the view of many. One close observer stated flatly, “The Board of Supervisors is run by the [V]intners,” whose director of government relations told the Register his “community likes where we are, they like where we’re headed,” adding, “our agricultural land is the most valuable in the country. Our grape prices are the highest in the country. Our wines are the best . . . And our environment has probably not been cleaner, greener or better in many, many decades.” This dubious statement could have come from a ranking executive in a corporate conglomerate, which in a way it had.

  The president of Napa Vision 2050, Dan Mufson, said that door-to-door campaigning had exposed a very different valley from the one described by the Vintners’ director of government relations, one in which the people worried increasingly about water and traffic, revealing a growing an
tipathy to an industry that would so skew Pedroza’s financial advantage. “We just don’t like to see the influence of so much money on our local elections, and we don’t think it’s fair to the citizens of Napa.” It could also be seen as a downstream manifestation of the Citizens United decision in the Supreme Court that has allowed unlimited corporate money to find its way into local elections.

  A week later, Dave Morrison announced that he was forwarding the Walt Ranch development proposal to the board. He had tried and failed to find “a compelling and provocative reason” not to. Morrison expected the board to accept it, then for the project to be appealed by the forces arrayed against the Halls, and lawsuits by various groups to follow. The crucial decision was in and the verdict clear: development had won, limits on growth had lost.

  “We’re toast,” said a longtime member of the Farm Bureau. “It’s the end of a noble experiment.”

  The board of supervisors would begin hearing the various appeals on the Walt Ranch development above Capell Creek, but meanwhile the Halls entertained the Clintons at their home above Auberge du Soleil. And on weekends demonstrators continued to show up in front of HALL Wines on Highway 29, carrying signs that said HALL-O-CAUST and CHAINSAW WINE. Tourists kept turning up, though not necessarily to visit the winery. The enormous steel rabbit full of holes was just too good a selfie opportunity to pass up.

  3.

  The call comes in the furnace of an early-summer afternoon, the county election still fresh in every mind and Highway 29 swimming in thermals. The parking lot of the Oakville Grocery’s packed with highly reflective out-of-county cars. Inside, the long community table is elbow-to-elbow with devourers of wild mushrooms with melted cheese on whole wheat and other delicacies.

  “It’s all bullshit,” Deep Root’s saying, his voice enlivening the ether. “The environmentalists should get together, but they’re always fighting. They may be ready to move against the Halls, but they have different objectives and actually hate each other. Chris Malan is obsessed with sediment and fish. Jim Wilson cares only about emissions and trees. Meanwhile the citizens are opposing every proposal for a winery put forward, anywhere, and that’s not going to stop.”

  A semi loaded with bottles passes; another tourist comes in from the parking lot in North Face paraphernalia, looking for a mountain to climb. He finds arugula and mozzarella on sourdough instead.

  “What the environmentalists don’t understand,” Deep Root continues, “is that they could end all this simply by suing the county over winery emissions. The governor has mandated that everybody must measure their carbon footprint, and that has to include winery-related releases. No one wants to face this or even have the subject raised because the consequences are enormous, as are the emissions themselves.

  “The Halls pushed the envelope, and the other vintners are finally angry because the Halls are calling attention to activities and requirements for big wineries. Don’t you see? Everybody’s afraid of a lawsuit that will force wineries into compliance with state regulations. The Halls have spent eight million dollars to buy their twenty-three hundred acres, five million to officially study them, and two million on the little vineyard that was there when they bought the property. They could still lose that investment, but so what? He’s a billionaire!

  “The planning director will offer to help citizens and the applicant iron out their differences, and when all’s said and done Hall won’t get all his acres of vineyards, but he’ll get enough. Then he and the county will figure out how many ranchettes he gets to build.

  “It’s hilarious. The enviros could shut it all down tomorrow if only they could agree. But the Sierra Club won’t sue to make wineries comply with state mandates because they want leverage in the future by still being able to threaten to sue over emissions. Meanwhile all of them would rather fight each other than win. But somebody will eventually sue the county over this, and the battle that follows will be huge. It will be bloody.”

  * * *

  Sunday afternoon and Angèle’s is almost empty, the narrow view through the restaurant’s inset windows of the roiled, muddy torrent of the Napa River. For a moment the affairs of the valley have been set aside for reflection and a taste of something other than the valley’s universal beverage, for there are times in the affairs of men and women when distillation’s quick effects and sharpened perceptions are preferred to the mellowness of wine.

  On the bar stands a stemmed glass, quite pretty on the burnished wood, that contains gin, a touch of vermouth, and an olive. Unhurriedly raising the glass is Alex, a prominent player among the Winegrowers of Napa County who isn’t utterly inured to environmental values, just to people who put those values between the Winegrowers and their desires. Many of those members are lucky spermers—the offspring of founders—who inherited established fiefdoms and the wherewithal to start new brands, race Porsches, whatever, without undue effort and with little knowledge of or interest in political or environmental issues.

  The word winegrowers is archaic and basically nonsensical. Jack Cakebread knew that and accepted the moniker anyway. “The Winegrowers interviewed Pedroza after Jerry Brown appointed him to fill Dodd’s seat,” says Alex, musing. “The board had made him chairman right out of the gate—a twenty-nine-year-old with virtually no experience.”

  The statement’s left hanging.

  “The question of tourism comes up, whether or not five hundred event centers would be good for the valley. A member asked, ‘Since we have ours, why do we care?’ So we discussed it—you know, what our position should be. A show of concern was necessary, we decided, because it’s good public relations. We should be seen as supporting existing regulations purely on grounds that doing this helps prevent new regulations.”

  The river slips by, sucked at by the outgoing tide in San Pablo Bay.

  “A member of the Winegrowers said we should be seen as upholding the values of the winery definition. He meant limiting activities at new wineries and observing the seventy-five percent Napa grapes rule. Trouble is, half our members don’t know what the winery definition is. Some are beginning to realize, though, that the world isn’t infinite, and that a lot of people in the valley don’t like them.”

  After one public hearing on Walt Ranch, a Winegrower exclaimed, “There’s a lot of negativity out there!” The statement might have come from the high turret of some impregnable castle. Members tend to see the groundswell of opposition—most things, in fact—as if from a great distance, but Walt Ranch has brought much into focus, much of it unpleasant.

  “Everything could have been handled better by the Halls,” a tacit admission that other vintners are now feeling the heat. Meanwhile Hall has placed his own people within both the Grapegrowers and the Farm Bureau to bully opposition; the industry’s distinct elements of leadership that once led citizens to believe change possible though discussion and compromise were gone now.

  As for Randy Dunn, “his vineyards are right on top of Howell Mountain, he’s got his,” a handy dismissal far off the mark since Dunn’s vineyards are relatively small, long-standing, and representative of phenomenally successful viticultural pioneering. But Alex doesn’t really know what’s transpired on distant Howell Mountain, never having heard of Wildlake.

  Since Craig and Kathryn Hall are Winegrowers, now their problems are the Winegrowers’, too. A dozen years before, Jayson Pahlmeyer was ostracized after his vineyard developer graded above Atlas Peak Road, a cause célèbre. Could the same thing happen to the Halls? “Pahlmeyer broke the law,” says Alex, “and the Halls haven’t been charged with anything.”

  And what would be the reaction among the Winegrowers should the Halls reveal, despite earlier disclaimers, that ranchettes are in fact going to be built on Walt Ranch? Alex, whose olive is now marooned in an empty glass, laughs heartily: “And what would be so terrible about that?”

  VI.

  WATER INTO WINE

  A dedicated few take it upon themselves to protect Napa’s most crucial resourc
e, pitting them against an establishment determined to divide, rule, and chasten.

  INTERLUDE:

  The Drip

  Cold lurks on the back edge of night, part of the contradiction of waking up in Northern California: down vests and bare arms, Bermudas and cable knits. I see these on runners at dawn—but never in the vineyards—and standing in line at the Napa Valley Coffee Roasting Company and other high-intensity caffeinating substations the length of the valley.

  By 11:00 A.M. the vests are long gone and gazes, like moisture, trending heavenward. This dependable furnace of the sun, in conjunction with chilly nights even in summer, may be what produces wines such as Napa’s, in conjunction with well-draining soils, much of it blown or washed down during formation of the Sierras millions of years ago, and pushed up time and again along contending tectonic edges.

  The quality of that wine draws to Napa journalists concerned with all things of the palate, and I am invited to join a gaggle of them dining at Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen in St. Helena. The next day we’re to take a tour of Newton Vineyard, our host a multinational that owns fashion and fragrance houses and estates in Champagne, Cognac, and other well-established wine regions, including Napa. They’re a youthful lot: bloggers, a foodie website founder, and ’ziners. Then there’s me—the sole print journalist.

  The menu’s full of promise—you have to be inept to eat badly in the valley—but first it must be vetted for lactose, soy, gluten. Then the delectable procession of dishes—Hog Island oysters, piquillo peppers stuffed with cumin-braised beef, rabbit tostada with red chile salsa—is carefully appraised, our insides lubricated by constant trickles of chardonnay, merlot, and Newton Vineyard’s unfiltered rocket juice that sells for fifty-two dollars a bottle.