Napa Valley’s Famous Wineries Revolt Against Eco-Activist Bureaucrats

Napa Valley’s Famous Wineries Revolt Against Eco-Activist Bureaucrats

There are signs that California is slowly waking up from its zombie-like stupor of mindlessly voting in Democrats.

For example, in deep blue San Francisco, voters are going right due to rampant crime in the area.

Now, Napa Valley’s famous wineries are revolting against eco-activist bureaucrats who are strangling their vineyards with climate cultism and red tape.

The wineries have one advantage over many people who are also being hurt by pseudoscience-spewing ninnies: They are rich enough to launch a lawfare campaign.

Wealthy vintners say they are being ‘crushed’ by ‘gross regulatory overreach’, which has included penalizing wineries for planting trees, making jam and conducting wine tastings on their own land.

One vineyard was even fined $1million for making too much wine.

There are fears that officials are cowing to ‘eco-mob extremists’, who view unfettered growth as a threat to their rural idyll.

But the grape growers behind Napa’s multibillion dollar industry are now fighting back, with a raft of lawsuits now pending against the county.

One example of the legal cases being brought against excessive regulatory overreach that is stopping him from developing an experimental hillside vineyard, which is due to be heard in November.

What the county officials assert and the realities on the ground appear to be 2 different things.

The case began in 2022 when Hundred Acre Jayson Woodbridge filed a lawsuit in Napa County Superior Court against Napa County alleging governmental overreach and deprivation of property rights.

One issue was the removal of burned trees and stumps from the destructive 2020 Glass Fire which “utterly” destroyed 80 acres of Woodbridge’s 113 acres and the development of a dry-farmed vineyard, according to the complaint.

A county official estimated 5 to 7 acres of steep land had been cleared and staked in 2022 for the vineyard, according to a court filing. The official also reported that earth moving activities had taken place within required setbacks of ephemeral streams, according to the declaration.

The site at 2355 Pickett Road was red tagged in June 2022, according to court records.

Napa County officials said erosion control plans are required for vineyard developments on slopes more than 5 percent and other permits are needed for development on slopes more than 30 percent or within stream setbacks, according to court filings.

In its lawsuit, however, Hundred Acre alleged Napa County would force him to replant the site with the same “high-fire-risk” trees that fueled wildfires in 2017 and 2020 instead of the dry-farmed vineyard.

Hundred Acre said there was no “earthmoving activity,” no living vegetation clearing, or soil grading, compaction or excavation; no permits were required, according to court filings. .

Fun fact: Jayson Woodbridge’s Hundred Acre Vineyard has produced 100-point-scoring wines over the past two decades.

Interestingly, the FBI recently subpoenaed Napa County, requesting records relating to as many as 40 high-profile vintners and their wineries. The agency also demanded the county’s Farm Bureau, a fierce champion of the local wine industry, hand over documents to the US Department of Justice.

It appears that a war between the wineries and the eco-extremists in government is heating up, and the FBI has set its sights on Woodbridge and other big names in the wine industry.

…The inventory of luminaries rolls on: Robin Baggett, a former general counsel for the Golden State Warriors, and his Alpha Omega Winery. Dave Phinney, whose “Prisoner” label changed the industry. Grant Long Jr. and his wineries Aonair and Reverie II. Jayson Woodbridge and Hundred Acre. Darioush Khaledi and his namesake winery. And on it goes — 40 people and businesses in total, including Napa’s exclusive Meritage Resort and Spa.

The subpoena seeking records on the wineries and their owners, dated Dec. 14, 2023, is filed under the name of Patrick Robbins, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California. It also references an FBI agent, Katherine Ferrato, who has experience working on complex financial crimes.

…Baggett, of Alpha Omega, said his operations had “nothing pending” before the county and therefore “zero” documents that would have been turned over. He said it has been “a big waste of time daily explaining that we have done nothing wrong.”

Baggett dismissed the probe as a “fishing expedition” or worse, adding: “I hope it’s not a political witch hunt.”

Like several people interviewed, Baggett speculated that one person of interest could be Napa County Supervisor Alfredo Pedroza, who has generated ire among local environmental activists because he is perceived as pro-agriculture, which in Napa Valley almost always means pro-winery.

I wish the wineries much luck, as they are struggling against the cultists.

David DiCesaris spent several years and $2 million clearing a stringent environmental check, known as an erosion control plan (ECP), for their project to clear about 30 acres to build a new vineyard. The plan had initially been approved but was then denied after an appeal from the Center for Biological Diversity.

The UK Daily Mail interviewed one of the vintners, who said one of the green justice warriors wanted his property to burn.

David DiCesaris told DailyMail.com that he had been caught in the midst of a ‘political firestorm’ and that the decision marked a ‘turning of the tide’ against Napa wineries.

He claimed he had been ‘personally attacked’ over the project, with threatening notes slipped under his doorstep telling him, in no uncertain terms, that he and his vineyard were not welcome.

When he tried to explain the fire mitigation benefits of his proposed winery, he says a neighbor told him: ‘I would rather see your property burn than see a vineyard on it.’

Some eco-extremists even drove around his property on a dirt bike, churning up his turf, he alleged.

‘It was all kinds of nasty stuff,’ he said. ‘All I wanted to do was put a vineyard on agricultural land.

The threat being made is very troubling, given how many wildfires are started by arsonists.

The California wine industry is justifiably famous. In honor of this, I would like to share this video of one of my favorite movies with the wonderful Alan Rickman: Bottle Shock. It tells the story of the 1976 competition of California wines against the French before Napa Valley became famous.

Who knew the “good old days” would be so recent?

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