 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||
|
|||||||||||||
|
Home Resource Center In the News Home Greenbelt Alliance in the News |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
Greenbelt Alliance In the News
February 16, 2007 Sonoma on the verge As wineries, restaurants court well-heeled visitors, will Sonoma become the next Napa? Tina CaputoSixth-generation vintner Jeff Bundschu doesn't remember a time the town of Sonoma wasn't a tourist attraction. Raised on his family's Gundlach Bundschu winery estate in Sonoma, 38-year-old Bundschu has spent his whole life observing an ever-changing stream of visitors to his hometown. "Early on, Sonoma drew people with its culture and history -- its quaint and historic square, Jack London's home," Bundschu says. "Foodwise, our two cheesemakers and the French bakery were the extent of the culinary scene. Restaurants were all geared toward locals, and the winery tasting rooms were fringe benefits." As the public's interest shifted toward wine in the '80s and '90s, wineries became Sonoma County's main attraction. But even then, Bundschu says, visitors were content to hop indiscriminately from one tasting room to the next. A decade later, it's a different scene. Sonoma County towns like Healdsburg and Sonoma are gradually shifting from down-home to upmarket, and visitors are seeking out increasingly high-end wineries, restaurants and hotels with full-service spas. But as Sonoma County continues its upscale trajectory, residents and vintners fear it's in danger of losing its identity. Is Sonoma County, with its rural charm and eccentric personalities, destined to become the new Napa? Napa Valley has long looked down on its less sophisticated country cousin, and until recently, Sonoma seemed to accept and even embrace its reputation as a funky destination. But according to regional associations like Sonoma County Vintners (SCV) and the Sonoma County Tourism Bureau (SCTB), who cater to the nearly 2 million tourists that visit the county each year, Sonoma is now making a conscious effort to promote itself as a luxury destination on par with Napa -- and the shift in direction seems to be paying off. Visits to Sonoma wineries increased by almost 20 percent in 2005, according to the wine industry's annual VinQuest survey, and that number is expected to climb even higher when 2006 figures are released. "Napa's really done an excellent job of going after the high-end, luxury traveler," says tourism bureau director Ken Fischang. "We have that high-end traveler experience, but then we also have everything else in between. Napa is exclusive; Sonoma is all-inclusive." While many Napa wineries, such as Rubicon Estate, are trying to weed out entry-level tour bus crowds by charging $25 and up for tastings, Sonoma vintners are expanding their offerings to include high-end reserve tastings and elaborate food pairings. "I think that people in Sonoma have realized that they were leaving a lot on the table by only cultivating this down-home farmer image," says Sonoma County Vintners spokesman Phil Bilodeau. J Vineyards & Winery started the trend in 1999 with the opening of its Healdsburg visitor center. Tasting bar patrons now pay $20 for a flight of J wines, each paired with a sophisticated snack. In 2004, J Vineyards took the concept a step further with the Bubble Room, a swanky tasting salon that pairs higher-end wine flights with refined eats like seared foie gras, mushroom terrine and truffled whitefish caviar. A year after the launch of the Bubble Room, Mayo Family Winery opened the Reserve Room in Kenwood, a tasting room entirely devoted to sit-down wine-and-food pairings. For $25, visitors are treated to appetizers made by the winery's in-house chef, such as bee pollen-crusted scallop "lollipops" or molasses-glazed duck breast kebabs, paired with single-vineyard wines. This concept proved to be so successful that the winery has opened a second Reserve Room in Healdsburg. "People are more interested in the entire Wine Country experience now," says winery owner Jeff Mayo. "It's not just about accumulating wine and getting whatever has a 99-point rating." Mayo points out that Napa Valley spillover is partly responsible for the change in Sonoma's visitors. "What really happened is that the congestion and pricing and attitude of Highway 29 forced people to look at other alternatives," he says. "It's kind of like when the glass it too full, it spills out over the top, and the only place for it to spill nearby is Sonoma." As wineries polish up their public faces, luxury hotels are also bringing big-city sophistication to small-town Sonoma. And restaurants like Cyrus and Charlie Palmer's Dry Creek Kitchen have put Sonoma County on the fine-dining map. The opening of Hotel Healdsburg in 2001, with its sleek, modern furnishings, fine dining restaurant and luxurious spa, appeared as perhaps the most clear signal of Sonoma's changing standards. At $260 to $790 per night, the 55-room boutique hotel was a major step up from the typical bed-and-breakfast experience. The involvement of celebrity chef Charlie Palmer as part owner of the hotel and owner of its on-site restaurant, Dry Creek Kitchen, brought an air of high-end legitimacy to the town of Healdsburg. Hotel Healdsburg's success paved the way for other chic hotels, like the 16-room Les Mars Hotel. Opened in 2005, it emulates the elegance and service of fine European hotels. Appointed with 17th- and 18th-century antiques, rooms at Les Mars run $425 to $1,025 per night. Les Mars even offers customized wine tours led by well-known wine educator Karen MacNeil. The starting price for a one-day excursion is $7,500. Les Mars is also home to Cyrus, Sonoma County's answer to the French Laundry. With its fine china, silver flatware and formal, Old World service, Cyrus received four stars from The Chronicle and two stars from Michelin. Despite some initial doubts that this ultra-upscale concept would fly in down-home Sonoma, hopeful diners have been fighting for reservations since the restaurant's 2005 opening. Cyrus maitre d' and co-owner Nick Peyton, who helped set standards at restaurants like Masa's and Gary Danko, originally planned to open Cyrus with chef Douglas Keane in San Francisco. But when rents proved too expensive, he turned his attention northward to Healdsburg. "When the idea came up that Doug and I should look at this property, we talked about it and said, 'If there can be French Laundry, Auberge du Soleil, Terra, La Toque -- all these world-class restaurants over in the Napa Valley -- then surely Sonoma could have one special-occasion, formal dining restaurant.' " After talking to local restaurateurs, Peyton and Keane decided that Healdsburg could not only support such a restaurant, it desperately needed it. "I feel like we provided a piece that was missing in the whole jigsaw puzzle." While attracting more well-heeled visitors will certainly benefit the businesses of Sonoma County's vintners, hoteliers and restaurateurs, what effect will it have on the town's rural charm and residents' quality of life? Protecting open spaces Tourist traffic on Napa Valley's winery-packed Highway 29 has turned into a real problem, and some fear that Sonoma is headed in the same direction. "Bit by bit, things like wineries, event facilities, hotels and resorts are chipping away at the very qualities that make Sonoma County a great place to visit -- its rural charm, natural beauty and wide open spaces," says Daisy Pistey-Lyhne of the Sonoma-Marin Greenbelt Alliance. "Maintaining the economic vitality of our farmlands is important, but if we don't strengthen our protections for rural land, we could lose the farmland and the scenery that define Sonoma -- and that would be bad for visitors, residents, farmers and businesses alike." Jennifer Barrett, deputy director of Sonoma County's Permit & Resource Management Department, says that citizens are concerned about traffic and congestion. "The saturation of wineries and events has been ranked as an issue in some areas, like Sonoma Valley and Dry Creek Valley, where road capacities are maxed out," she says. "We've had to limit winery events in some areas, and we can't always approve tasting rooms in remote locations." In some cases, wineries are issued "appointment only" permits, or encouraged to open their tasting rooms in town centers. Local citizens' organizations, like the Dry Creek Valley Association, carefully monitor winery use permits and expansions to ensure that traffic and environmental concerns are met, and that the balance between development and agriculture is maintained. Lou Preston, owner of Preston Vineyards in Dry Creek Valley, serves on the association's board. As a vintner and 35-year resident, he is worried about more than traffic and congestion. He fears that the increasing number of wineries and tourist-driven businesses in the Dry Creek/Healdsburg area will result in homogenization. "The consumers demand these ancillary -- or not so ancillary -- services of fine dining, hotels and all that," Preston says. "In a way there's nothing wrong with that, but it kind of takes away the personality of the area." Even so, Preston believes it's possible for showcase wineries to coexist with small, low-key operations like Preston. "I think you need the more visible wineries to capture the imagination of the broader public." The positive side to Sonoma's development, Preston says, is that it's bringing more cultural diversity to the region. "There is culture here now -- we used to be kind of a cow town, and rather introverted. I think the danger is that the decision makers -- I'm talking especially about Healdsburg -- like the City Council and Chamber of Commerce, are listening to money. The people who have been here for a long time aren't calling the shots anymore, yet they are the personality of the area." Despite Healdsburg's rapid boom, Chris Hanna, president of Healdsburg-based Hanna Winery & Vineyards and president of Sonoma County Vintners, says the city will maintain its diversity and small-town charm. Hanna operates two popular tasting rooms -- one in Healdsburg and one in Santa Rosa -- that attract approximately 2,300 visitors each month. "I think the merchants here and hoteliers really value the locals and the small-town atmosphere," she says. "That's why we all live here, and we all work toward that end." Balancing act Rather than pushing out the small, folksy wineries that characterize Sonoma, Hanna says, new tourist-driven wineries will make it easier for them to survive. "If we want family wineries to be viable, we've got to provide wine tourists to support those businesses. The reality is that many of those wineries are small, and they rely on direct sales. I think there's room in Sonoma County for both types of experience." Jeff Bundschu also believes that Sonoma's quirky character will live on. "I don't believe that upscale and eccentricity are mutually exclusive attributes," he says. "The funk hasn't disappeared, it has just moved right along with the times. As Sonoma has evolved, the 'down-home oddball' has become the 'rich eccentric,' with the only real difference being the size of their respective checkbooks. "For example, no longer do we have the guy downtown who rented his un-refurbished chicken sheds out as art studios, but we do have the guy who is putting a full-scale railroad around his 10-acre rural property." Vintner Jeff Mayo adds that Sonoma County's landscape will prevent it from turning into a congested wine Disneyland. "We've got something going that Napa doesn't, and it's that our areas are so much more spread out," he says. "You're not so bottlenecked in one location, with so much traffic on only two roads. You can go to Highway 12 in Sonoma Valley, you can go to Dry Creek, you can go to Westside Road, you can go to Occidental Road, you can go out to Graton -- we really have a way of dispersing people in more varied locations." Still, Mayo predicts that Napa and Sonoma will someday be thought of as a single wine region. "They're becoming more alike," he says. "People used to only say 'Napa' or 'Sonoma,' but now I hear people saying 'Napa-Sonoma.' " ### |
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
