May 1, 2002
Mission County? I need a drink.Mission County! What a grotesque choice for a county name. Do you ever get the feeling the people trying to split the county are clueless?
I do!
I understand there are definite pros and cons to splitting the county, but the current effort is destined to go down in flames big time. My sense is that the split is ego driven-that some self-proclaimed powers-that-be here in the north don't agree with current land use policies imposed by the county mothers and fathers in the south. Ego-driven movements are always destined to lose, I think. They are destined to lose because they are based on ego and not substance.
The split effort will fail for two other basic reasons. It is clueless and it is myopic.
It is clueless because the perpetrators have no comprehension that the business of grape growing is different than other agriculture. Many winemaker friends tell me bean and broccoli growers who try to grow grapes usually fail. In viticulture. "less is more." In other words, chardonnay, for example, at two tons to the acre makes better wine than chardonnay at 15 tons to the acre. One out-of-county grower, I am told, sells his pinot noir for $17,000 an acre. If the winery buyer wants two ton to the acre yields, that's $8,500 a ton. If the winery wants three tons to the acre, that works out to $5666 a ton. And so on.
The split effort is also detined to fail because it is myopic. There is simply no vision. A name choice has to consider the high rolling wine consumers of Chicago, London and New York. How will "Mission County" fly in the wine stores, bistros and five star restaurants in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston? Major land owners and corporate players here have spent millions over the decades marketing the name Santa Barbara. To give that up would be a disaster! I have said it before, place is everything. Santa Maria Valley and Santa Barbara County have panache among consumers-a lot of panache-where some pinot noir is now drawing more that $50 a bottle.
By the way, in revenue, wine grapes are now Santa Barbara County's biggest cash crop beating out broccoli and strawberries.
The choice "Mission" for a county name shows absolutely no comprehension of how the name relates to the most important part of the agricultural base here in the county! "Mission" is the name of a very mediocre wine grape. To quote Alexis Bespaloff in the Frank Schoonmaker "Encyclopedia of Wine," "Mission was the first of the European vinifera vines to reach California." The grape was brought into California in the last half of the eighteenth century by the Franciscan monks and planted around the missions. Bespaloff says it makes mediocre wine at best. Trust me! No wine producer I know would ever want to put "Mission County" on his or her bottle of wine.
This Weekend
The San Luis Obispo Vintners and Growers Association presents Roll Out the Barrels 2002. Some 19 wineries will be participating. For information, please call (805) 541-5868
Then, of course Sunday is Cinco De Mayo. Tequila is one of my favorite spirits. Blanco or silver has no barrel aging. Reposado is usually aged in old American oak bourbon barrels for about six months. Anejo is usually aged around two years in American oak.
El Tesoro and Patron I usually drink in a snifter or wine glass with an ice cube or two, and maybe some fresh lime. My favorite everyday tequila is Sauza Hornitos which I usually pick up at my favorite Vons on Broadway in Santa Maria. Hornitos is great in margueritas.
Times wine columnist Bob Senn is always on the lookout for a tasty tequila, and lives in the Los Alamos Valley of Santa Barbara County.
