October 11, 2000
The Name Santa Barbara Has Value
When I drive to Santa Maria, I like that billboard on 101 which reads "Santa Maria style"!
The Santa Maria Valley will, I think, someday rank number one in the New World for its pinot noir and chardonnay, topping the south county, Napa, and Sonoma, when the final chapter on California wine is written.
As a longtime resident of Santa Barbara County and as a relatively new resident of the north County, I would like to share some thoughts and observations on Santa Barbara and why it's good and why it's bad for those of us who live here in the Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo area.
First, let's start with the bad.
Santa Barbara is overrated as a place to live. It's nice, but its natives think it has no equal. As someone who grew up in the Bay Area, let's talk about Sausalito and Belvedere in Marin County or Los Altos Hills or Saratoga in Santa Clara County for starters.
The median price of a home in Los Altos Hills is around $2.5 million vs. a paltry half-million for Santa Barbara. Right there, that tells me, at least in quantitative terms, the relative worth of the two communities.
Next, let's talk about the politics. The talk on the street here is we take the back seat to the south coast, particularly in terms of services. I think that the recent fire near Harris Grade proves that point. Montecito and Santa Barbara residents would not tolerate this incessant smoke we've had to breathe for a moment. Tiger salamander and red legged frog or not!
Those of us who live in Santa Maria, Los Alamos or Los Olivos have to put up with the smoke and its associated health risk every day, like it or not!
Are the lungs of Casmalia, Santa Maria and Shell Beach residents less important than the lungs of Montecito residents?
And the County Supervisors who represent the south coast strike me as unfriendly to agriculture--to the ranchers and the growers of north county. In fact at least one of the supervisors seems to be down right hostile toward agriculture in general and to the wine industry in particular.
The bottom line is this: agriculture is Santa Barbara County's biggest industry, topping tourism on the south coast, yet we who live here are treated by county government like second class citizens, many residents would argue.
Now let's finish with the good.
On a recent trip to visit the midwest, when people asked me where I lived, I would say Los Alamos.
If you said Los Alamos was about 15 miles south of Santa Maria, I'd get a blank stare; if you said about an hour north of Santa Barbara, people would say, "oh, yeah, I know where that is," or "oh, I've heard of Santa Barbara."
A number of years ago, Mike Moone, then-president of Wine World Estates (when it was owned by Nestle), was speaking to a group of winegrowers at the hotel at the Santa Maria airport. He argued very effectively that the name "Santa Barbara" was important in the marketing of wine. He told the group if you used the "Central Coast" appellation on a wine label, consumers in Chicago would think "Central Valley": Bakersfield, Fresno, Madera and Modesto. But, he added, the name "Santa Barbara" has panache, a verve to it that even place names like Napa and Sonoma don't have.
Every day, more savvy pinot noir drinkers recognize the efficacy and growing importance of appellation names like "Santa Maria Valley", "Arroyo Grande Valley", and "Edna Valley".
Meanwhile, the place name "Santa Barbara" is very important as a wine marketing tool. It can have the same economic impact on a wine bottle and brand as a Santa Barbara County address can have on the value of your real estate.
If Santa Barbara County ever breaks in two, the growers in the Santa Maria Valley will no longer be able to use "Santa Barbara County" on the label. And those consumers in Chicago that Mike Moone was talking about will say, "Where the hell is Los Padres County?" or whatever the new county name happens to be.
I'm of the opinion that a paramount concern for our north county wine industry is to forge out a new appellation with the name "Santa Barbara" in it which the BATF (Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms) will approve, so, when and if the time comes for a successful secession from the south county, the growers here will still be able to use the "Santa Barbara" appellation name if they so choose.
A name like Santa Barbara Coast has a nice ring to it, I think.
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And I leave you with this thought about Santa Barbara. As an ex-resident, the most maddening thing about the town is the "nut case" drivers. Santa Barbara drivers drive like space cadets. I have this theory that all the bad drivers from Los angeles who don't get killed there move to Santa Barbara making the streets of that town a virtual demolition derby.
Bob Senn lives in the Los Alamos Valley and owns the Los Olivos Wine & Spirits Emporium.
