Mercury News
March 22, 2006

Grapes of wrath: vineyards targeted
Hillside sites are causing concerns

By Lisa M. Krieger

There is a grape divide in the steep hillsides of San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, pitting environmentalists against vintners over how best to protect the region's precious soil and water.

New vineyards in the sunny high-altitude Santa Cruz Mountains — where grapes can bask in what one grower calls “refrigerated sunshine” — have caught the attention of wine lovers. Now they're being noticed by local regulatory officials, as well, who ask: Should the sky be the limit?

Winter rains and public outcry have prompted the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors to study the kind of restrictive “vineyard ordinances” adopted by Napa and Sonoma counties to prevent erosion and creek sedimentation. Santa Clara County officials have not yet taken on the issue.

“Sure, grapes are grown on the hillsides of Tuscany,” said Lennie Roberts of the Committee for Green Foothills, which is leading a campaign for a vineyard ordinance. “But we're in California. The land is subject to sliding, with highly erodable soils.''

Rex Geitner, vineyard manager for Woodside's Clos de la Tech, says vineyards stabilize soils better than grasslands and that they use special techniques to irrigate and cultivate. Even in untouched areas, erosion and land sliding can be found in the region, he said. “We are stewards of the land,” he said. “A mass of roots, underground, holds water better than grassland.”

Vineyards have long been a part of Santa Clara Valley; wine grapes were cultivated back in the 1700s at Mission Santa Clara. Newer vineyards have ascended into steeper and higher regions, due to development pressures and the drive to grow higher-quality grapes. A few — such as Clos de la Tech, owned by tech mogul T.J. Rodgers, and Skyline Vineyard and Alpine Road Vineyard, both owned by software entrepreneur and venture capitalist Kevin Harvey — are perched on top of ridgelines.

Many are well-managed businesses, with attention to the environment, environmentalists agree. But others have caused erosion, destroyed native habitat and dropped sediment into streams, they say.

For years, the state's vineyards have been treated like any other type of agriculture, with less regulatory scrutiny than housing, golf courses and many other uses of the land.

But that is changing. After many lawsuits and public debates, Napa and Sonoma passed ordinances regulating development. Vineyards can't be planted on hillsides with slopes greater than 50 percent. They require erosion and sediment-control plans for hillsides with slopes of 15 percent to 50 percent. Other grape-growing regions, and now San Mateo County, are considering similar measures.

“We want to identify what the goals are of an ordinance, and how are those goals best accomplished?” said San Mateo County Supervisor Rich Gordon.

Winemakers wax on about the special qualities of hillsides. Their grapes are above the fog, yet escape the Bay Area's late-season heat spikes. While yields are low, taste is intense.

“Hillsides truly do produce higher-quality grapes, which are very sought after,” said viticultural consultant Prudy Foxx of Santa Cruz.

“But it's a trade-off,” she says. “The steeper the slope, the more challenging it is, and the more experienced you have to be to implement and maintain it.”

Up on Skyline Drive, Cypress Semiconductor founder and CEO Rodgers said he aims to make the best pinot noir in the world in the unique conditions of his Clos de la Tech vineyard.

Those ambitions worry environmentalists. This winter's storms caused soil to rinse down from Rodgers' hills, they say, threatening the quality of an underground spring that supplies drinking water for the town of La Honda.

Rodgers' plans to plant vines on 16 grassy acres above their watershed — on a grade that estimated to be as steep as 50 percent, in a landslide-prone area — alarm environmentalists and La Honda residents.

“What if it rains three inches overnight and the soil slides — and it all comes down the hill, into our creek?” asked Toby McLeod, who lives below the vineyard in La Honda. “That's our drinking water.”

There's precedent for concern. Several miles away, Alpine Road Vineyard in San Mateo County illegally graded 26 acres for vineyard development, some of it on slopes up to 65 degrees, causing it to suffer severe erosion during the winter storms of 2001-02.

So much soil washed from the vineyard into Tarwater Creek, a tributary of Pescadero Creek, that the trout habitat was declared “polluted” by county officials. Alpine Road Vineyard later paid $500,000 to remediate the site and do off-site mitigation.

Page last updated March 27, 2006.