California Wine Tourism is About to Get Way More Interesting

A new law opens the door for micro wineries

More and more, wine tourism sits at a crossroads. Many wineries rely on in-person consumer experiences to drive sales and brand loyalty. But in an effort to woo customers with increasingly luxurious offerings, a long weekend jaunt to some of California’s wine regions might equal, price-wise, a trip to Europe. On the flip side, there’s a whole roster of small producers who can’t tap into the tourism market, but could create much-needed balance in wine country’s offerings to visitors.

A couple of years ago, I wrote about the Micro Winery Ordinance (MWO), a piece of legislation intended to help Napa’s smallest producers — those who produce 5,000 gallons of wine (roughly 2,100 cases) or less — by creating concessions to allow tourism at these family-run vineyards. Napa’s Winery Definition Ordinance, which sets laws for wineries, spins a tricky and expensive web of approved facility use, vineyards, and ecology preservation measures that don’t favor these minuscule farms.

It might come as a surprise, given the grandeur of many tasting rooms in Napa Valley, that hospitality is only meant to be an accessory to winemaking. Production must be the primary use of a winery facility, and hospitality may only constitute up to 40 percent of square footage. What this means is that without an operating winery, a brand can’t have a hospitality component. And most micro wineries don’t; thus, they can’t partake in Napa’s booming tourism economy.

The MWO, which passed in 2022, was supposed to create workarounds, reduce fees, and expedite paperwork for small wineries so they could grab a piece of that tourism pie.

Spoiler alert: it didn’t accomplish the goal. Small wineries remained unable to host guests, and didn’t blip on tourists’ radars.

For the full background in what I hope is a digestible manner, not to mention an eye-popping breakdown of all the financials of operating a winery in Napa, check out the article HERE.

Now, new statewide legislation might be the silver lining for micro wineries — and wine tourism throughout California is about to get a hell of a lot cooler.