Leading up to our next class looking at the cannabis industry in relation to the wine industry, I thought it would be interesting to dig into the complicated relationship between the two particularly as it pertains to wine country in CA. While the legal status of pot has been ever evolving over recent years, mixing it with the heavily regulated wine industry has lead to what the Wine Spectator has called “alcohol-cannabis regulatory skirmishes.”
Following Prop 64, which was intended to give small growers a chance to get ahead with licenses to grow, cannabis farming in California has been fraught with challenges. The primary issue stems from the fact that the proposition allowed local officials to decide how they wanted to regulate cannabis production and sales. This led to Napa deciding to put a moratorium on the conversation of even growing cannabis until 2020 meanwhile Santa Barbara, who established some of the most lenient regulations, became overrun with operations for commercial growth.
With new regulations, wine growers have been directly confronted with the impact of growing hemp on proximate farmland to their grapes. For instance, in Santa Barbara, one winegrower was forced to decide whether to use a fungicide that protected against mildew, as the chemicals might drift on to neighbor’s cannabis, making it unsaleable. This vintner, who wasn’t identified in the Wine Spectator article choose not to spray and suffered the losses of 35 areas of Chardonnay overtaken with mildew. On the other hand, cannabis growers have been faced with the reality that cannabis releases an organic compound into the soil that can taint the flavor of grapes. Meanwhile, many wineries near growing regions report that the pungent odor has overwhelmed tasting rooms. While Santa Barbara has been working on how to rein in cannabis, other areas like Napa are exploring what the industry might look like.
Beyond competing for farmland and regulatory favor, these industries also strike tensions as they compete for customers. As consumption of alcohol is declining for younger generations, consumption of cannabis, particularly non psychoactive element CBD has only just begun. Will regulation for cannabis follow any parallels to wine and spirits post prohibition? Will the wine industry be able to influence the path of that regulation? Or what does the future hold for cannabis and wine as coexisting industries in CA and the US?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis is a super-interesting post -- thanks for researching and putting this together.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to consider what lawmakers will actually elect to do here, as policy-setting around cannabis likely operates at a higher level than the industry of wine (and is so politicized that decision-making may be entirely orthogonal to wine-production).
However, I think it's totally reasonable that if marijuana can be demonstrated to be harmful to wine production, then there might need to be some form of regulation (or at least social norms/policing) put into place. Similarly, if certain crops can be shown to have very little to no effect on the production of wine, I think that any ban (formal or informal) on making this happen is unreasonable.
It will be interesting to see how this evolves and whether healthy wine-cannabis pairings can ameliorate these concerns. I'd be curious to know if others are growing wine and marijuana on the same farm, and if certain farmers have found ways to protect these crops from each other.