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Normally, if you were to come up with a new winery and the supervisory board or planning committee had a public hearing, much of the debate would take place in public.
But if, as here, you offer vineyards on the hillside, you would take another regulatory route.
New vineyards on slopes of 5% or more require county erosion control plans. Citizens can comment in writing on environmental documents. The county director of planning, construction and environmental services decides whether or not to approve plans, with the supervisory board only acting on appeals.
Napa County is considering 43 new hillside vineyard projects. Some are just a few acres, some closer to 100 acres. Most are not controversial, but a few are.
Stagecoach Vineyard Project
The expansion of Stagecoach Vineyard in the mountains east of Oakville is among the proposals that have generated a reaction from the public. E. & J. Gallo would like to add a 91.3 acre vineyard in a 116 acre cleared area on the 1,333 acre property.
Stagecoach Vineyard is Napa County’s largest contiguous vineyard with 604 acres. Dr Jan Krupp created the vineyards in the 1990s by cleaning up billions of pounds of volcanic rock. Gallo bought the property in 2017 for $ 180 million.
Some of the many mitigation measures Stagecoach would take to grow include preserving 80 acres of habitat and replacing 2,472 yellow-flowered double-carpel western flax plants. It would use rocks to disperse runoff and install surface drainage pipes.
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