Wine Continued from Page 7
our tasting room and hospitality, we never had a customer come to the tasting room and the Salinas Valley and marvel at the beauty,” quipped Jason Smith, president and CEO of Valley Farm Management. The firm oversees 800 acres of vineyards in the Santa Lucia Highlands. “My standing joke is that a lot of the time you have to do that behind a sliding glass door,” Smith added. Smith’s parents, Rich and Claudia Smith, were among the first modern vint- ners to explore the Santa Lucia Highlands, where Spanish missionaries planted grapes long ago. The Smiths started Paraiso Vineyards in 1990. A tasting room and winery in Soledad followed in 2005. “My parents started the winery to showcase our great Monterey wines, and others followed,” Smith said. The Santa Lucia Highlands is now win- ning acclaim for its pinot noir and char- donnay. In the rugged, remote Cachagua region, vineyards grow robust red wines such as Bordeaux and merlot. On the oth- er side of the mountain, gravelly soils of the Arroyo Seco region produce a sau- vignon blanc known for high minerality and acidity. Stemler said Monterey County ranks as the largest grower of pinot noir and “premium, coastal, cool-weather char- donnay” in the state and the second
Visitors tour Folktale Vineyard in Carmel Valley of Monterey County. At least 59 wineries operate in the county, but the re- gion hasn’t been able to attract wine tourism on par with neighboring Central Coast regions. Some Monterey County vintners say development of a new luxury resort and additional wineries may help.
largest grower of chardonnay. The wine sector produces $1.4 billion in economic activity for the county and pro- vides 10,491 jobs, according to a February report by the Wine Institute and California Association of Winegrape Growers. Yet those figures fall well short of goals the county set in its 2010 general plan. “We all envisioned much more de- velopment than we currently have,” McIntyre said. “On one hand, we are dis- appointed in our progress. But in other ways, we are not.” McIntyre said he is bullish on Monterey County vineyards and its wine quality.
Yet he expresses envy about the tourists that flock to more than 200 wineries in the Paso Robles area of San Luis Obispo County. Santa Barbara County, with less vineyard acreage than Monterey, is also a significant wine tourism destination. In Monterey County, home to at least 59 wineries, McIntyre said he would like to see a half dozen more added to the county’s signature River Road Wine Trail to attract more visitors. McIntyre and Stemler of the vintners and growers association say they hope for development of the Paraiso Springs Resort, a proposed, long-delayed luxury lodging project that is intended to be a destination for wine tourists in the Salinas Valley.
For now, the vintners and growers asso- ciation markets the Monterey wine sector as “farmer focused” and “authentic.” For his part, McIntyre recently settled on “Cinderella” to describe the under-ap- preciated nature of the vineyards he has worked for decades. “We’re happy to be under the radar. There’s a downside to being popular,” he said. “It’s like a studio musician. They’re the highest quality musicians in the world, and you don’t know who they are. But the stars do, and the stars want to play with them.” (Caitlin Fillmore is a reporter in Monterey County. She may be contacted at cslhfillmore@gmail.com.)
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