Wine & Weed: Concerns and Convergence

Though once known primarily for pinot noir and chardonnay, the Sta. Rita Hills is now a hotbed of marijuana cultivation, with hoop houses full of green buds lining the remote canyons along Highway 246. Just down the road in Lompoc, wineries are being pushed out of their longtime warehouse homes to make way for cannabis processors, who are willing to pay such high prices that current property owners can’t help but sell.

“The cannabis situation in Lompoc has created a challenge for many wineries,” said Peter Work of Ampelos Cellars. He said that the city’s generous zoning to cannabis businesses changed the commercial real estate scene “dramatically” and that the current availability of wine production and storage space is virtually nil. “We are forced to look at alternative cities, which will increase our costs and present more transportation issues,” explained Work, who’s been in his current facility along Central Avenue since 2005 but is now preparing to leave.

On top of that, both the wine and cannabis industries are after the same labor — and not just the already stretched-thin farm crews that power American agriculture, but the white-collar branding, marketing, and distribution professionals as well. And no one yet knows whether legal marijuana is going to cut into the wine world’s bottom line at the consumer level, or whether they’ll emerge as happy friends.