Would New Fee Empower Wine Country Marketing Efforts?

Should Santa Barbara County wineries impose a two percent fee on each bottle sold to help pay for regional marketing efforts? The staff and board members of the Santa Barbara Vintners certainly believe so. They and a growing number of vintners think this could be a silver-bullet solution to becoming more competitive in attracting visitors and selling wine in an increasingly crowded domestic wine marketplace. 

So, they’re waging an informational campaign to convince a majority of the county’s winemakers to support the creation of a business improvement district, or BID, that would levy and collect this fee. The two percent fee would generate more than $1.6 million annually, nearly quadrupling the Santa Barbara Vintners’ existing budget.

Many vintners, however, remain unconvinced that this is the right move for the region, worried that the fee, which is being perceived as a new tax, will raise prices for the consumer and cause unnecessary divisions within the community. They’re also leery of throwing money at a situation that does not yet have a clear marketing strategy. And in a region built on hard-fought, scrappy, and fiercely independent winemakers, some worry that broad-based marketing efforts won’t benefit their unique operations anyway.