The Santa Barbara Vintners’ campaign for a Wine Preserve — a 1% assessment on all direct-to-consumer sales — began in earnest in March with a winemakers’ meeting and the hiring of Civitas Advisors, a firm that specializes in developing and advocating for tourism and travel promotion.
Well before March — last year, in fact — CEO Alison Laslett and her staff were already busy with outreach and “consensus building” among the nearly 200 winemakers in Santa Barbara County, she said.
Typically known as a Wine Business Improvement District (BID), the geographical region delivers funds for a county, such as Santa Barbara or San Luis Obispo, via a fee collected from all sales.
It’s helpful, say representatives from both counties, to consider the assessed fee similar to sales tax; every purchase, be it a bottle of wine or a baseball cap with a logo, will incur a one-percent assessment.
On May 7, Laslett and the SBV made a formal request for “aggregate data on the retail sales of our industry” — a vital first step in the campaign, Laslett said after that meeting.
Next up is to develop an initial Management District Plan, or MDP, a legal document to form the district.
Currently the SBV is still finalizing its MDP, Laslett told me last week.
The steps the SBV must complete before its BID campaign can face approval, are, in order:
- Approval by Santa Barbara County of the MDP and Petition
- A Petition Drive
- Resolution of Intention (ROI) to form a district (Board of Supervisors to adopt)
- A mail campaign to notify all winery participants of public meeting/hearing
- Consent hearings at cities with Wine District Boundaries
- A public meeting and then a public hearing, both hosted by the County Board of Supervisors.
SLO, Paso Wine Groups Also Pursuing BIDs
In San Luis Obispo County, directors of the Paso Robles Wine Alliance and the SLO Coast Wine Collective just finished their Management District Plan for a similar BID, said Joel Peterson, executive director of the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance.
Along with longtime vintner Mike Sinor, president of the SLO Coast Wine Collective, Peterson and their county’s winemakers are “working together to develop the formation of this potential wine district and shape it,” he said.
“All of California’s wineries are going this route (for a BID),” Sinor said. “It’s a better mechanism to promote ourselves.”
“The current proposed assessment in the ‘SLO County Wine District’ is 1% on all DTC retail sales,” said Peterson, the same percentage as that proposed by the SBV for its Wine Preserve.
Efforts toward a San Luis Obispo Wine District started “about a year ago when the winery owners came to us, saying ‘We need to step up’ in order to be more sustainable,” Peterson recalled.
The Paso Robles region has about 250 wineries and San Luis Obispo about 50, both directors said.
Ours is “a partnership across the entire county, representing the two major wine-grape growing regions: Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo,” Peterson noted. Thirteen wineries comprise a steering committee, and “we’ve already met seven times.”
Laslett, Peterson and Sinor are targeting early 2025 to launch their respective BIDs, but all three understand that flexibility is key.
“We are keeping the timeline fluid as we want to make sure we have done the work to answer any questions, and keep an open dialogue going with wineries across the county,” Peterson said.
“We will advance petitions if and when we are ready — ideally before harvest, but we are in no rush.”
Potential BID Impact on Membership Dues
Should Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties’ efforts for wine districts be approved, all membership dues currently in place will be replaced by the respective assessments, all three directors said.
The Santa Barbara Vintners has a two-tier fee structure for members, Laslett said.
The first, the “Leadership” tier, costs $12,000 per year; the second, or “Community” tier, is based on the number of cases produced and ranges from $1,800 to $3,600 per year, she said.
Members in the leadership tier have a right of first refusal regarding participation in any Vintners’ events, and should they participate, do not face additional fees, she said. In addition, members in the leadership tier are promoted by the association as “hidden gems” to tourism groups and wine publications.
The proposed BID, Laslett said, is “a way for the smaller wineries to pay less for greater benefits” such as increased marketing. In other words, “it’s wineries getting together and assessing themselves to better promote their industry.”
In Paso Robles, members of the Wine Country Alliance pay rates that range from $850 to $23,500 per year, Peterson said.