Fly over Napa County, California, and what you see below are vineyards and industrial buildings for the mass production of wines. Roads crisscross the valley and climb into the hills and mountains. They also carry tourists from hotels and motels to vineyards, wineries and restaurants where they’re told that they’re seeing and tasting the real Napa. A woman who teaches wine marketing says that after a few days of tasting, eating and driving, most tourists don’t know whether they’re in Napa, Sonoma or Mendocino. That’s what happens in a monoculture.
Indeed, after a while, the landscape begins to look and feel remarkably similar all over “Wine Country.” Vines go up hill and down hill. (One agricultural writer said they made here think of troops in a regiment. Indeed there’s something militaristic about them.) Vines extend for as far as the eye can see. They also run along creek beds which are dry at least half the year because of climate change—Napa is hotter now than ever before—and because water tables are dropping. Wineries and vineyards suck water out of creeks and out of the ground. So, water is a big deal in Napa.
I am continually amazed that the wine industry goes on and on, year after year, that more grapes are planted, that vineyards are replanted, and that more people drink more wine than ever before. At times, it seems that the main pastime of people in Napa, Sonoma, Lake and Mendocino counties is drinking, eating, and ingesting locally grown…