Winery 'village' coming to Napa Valley

By PAUL FRANSON
Register Correspondent

Wine industry veterans Tony Cartlidge and John Hawkins plan to build a self-contained village of small wineries in American Canyon.

Les Garagistes complex will contain a dozen 3,500 to 6,500-square-foot spaces for individual wineries to lease. They will be arrayed in four buildings surrounding a 16,000-square-foot courtyard.

This appears to be the first such project in the area, though an old winery in Lodi has been converted into individual spaces for wineries and a number of similar projects have recently been completed or are under construction in Oregon and Washington.

The developers hope to attract some of Napa’s many present and prospective virtual wineries using custom crush facilities or leased space in other wineries. The county supports more than 400 wine brands, many lacking physical production spaces, though some share increasingly popular collective tasting rooms.

“We’re offering winemakers a chance to turn their virtual winery of today into a real brick-and-mortar winery with a real Napa Valley address, to do their own work and to better control their own wine quality,” said Hawkins.

Each of the spaces in the new winery village designed by architect Todd Koster will contain its own tasting room and office space constructed to the specifications of each tenant, and each will be allowed to offer wine tasting and retail sales by the city of American Canyon.

“They can entertain customers and sell wines in their own tasting room finished to express their brand’s personality. The other alternative, building your own facility from the ground up, is financially unattainable for most,” Hawkins said.

The village will also include an upscale café, deli and conference facilities so wineries can host customers and the trade.

The spaces will not be housed in an existing industrial building, rather designed specifically for small wineries as an alternative to anonymous custom crushing at larger facilities or to individual wineries.

“We are literally building a community of like-minded but individual artisans who produce limited-production wines,” said Cartlidge. “We envision great collegiality, sharing and good times,” he said.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to build new wineries in Napa County because of strict regulations and escalating costs for land, as well as the environmental and engineering studies and plans that must be developed. The county requires a 10-acre minimum property to build a winery in most cases, and puts stringent restrictions on visitors at most new wineries. Neighbors also often object to wineries being built nearby.

The complex will be located on Jim Oswalt Way off Highway 29 in American Canyon across from Cartlidge & Browne’s existing winery, which will offer additional temperature-controlled space for barrel and case goods storage and has a fully equipped laboratory and a bottling facility winery village tenants can rent.

The center is scheduled to open by August 2009.

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