Salud!: The Rise Of Santa Barbara's Wine Industry

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170 h epilogue priced wines (less, but better, wine is being purchased), changes in social traditions that downplay the daily importance of wine, and an increased consumption of bottled water. Europeans cultures now tend to view drinking during the workday as problematic. In pre-World War I France, for example, there were 500,000 cafés; today, there are fewer than 160,000 such establishments.50 The neighborhood society has given way to the home for private and social entertainment. The problem of decreasing consumption became complicated by the fact that growers, chasing markets, overplanted, and grape production increased while consumer demand fell, creating what many labeled a European “wine lake” as production exceeded consumer demand.51 This imbalance in supply and demand is not new. Santa Barbara, California , and European growers faced the issue in the 1980s. In American many growers let fruit drop and rot in an attempt to keep prices up. eu policies encouraged distillation of excess wine juice and helped finance the removal of 10 percent of Europe’s vineyards. Over a five-year period Bottles of Santa Barbara County Foxen Vineyards Chardonnay line shelves of the Majestic Wine Shop in Wales, England. Author 2001 photograph. a backward look forward g 171 these methods reduced production from 210 million to 154 million hectoliters and eliminated the European surplus. Other nations like New Zealand , Argentina, and some Australian regions also promoted vine-pull plans. In South Australia the government subsidized pulling out old, inef- ficient vineyards and helped to replant with new, commercially viable varieties . These government-planning schemes helped save their industries and secured future supplies of quality wines for consumers and profits for the industry. Can American vintibusiness compete with global businesses that receive government subsidies, national industry planning, and price protections? Only time will tell as the global market weeds out marginal wine businesses. The good news for consumers was that the quality of wine steadily increased and prices held steady or dropped. The obvious business conclusion is to export what cannot be sold locally . France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, and Argentina have all stepped up exports and are aided by the formation of the trade partnership benefits of the European Economic Community and the creation of vintibusiness structures to rival the American model. Government Policies In order to maintain its viability in a global marketplace the American wine industry must continue to educate and train the general public in the wine life-style and simultaneously lobby state and federal legislators for favorable policies that provide money for research and development, open up interstate distribution systems, make wine a food and not an alcohol commodity, and support and protect America in the global marketplace . The struggle to shape federal farm policies took an unusual turn in the latter half of 2001. Traditional agribusiness interests in Congress braced themselves to argue against President George W. Bush’s administration and its stance of reducing subsidies. The Bush administration released a 120-page farm policy paper that supported reducing commodity payments in favor of programs supporting global trade, the environment, and all farmers large and small. Disagreements centered on saving the current system of supporting commodities or saving the family farm. Proponents from urban constituencies argued that the money only benefited 172 h epilogue agribusiness farmers. These urban legislators asked, “Are farmers more noble than plumbers, or the welfare mother who has to go back to work and isn’t qualified for a dime?” During a program aired on farm radio network Agrinet, Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman criticized the old commodity programs and stated, “We believe a farm bill needs to help all rural America, not just a few farmers who receive commodity payments .”52 She urged farmers to find profits in the global marketplace and not in commodities. In a more surprising political move many environmentalists backed the Bush plan, hoping that more money for small farmers and ranchers, whom they see as stewards of the environment, would do more to protect wildlife, open spaces, and clean air and water. In the end, however, it may be up to theWorld Trade Organization to decide whether commodity programs violate trade limits. As vintibusiness structures learn to navigate the new global economy they have also learned to maximize their presence in their regional and national economies. This places more pressure on small artisan wineries to be...