Welcome to San Diego Wine Country

On August 4, 2010, by a unanimous historic vote, San Diego County’s Board of Supervisors have approved a tiered winery ordinance allowing small “boutique” wineries to open tasting rooms and offer retail sales. Their vote represents four long years of hard work and lots of heartache (and heartburn). I’d like to salute a group of our winemaker and winegrower peers from Ramona Valley AVA; spearheaded by Carolyn Harris, for their courage, skills, legal knowledge, determination and perseverance.

Of course, it all came down to having the right sponsors who helped pave the way. The San Diego County’s Board of Supervisors and San Diego Farmers Bureau were the advocates for the ordinance and worked with San Diego county Department of Planning and Land Use to have a reasonable approach for wineries to have tasting rooms in light of zillions of requirements.

For those of you who may be concerned about tasting rooms popping up all over the place in your urban and suburban neighborhoods. Don't worry, there are measures that would keep that from happening. First and foremost, the new ordinance only applies to agricultural zoned land (A70 & A72). As you may have guessed, besides the local counties agencies, there are many federal and state agencies regulate wineries and tasting rooms. For example, all wineries are required to have a valid permit and bond issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, and a current Winegrowers license issued by the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. In other words, besides growing grapes and making wines for the fun of it, there are a lot of hoops, pains, frustrations and sufferings one must go through and deal with in order to establish and operate a winery and tasting room legally.


San Diego Channel 6 News and San Diego Union Tribune are among news worthy organizations that reported a balanced view of the new ordinance without bias.

Yeah, of course, we are delighted by the opportunities and possibilities the new ordinance has to offer to grape growers and winemakers in the county who like us have worked so hard in the last 15 years to establish San Diego County as wine grape growing region. From this point forward, we all can look forward to proudly telling our grandchildren of this historic day in San Diego County!


Cheers!