Rules allow Lodi wineries to offer outdoor bottle service
LODI — Under new guidance from the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, wineries can offer more for consumers, though their tasting rooms must remain closed under San Joaquin County’s stay-at-home order.
This week, the ABC said wineries may sell wine by the bottle for consumers to enjoy outdoors on their premises as long as they also purchase food, either a prepackaged meal offered at the winery or from an on-site food truck.
Consumers will be served table side and winery staff must adhere to county physical distancing and cleaning protocols. Wines by the glass and tasting flights remain prohibited. Tasting rooms likely will remain closed until the state moves into at least Stage 3 of its phased economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. Wineries still are allowed to offer pickup and/or delivery.
“This is temporary relief to help these businesses get through this crunch,” said John Carr with the ABC. “This temporary relief will stay in effect until the pandemic ends.”
As of Thursday, only a handful of Lodi’s some 85 wineries with tasting rooms were prepared to offer bottle and food service this weekend, so best to check before making the trek. Reservations are required.
Tom Hoffman, grower, winemaker and owner of Heritage Oak Winery in Acampo, conducted an informal email survey of Lodi wineries this week to find out who would be ready this weekend. To the best of his knowledge, they are Bokisch Vineyards, Viaggio Winery, Pondl Winery, Oak Farm Vineyards, and Dancing Fox and Michael David Winery, which have restaurants.
Kristine DeBock and the team at Bokisch Vineyards will offer a picnicstyle meal for customers to enjoy on the grounds with their Spanish varietal wines.
“We’re super excited to open up our property,” DeBock said. “We’ve worked really hard to put together as safe an environment as we can to bring people back.”
Dealing with the details
Oak Farm Vineyards will be open for bottle service beginning this weekend, but the decision to do so did not come without first double-checking with authorities, as any misstep could cost a winery its license.
Heather Panella, co-owner and general manager of Oak Farm Vineyards, said she spoke with county and state officials as well as the ABC before deciding to open for bottle service.
“ABC wants us to serve food, but Public Health has never wanted us to serve food,” she said. “Public Health has more control over the situation than ABC.”
Panella said she spoke with Jacob Appelsmith, director of the ABC, for assurance.
“I asked Jacob, if I open, I’m not going to have anyone come after me, correct? He said as long as you’re not serving chips and salsa, you’re going to be fine.”
Oak Farm will have a selection of prepackaged cheeses, nuts and charcuterie to pair with their wines that will be served table side on their grounds.
Some of Oak Farm’s colleagues also said the guidelines, which have come from the state, county and the Wine Institute, have at times been difficult to decipher. Hoffman and Bettyann Spenker, coowner, winemaker and cheese maker at Spenker Family Farm in Lodi, have chosen to wait for now.
“It’s been a mountain of confusion,” said Hoffman, who last week took part in a conference call with the ABC, along with other Lodi winery stakeholders. “We had a conference call with ABC last week and everybody left scratching their head. The state is afraid to open up wineries because they don’t want a flood of tourists who have been cooped up for three months say let’s go to wine country.”
Though Spenker makes and sells her own cheese from her own goats and could meet the new ABC guidelines, she isn’t confident to move forward just yet.
“We’re trying to get a feel for the landscape,” she said. “What the state says we can do and what the county says we can do are clearly opposing. Then, I heard it doesn’t matter because they want us to open.
“I’d love to do something, but I’m afraid of doing the wrong thing.”