After sobering spring, SB County wineries begin to reopen tasting rooms
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, Calif. - Wineries in the Santa Ynez Valley and across Santa Barbara County are opening their tasting rooms for the first time since mid-March.
The openings come with new guidance from the County: wineries must now offer food in their tasting rooms in order to serve wine to guests. Among other requirements, tasting rooms must also be outside or in a well-ventilated room. Mask-wearing and distancing between tables are also required.
Peake Ranch Winery, near Buellton, was open for only 10 months before being forced to close its tasting room on March 16. Once restrictions were relaxed, its tasting room reopened last Saturday and saw a steady stream of customers over the long weekend.
“We actually had a reasonably nice weekend," Peake Ranch owner John Wagner said. “A lot of people showed up. Just a chance to be out in the sun… So it actually was, I think, a sigh of relief for everyone just to have a little normalcy back in their life.”
Last week, Peake Ranch worked with a caterer to quickly set up food options.
“We were originally, by permit, not allowed to serve food,” Wagner said. “Now, we’re required to serve food.”
“If we act as a dine-in restaurant, we can pour our wines by the glass, or bottles to consume on-premise,” said Perry Koon, Peake Ranch's Public Affairs Director.
Reopening comes after a very slow two months for the whole industry, with no tasting room guests and significant drops in grape sales and wine sales to restaurants.
“I mean, particularly for the people that make wine in this area, it’s been rather traumatic,” Wagner said.
"I've been coming in every day to keep the spiderwebs out," Koon said. "And also fulfill any other sales that we might have. We've been doing curbside pickup."
The pandemic also forced Peake Ranch's spring bottling process to be moved up a week, and could set up big changes for the fall harvest, which usually begins in August.
“You’ve got the fruit coming along, everyone’s shoulder-to-shoulder sorting out all the fruit,” said Wynne Solomon, Peake Ranch’s head winemaker. “Whereas right now, we’re gonna have to make some big adjustments and figure out a safe way to do all of this.”
Day-to-day changes brought on by the pandemic have now become a new normal.
“We’re always careful but right now… we’re sanitizing the whole winery twice a day," Solomon said.
Those at Peake Ranch say they have the space to handle several groups coming in to the tasting room at once. They hope for more customers to come in for a glass of wine or some food, as long as the staff can safely serve everyone.
