NorCal pot columnist Dan Mitchell describes the industries of wine and bud as frenemies. The two sometimes compete for resources in agricultural regions, even as its masters chill together at backyard parties.
But with market and consumer preferences up in the air, “vintners don’t know what to make of the pot people.” The annual Wine & Weed Symposium, held recently in Healdsburg, offered some insights on why the two have not evolved together.
San Jose Inside
- Fundamentally, vintners in Napa worry cannabis could damage the regional brand.
- Unlike Santa Barbara, Napa County has resisted cannabis, with cultivation prohibited and retail limited to just a few shops. Cory Beck, CEO and chief winemaker for The Family Coppola, says “the community feels like it just kind of got shoved on them.”
Quick Hit
- In Canada, cannabis is treated more as an industrial product than as agriculture, and that could be the reason Americans have three alcoholic seltzer products and no national alcohol-brew brands.
Wine-Searcher
