Three local wineries along one of the county’s tourist hot spots
are reporting a slower summer for tasting and tours while
attributing it largely to a construction project on Cienega
Road.
Hollister – Three local wineries along one of the county’s tourist hot spots are reporting a slower summer for tasting and tours while attributing it largely to a construction project on Cienega Road.
Cienega Road, home to most of the San Benito Wine Trail, has been closed in both directions about a half-mile south of Limekiln Road since mid-July. The county is replacing a one-lane bridge, said Jerry Lo, the county’s public works director. The $1.75 million project should be done by the end of October, he said.
Calera Wine Co., DeRose Vineyards and Pietra Santa all have reported a drop in customer traffic to wine tastings and tours this summer.
All six wineries located on the road are still open, and visitors can gain access to them from Union Road. But many of the winery owners and managers said they had seen less traffic since the construction began – due in part to confusion whether they were accessible and in part because the wineries no longer can be reached from Highway 25.
“I have definitely been slower than I was the last couple years in the summertime,” said Al DeRose, winemaker at DeRose Vineyards. “Who’s to say it’s 100 percent because of the road, but my sales are down from last year at the same time.”
Before construction began, Lo said the county had a sign up explaining that the road was closed to through traffic from the beginning of June until the end of November. The county added a second sign soon after, saying businesses were still open.
“We had some feedback from people saying we’re kind of concerned that the sign says ‘road closure’ – so we made another sign to tell people they’re still open for business,” Lo said.
Still, several wineries say it has caused some confusion from potential customers unsure which businesses remain accessible. Even after the second sign went up, the wineries still saw fewer people at wine tastings, though most say it’s hard to pinpoint the decrease.
“It’s hard to quantify for us – the tasting rooms on Cienega Road haven’t been open that long so we don’t have years of data – but it’s definitely less,” said Diana Vita, wine manager at Calera Wine Co.
Summer is typically the season when Calera has the most visitors to taste and purchase wines, Vita said. But despite a busy Labor Day weekend, overall traffic to the winery had been slow.
“We just hope they get the bridge done soon and the roads open because it’s been really inconvenient,” Vita said.
Several of the wineries said they had received calls from customers asking if they were still open. People had also called informing them they had been planning to come from Highway 25, but didn’t come because they didn’t want to drive around.
DeRose said the wineries on Cienega had commiserated over the slow summer.
“We’ve all kind of said, ‘Man, it’s been slow lately,'” DeRose said.
Although the exact impact to most of the wineries’ sales was unknown, DeRose said the construction, and decrease in visitors, undoubtedly had affected business.
“We bring a lot of tax dollars to this town. I’m sure they’ll see the effects of it when we pay our taxes,” DeRose said. “It hurts everyone, not just us.”
