Core Values

Bitter harvest: A steam shovel destroys vintage apple orchards at the Dutton Ranch to make way for vintage wine grapes, a trend that apple growers say is endangering a way of life.

Livelihoods wither for local apple growers in the wake of Vacu-dry plant closing

By Janet Wells

TAKE A DRIVE down Graton Road in Sebastopol, open the car windows, and take a nice deep whiff. The sweet fragrant smell lingering in the balmy evening air is unmistakable: apples. The trees, leafy and full, are laden with pale green and rosy-skinned fruit. It’s a scene that, for decades, has defined the west county, with its signature apple products, apple blossom fairs, and apple harvest celebrations.

But focus on the scenery in between the orchards, and apples start to look like an endangered species.

Rows and rows of wine grapes, stately green and elegant, seem to be marching right over the apple trees. Why? Wine grapes take less water and bring in more than 10 times the money per ton. And, say local apple growers who gathered at a recent meeting, the future of their time-honored tradition is looking even bleaker.

The local apple industry was thrown a curve in addition to changing economics this summer with apple processor Vacu-dry’s abrupt decision to close after more than 25 years as a mainstay of the Sonoma County industry. While there are market opportunities for varieties such as Gravenstein, Red Delicious, and Macintosh, almost all of the county’s Rome apples–totaling about 13,000 tons last year–were processed at the Sebastopol plant. Another 6,000 tons of apples of different varieties were bought and processed by Vacu-dry as well.

The apple harvest is in full swing now, and many local growers still have no home for the apples they expected to sell to Vacu-dry.

“I think there will be some apples rotting this year,” says 77-year-old Bill Braga, who farms 125 acres of apples in Sebastopol. “What Vacu-dry did to us, it wasn’t quitting that was so bad. We could have dealt with that. But to do it so late in the season. They caught us at the time that we were about to harvest.”

Vacu-dry was the main outlet for grower Warren Dutton’s 50 acres of Rome apples. “We have a big crop this year. We need to sell somebody a lot of fruit,” says Dutton, whose orchards produce about 30 tons of apples per acre. “It’s definitely possible that we’ll have trouble selling Romes.”

Dutton is one of many local growers feeling the pinch, and several thousand tons of apples could end up with no buyer this year. “They’ll just rot away on the ground,” Dutton says. “In California there really is no processor that can absorb as much as Vacu-dry was taking.”

At a recent meeting at Dutton’s Sebastopol ranch, worried growers crowded around folding tables set up in the tractor shed. Industry buyers and advisers joined in the discussion of finding an outlet for this year’s crop, as well as the future of apples in Sonoma County.

The prevailing mood is not optimistic.

TOM MELLOW from Amy’s Kitchen, a growing Santa Rosa company that packages frozen organic meals, is straightforward. “We’re not big on apples, unfortunately.”

Jeff Haus, owner of the new Sebastopol cider pub, Ace in the Hole, tells the group that he could use more organic Gravensteins. But his business–the first hard-cider pub in the United States–has just opened, and, while he hopes to become a major buyer of apples, he won’t make a dent in this year’s harvest.

Mark Fitzgerald of the Barlow Co., which makes apple juice and sauce, says they are going to use twice as many apples as last year. But at 1,500 tons, it isn’t enough to take care of this year’s Vacu-dry orphans.

“Good luck to everybody,” Fitzgerald tells the crowd. “Every time I think about this, my heart bleeds. You really got screwed.”

Most of Sonoma County’s 40,000 tons of apples are sold for juice, with less than 10 percent ending up in the produce section of the supermarket.

“People tend to buy apples by how they look, and our apples don’t look as good,” says Sonoma County horticulture adviser Paul Vossen.

IN THE PAST several years, cheap apple concentrate from China has severely undercut the county’s juice market. Washington state apple processor Tree Top, which bought out competitor Vacu-dry, offers about $20 a ton for juice, which isn’t enough to cover costs for Sonoma County growers.

There is a savior of sorts for local apple farmers, says Vossen–wine grapes.

“Anyplace that has potential for wine grapes . . . it’s crazy not to think about it,” he says. “There are a few very select places with 55- to 60-degree temperatures at night, nice warm sunny days. The same thing that gives wonderful taste in berries and apples, that’s in grapes.

“There’s only one commodity that pays a premium based on that taste,” Vossen continues.

“That’s wine grapes. Thank god there’s an alternative.”

Wine grapes, according to the county’s 1998 Agriculture Crop Report, fetched about $1,740 a ton, up from $1,589 in 1997. Apples, by comparison, sold for $156 a ton, down from $179 the year before. Even though apple orchards produce more than twice the tonnage of fruit than vineyards, wine grapes clearly net the big bucks.

Dutton has pulled out more than 100 acres of apples to plant grapes in the past four years. His ranch now has 900 acres of grapes and 250 acres of apples. Sonoma County’s apple orchard acreage has dropped more than 20 percent since 1995, while vineyard acreage has blossomed.

“I have orchards I never want to take out. They are beautiful orchards,” Dutton says. “But the very best wines are being made from grapes from Sonoma County. I sell to 37 different wineries.

“If you can’t sell the fruit and make money, you have to take the orchards out,” he adds. “Grapes are one of the things you should think about.”

At a cost of about $20,000 an acre to plant grapes, replacing apple orchards with vineyards doesn’t come cheap.

And for some growers, apples are a way of life that goes beyond economics.

“This apple business is like a yo-yo,” says grower Braga, tanned and feisty, the picture of a hard-working farmer in worn pants and baseball-style cap. “You’ll have good years and bad. The secret is to survive.

“Let’s get buyers in here,” he tells the crowd of growers. “If we can’t do that, I say pull ’em out and plant grapes. It’s a tough deal, we’re up against the wall.”

But Braga himself is not one to take his own advice–which just may provide a glimmer of hope for apples in Sonoma County.

“I’ve been in the apple business all my life. It’s in my blood,” he says. “Those of us that can survive, we’ll never get rich, but we’ll be glad.

“I enjoy watching the trees bloom, pruning them, taking care of them,” he adds.

“I’ve never had knowledge of grape growing, and I’m not going to start now.”

From the September 2-8, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Last Resort

Fighting for the high ground: Sonoma City Councilman Ken Brown, left, and Dave Williams of Citizens for Measure A perch on land where developers want to build a large luxury hotel. On Sept. 21, voters decide the fate of the project.

Luxury hotel plan raises hackles in Sonoma

By Yosha Bourgea

SONOMA’S downtown plaza is an oasis of shade. On an early August afternoon, tourists and residents alike gather beneath the leafy, spreading oaks to escape the heat that withers the rest of Sonoma Valley. A toddler chases a well-fed rooster across the grass. Across the sidewalk, battered pickup trucks rub shoulders with glossy Miatas and Eclipses. And in the distance, rising behind city hall, are the Mayacamas Mountains.

Against this backdrop, 60 acres of city-owned land overlooking the town have become the focus of a struggle between those who want to see a luxury resort built there and those who prefer the hillside as it is. The matter comes to a head on Sept. 21, when the citizens of Sonoma will decide whether or not to approve Measure A.

If approved, Measure A would prevent the building of any hotel or resort on the land. If it doesn’t pass, Rosewood Hotels will be allowed to submit a proposal to the city for construction of a $62 million, 105-room resort.

In the interim, the issue has become a hot topic in Sonoma. In a town that many residents say is being loved to death–where tourists fuel the local economy but increasingly are blamed for high rental prices, traffic congestion, wear and tear on the plaza, and related issues–the proposed luxury hotel is the last resort. Supporters of the proposed project, equipped with deep pockets, have paid for numerous advertisements in the Sonoma Index-Tribune. In a statement released last Friday, the Sonoma Police Professionals Association has expressed support for the “No on A” campaign, calling the measure “shortsighted.”

But Sonoma County Conservation Action, the county’s largest environmental organization, has endorsed the ballot measure. In the window of Sage Marketing, just off the plaza on First Street, is a bumper sticker that reads NO ROOM FOR RO$EWOOD.

“We feel that this is just another example of how large economic interests will move in on a small city and dangle tax revenues in front of them,” says Mark Green, executive director of Conservation Action. “It’s unfortunate that the City Council wasted taxpayers’ money by putting this to a vote.”

Rosewood supporters agree that an election should not have been necessary. Nick Tibbetts, a Santa Rosa political consultant hired by the hotelier, believes that Measure A is a bad idea regardless of whether the city chooses to accept Rosewood’s offer.

“The problem with Measure A,” Tibbetts says, “is that it doesn’t allow the city and citizens to look at a proposal down the line that has merit.”

THE MONEY behind the Rosewood project comes from Javier Burillo Azcarraga, a member of one of the richest and most powerful families in Mexico. Burillo owns another Rosewood resort, Las Ventanas, in Cabo San Lucas; from his grandfather, he inherited the Ritz Hotel in Acapulco. In addition, Burillo owns 18 restaurants throughout Mexico.

It is not without irony that the land Burillo wishes to purchase from Sonoma was originally given to the city by another prominent Mexican, General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo. Today, more than a hundred years later, the general’s grave is among those on the hillside in Mountain Cemetery, California’s first “official” graveyard. But the graveyard takes up only a small part of the land, and because of the rocky soil, expansion of the cemetery is not cost-effective.

For now, more than 55 acres of the property remain undeveloped open space, occupied only by local flora and fauna. City Councilman Ken Brown says there is evidence of an extremely diverse wildlife population on the hillside. Though the area is now closed to the public and marked with “No Trespassing” signs, hikers still make the trek up through the oaks to the summit, where, on a clear day, they can see San Francisco.

Brown, a self-described “strong proponent” of Measure A, wants to protect the last significant open space within city limits from falling into the hands of private ownership. There’s nothing wrong with making use of the land, he says, as long as it remains public property.

“[Measure A] in no way precludes anything but a hotel and a resort from being built there,” Brown says.

One alternative, which community volunteer organizations have been planning for the last three years, would be to incorporate the site into a 400-mile network of hiking trails throughout the Bay Area. The price tag is $10,000 per mile, and 2.2 miles of trail have been proposed for the site.

“We have enough volunteers and money to build this trail and maintain it,” Brown says.

But concerns about the safety of the site persist. In the recent past, the Sonoma Ecology Center had sponsored nature walks in the area. Despite being guided by experts, one woman slipped on the trail and broke an arm. At that point, says City Manager Pam Gibson, the area was declared off-limits. “Until an expert tells me it’s safe again, the area will remain closed,” she says.

There is also the matter of the waste dump. In the first half of the century, a site on the land was used as a transfer station for hazardous waste. Although the dump has not been in use since the 1950s, the county continues to inspect it on an annual basis. So far, according to Gibson, officials have not declared the site hazardous.

But not everyone agrees. “We like to say that it’s a great concern,” Tibbetts says. “The dump is dangerous because of scavengers who might be injured and because of the possibility of toxic waste.” And Michael Hove, a Sonoma resident who backs the proposed resort, calls the dump a ticking bomb.

“Right now it’s very dangerous,” Hove says. “It’s a 60-acre plot of land which is inaccessible.”

IF THE HOTEL is built on the property, cleaning up the dump would be Rosewood’s responsibility. According to Hove, the management would be more than happy to do it. Not only that, he says, but the hotel’s backers have offered to create and maintain a trail system in the area, as well as a public park.

The No on A campaign maintains that the resort would have a minimal visual impact on the hillside, and that the year-round revenue generated by the hotel would more than offset the impact of traffic on the city.

“One of the things the opposition doesn’t mention much is that the resort would create about 250 staff jobs,” Hove says. “For every person that finds a job at Rosewood, it means that much less traffic leaving town.”

And if Rosewood builds within city limits, Sonoma will reap the benefits of the 10 percent Transit Occupancy Tax that applies to hotels. If Measure A passes, says Hove, Rosewood won’t disappear; it will simply move to a more favorable location in the area. That could leave Sonoma burdened with more traffic, but little to no financial gain.

“There will be a Rosewood hotel in the Sonoma Valley,” Hove says emphatically.

The only question, it seems, is where.

From the August 26-September 1, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.