Pressdemocrat.com/.- Artesa Vineyards and Winery of Napa has shelved its hotly disputed plans to plant a vineyard on forest land near Annapolis and has put the 324-acre property on the market for $1.5 million, the company announced Tuesday.
The decision was hailed by environmentalists, who last year persuaded a Sonoma County judge to rule that the vineyard project’s environmental studies were flawed.
“For us and the forest, it’s great news,” Friends of the Gualala River President Chris Poehlmann said of the winery’s decision.
Artesa spokesman Sam Singer insisted that the decision to sell wasn’t related to the court ruling. Instead, he made reference to a press release stating that Artesa offered the property for sale because “Sonoma County is no longer part of its growth strategy.”
“It really has to do with a refocus on the Napa Valley as opposed to the Sonoma property,” Singer said.
Artesa, owned by the Spanish wine giant Grupo Codorniu, bought the property in 1999 for $1.7 million. The company proposed and withdrew an earlier project before submitting its latest plans in 2009. It sought to clear 154 acres of second- and third-growth redwood and fir trees and former orchard land to grow premium chardonnay and pinot noir grapes.
The winery noted the land had been completely logged about 40 to 60 years ago and had been used for sheep grazing and for apple orchards until the early 1960s.
But environmental groups maintained that the region’s forest lands should be spared from the intense disruption of vineyard conversion and grape production.
The same opponents already had battled Preservation Ranch, a much larger vineyard conversion project near Annapolis. Last year environmentalists celebrated when that site of nearly 20,000 acres was purchased for $24.5 million for conservation purposes.
In December, Sonoma County Judge Elliot Daum ruled against Artesa in five of nine claims put forward in a lawsuit by the Sierra Club, Friends of the Gualala River and the Center for Biological Diversity. Daum specifically concluded that the environmental impact report had failed to adequately study alterative sites, including properties that aren’t forested.