Obama and the Calistoga AVA Dilemma

After he fixes everything else, can Obama make the long awaited Calistoga AVA become a reality?

here are but a scant few shopping days left and I bet that some of the good burghers of Calistoga will find a big sack of nails in their holiday gift sacks instead of a shiny new AVA. That’s because the good bureaucrats at the TTB (formerly known as the Bureau of Booze, Butts, and Bullets) have still not finished their list of presents (with the operative word being still).

Even I, your faithful scribe, who should have these numbers at his fingertips, has lost track of when the Tax and Trade Bureau (known here now as the Bureau of Abacuses and Bean Counting) began putting an embargo on naming new wine appellations.

It happened when a couple of brands had the temerity to use the name “Calistoga”, even though they didn’t have a single lonely grape from said region in their bottles. The AVA protested and the TTB slammed on the air brakes.

Calistoga is waiting: The old, quaint town has been waiting for years to have an officially sanctioned appellation.The gist of the TTB’s directive was a firm warning:, “Hold on, Kimosabe, we ain’t gonna issue no new stinkin’ American Viticutural Areas no how, until this here Calistoga thing gets resolved.” (Never-you-mind, that somehow in the interim, the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania got anointed by the TTB.)

Which has left little ole quaint Calistoga (that last bastion of unaffected and unlanded gentry in Napa Valley) high and dry. But not too high and not at all dry. While they impatiently wait their turn to be included in the appellation club, no doubt knocking back more than a few at the Hydro, Calistogans have seen its most high-profile winery (Chateau Montelena) get sold and unsold. They’ve seen a Hollywood movie ostensibly made in their hometown about that same winery. And they’ve seen a new president get elected.

Those good burghers have been trying for what - a hundred years I think it is now - to get their name on that map of AVA fame that will, at last, officially make its gentry affected and landed. So, the TTB, in its typical banana slug M.O. (excuse me UC Santa Cruz), slimed all over the Calistogans (or is it Calistogies?), and have made them wait, and wait, and wait some more.

Wait for what? For a new administration that we think can fix it all to come in? Is there hope that the Obama team will grant absolution unto thee, Calistogites?

Not according to the TTB’s spokesfellow in D.C., who commented “Nobody here is a political appointee, we’re all career bureaucrats. We will carry over with these issues until a resolution is reached.” And, “I would not anticipate there being a change,” before the end of the year. Which means that Calistogals (and guys) can indeed expect that bag o’ by-now rusty nails for Christmas, and if they’re lucky, maybe a lump of coal.

But perhaps there’s hope (see Obama). Maybe, just maybe, John Manfreda, the current TTB administrator could be out of a job come Inauguration Day. When your inscrutable scribe points out that the TTB administrator is appointed by the treasury secretary, which in this case, you can bet your next bottle of $100 Calistoga Cab, will be an Obama man, Tim Geithner, the spokesfellow, rejoinders that Manfreda isn’t going anywhere.

Art Resnick, TTB’s frontman laughs and tells me that he hadn’t been anticipating losing his job after 30 odd years (emphasis on odd), nor did he think that his boss would be getting capped by Obamania. “I could see that happening if he doesn’t like John Manfreda,” offers Resnick. “I guess he could (lose his job), but it seems like a stretch to me.”

So, indulge me here for another moment: Let’s say Manfreda indeed starts swimming with the fishes. Then what? Does Obama’s man insert someone at TTB who will cozy up to the wine industry, and at last push through a Calistoga AVA?

Which brings me to Bobby Koch. Koch has two things going for him: He’s the leader of the wine industry’s most powerful lobby – The Wine Institute - and his brother-in-law will himself be swimming down in Crawford in a few weeks. Now, if Koch - who would like nothing better than to have Calistoga get a good Christmas present - didn’t have any pull with the outgoing pres regarding Calistoga, what chance does he have with the Obamaians or Timmy Geithner?

Well, for one thing, Koch has always copped to the fact that he’s a Demo in spite of his Republican wife’s Republican bro. Thus, he could still be a member-in-good-standing with the new dominant culture and thus could hold some sway. Toward that end, he tells me from his Washington office that he doesn’t know Geithner, but “We will know a number of people who will go into treasury … (and) the wine industry will be promoted and protected for another four years.”

He also cautions, “Come January 20th, those who want to make Calistoga an AVA will have to start over activating their case; and TTB would have the option to modify the proposed rule. (But Calistoga) will have to make their case to a new roster of officials, although a lot of the core work has been done.”

TTB in turn, Koch says, “Could decide to have it remain on the shelf or re-notice the rule which would have to ask for public comment again. Or they can issue a final rule in the early months of the administration.”

As for Calistoga itself, it has a friend in the Napa Valley Vintners, itself the most powerful marketing group in America’s most powerful wine region. Rex Stults, who holds the title there of industry relations director, has been on the frontlines on the issue since this odyssey started. His organization has championed truth in labeling and the proper designation of place names for years now, and it can just taste “Calistoga” properly placed on wine labels as if it were umami.

Because we haven’t spoken about Calistoga for what seems like the beginning of the presidential campaign, Stults tells me, “We haven’t forgotten about Calistoga. We talk about it all the time … but it’s not going to go away and it won’t get resolved tomorrow.”

Maybe on or shortly after January 20?