Democrat or Republican? The politics of California wine country

Very few people in the wine business want to talk about politics. It's bad business, because they want to sell wine to both Republicans and Democrats.

I love to talk about politics, and I've been talking to people in California wine country for a long time. But I'm not about to bust anybody for conversations they may have thought were off the record. People could get fired if their name were to show up in a blog post supporting a candidate -- any candidate. I'm not Donald Trump; I don't wake up in the morning hoping to say, "You're fired."

So this post is about generalities, not specific people.

NATIONAL POLITICAL ISSUES OF INTEREST

The wine industry cares more about immigration than most, and on the whole is very pro-immigration. The industry cares about environmental regulations, but there is no unified stance: plenty of people are disdainful of the government's ability to write sensible laws. Everybody would come together to fight more sin taxes on alcohol, but the powerful distribution arm of the wine industry likes red-tape regulations on distribution and sales, and so do some of the largest wineries because they realize it gives them an advantage.

WINEMAKERS

The overwhelming majority of winemakers in California are Democrats. This makes sense, as they are scientists. Because of this, the media and to a lesser extent the public gets the sense that the California wine industry is strongly Democratic -- something Napa Valley Vintners would not like you to believe, as Republicans buy a lot of expensive Cabernet. In the media, we exalt winemakers, often too much (yes, me too.) Statistically, winemakers don't have that many votes, nor do they donate much money. Maybe the wine industry does lean Democratic, because California does in general, but it's not a landslide. Read on.

VINEYARD OWNERS

This is the most complicated and interesting category.


Vineyard owners are farmers, and farmers tend to be Republicans. Farmers tend to be salt of the earth, hard-working, socially conservative people, and that's generally true of California vineyard owners as well. However, there are a few issues that separate grapegrowers from the national trend. First, you won't find many if any vineyard owners who aren't extremely pro-immigration. This is different from agribusiness farmers who can mechanize everything and don't need field hands tending the crop. Second, vineyard owners are very sensitive to global warming. It's interesting to discuss Presidential politics with a vineyard owner because they want a decent moral conservative leader, but they don't want a climate-change denier or an immigrant hater. The Republicans have won this group for many elections in a row but nobody with a vineyard wants to see Donald Trump build a wall.

WINERY OWNERS

Owners of most big businesses tend to be Republicans. California is a little different, but not that different; Democrats tend to forget how much national Republican funding comes from this state. Also, many California winery owners are people who were successful in other businesses and brought their political beliefs with them when they bought a winery.

FARMHANDS

Vineyard workers tend to be extremely socially conservative, even more so than vineyard or winery owners. They also tend to be Hispanic. An immigrant-sympathetic Republican can own this group. I'll bet George W. Bush won this group handily. Probably not the case this year. To the curious: Yes, there are still plenty of illegal immigrants in farm labor, but because vineyards pay better than most farms they hire a much larger percentage of citizens with voting rights than other farms.

TASTING ROOM STAFF

These folks really could lose their job for talking politics, so don't try to cajole them into it. But if you want to know where they stand, take a look at the voting record of people who live where most tasting room staff lives. Most tasting rooms are on the Democratic north coast rather than in the Republican interior. It's probably that simple. But don't ask them.

WINE SALES AND MARKETING STAFF

If they're good, nobody knows. Plenty of marketing people have expressed liberal views to me but if they're any good, they've read my election endorsements in the past. I'll bet one of my conservative friends who writes about wine has had entirely different conversations with some of the same people. One thing to remember about wine sales reps: There are a lot of white males, more so than other industries, and white males are more likely to be Republican.

CELLAR RATS

Many cellar rats are young winemakers-in-training. They have the duties of a winemaker without the pay. Unsurprisingly many of them are very liberal. But the people who have worked in the same winery for 25 years, doing a job without taking many vacations and getting nice healthcare from the company while watching the government subsidize healthcare for others ... I've had more than one conversation with a very liberal young cellar rat cut short by shouted orders from a winery lifer.

WINE RETAILERS

Small wine shop owners are small businessmen, who tend to be Republican. Something about wine leads some in California to be more liberal than you'd expect. I have those conversations all the time. But that's small shops on the coast, where I shop.

SOMMELIERS

Somms tend to be liberal. There are exceptions, but Republican sommeliers are in the service industry and are aware that their views aren't popular with their peers. Still, if you're going to strike up a politically liberal conversation with anybody in the wine industry, somms are as likely to respond as anyone outside of winemakers. It brings up an interesting philosophical question. There are certain wines that seem to be popular with Republican diners, and sommeliers generally insult those wines when the public's not around. Is it the wines themselves, or the customers who order them without consulting the somms?

CONSUMERS

At the extremes, you can tell someone's politics by the wine they're drinking. If it's a $500 Napa cult Cab, it's -- correction, he's -- probably a Republican. If it's an unfiltered cool-climate Charbono, it's probably a Democrat. But anything in between, who knows? Wine sales in this country keep going up because both sides like drinking wine. Isn't it great that there's something we can agree on?

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