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January 2017 WINES&VINES 27 WINE INDUSTRY NEWS B oonville, Calif.—Califor- nia's marijuana and grape- growers are at odds over more than water. They also are vying for the same labor pool at harvest time. Travis Foote, general manager of Vineyard Logistics, said his Mendocino County vineyard-man- agement company started this year's harvest in mid-August with 22 pickers. Less than six weeks later, he was down to eight. "The marijuana pay is much better, and the work is much eas- ier," Foote said. "They pay cash, and people can do the work from home a lot of the time. Marijuana doesn't require a lot of labor the rest of the year, but when we need workers the most, they need work- ers the most." The problem is particularly acute in Mendocino County, espe- cially the Anderson Valley. A per- fect storm of factors makes getting reliable help harder: a smaller labor pool, a proliferation of mari- juana growers and vineyards that are often too small and too remote for mechanized harvesting. "I'm terrified" about looming mechanization, said Webster Mar- quez, owner/winemaker at Anthill Farms. "Artisans who want things done by hand are going to have to pay up more than we already are." It's a recent but not new di- lemma in the northern reaches of wine country. "When we're pick- ing grapes out there in the middle of the night or early morning, that's difficult manual labor," Foote said. "It's really hard work and long hours, so they go find something else." Migrant workers also are be- coming more the exception than the rule, as wineries, growers and vineyard-management com- panies have been shifting to full- time crews. Most of the laborers at La Prenda Vineyards Management in Sonoma, Calif., work 11 months per year, said owner Ned Hill. "We're in a big labor shortage and have done everything we can to make them full-time employees." Marquez added that the mi- grant-labor pool "has slowed down practically to a trickle. La Prenda still hires some mi- grant workers to pick grapes and doesn't have as many go to pot, thanks to its location in the south- ern half of Sonoma. "We've only had a couple of people I'm aware of," Hill said. "The further north you go, as you start getting north of Santa Rosa, it is increasingly a problem." Meanwhile, growers are paving the way for increased mechaniza- tion. Most vineyards planted from the mid-1990s through 2010 or so "were set up for hand-harvesting," Hill said. "Now that this labor thing is really real, most people are planting vineyards the way we used to, with wider spacing better set up for mechanization." That doesn't help much in the western half of Mendocino. "In the Anderson Valley we're kind of isolated, with a lot of vine- yards up in the hills," said Foote, whose company is based in the appropriately named hamlet of Boonville. "It's difficult to do me- chanically. There's always a need for more employees." Finding those employees is get- ting tough, and keeping them even tougher. "They walk off be- cause they aren't making enough money," Marquez said. —Bill Ward Vineyards Lose Labor to Marijuana Growers " We're picking grapes out there in the middle of the night or early morning....It's really hard work and long hours, so they go find something else." —Travis Foote, Vineyard Logistics