Napa County’s Legal Battle With Family-Run Winery Sparks a Federal Court Challenge

After a yearslong legal battle, a small winery in Napa County could be forced to pay more than $8 million for hosting tastings and other experiences while its owners challenge the county’s rules in federal court, arguing that wine country’s small winery ordinances violate state law.

Napa County filed a lawsuit against Hoopes Family Winery and Vineyard in 2022, saying it was illegally using some of its land for purposes outside of winemaking, in violation of its “small winery” status. In November, Judge Mark Boessenecker agreed with the county, issuing a decision that Napa’s county code “precludes ‘small winery’ public tours and all tastings, by definition.”

The county is now seeking an injunction to allow it to enforce the judge’s ruling and requesting more than $8 million from Hoopes in penalties and reimbursement of legal fees — a bill that would effectively shut down the vineyard, founder Spencer Hoopes told the San Francisco Chronicle.

While tastings and other experiences are common at any number of the wineries lining Highway 29 up and down the Napa Valley, Spencer Hoopes began planting grapes in front of his home nestled between Napa and Yountville in 1983 and originally made his living selling to other vintners. In the ’90s, though, he decided to create wine under his own name after gaining a reputation for his cabernet sauvignon, according to Hoopes Vineyard’s website.

His daughter Lindsay took over the winery in 2012, and more than a decade later, it has expanded in its locations and offerings. Originally selling just one bottle of wine on-site, Hoopes now also hosts “experiences” and “timed table visits,” invites guests to an on-site animal sanctuary and features two Airstreams for lounging and drinking at a property bought in 2017.

The county contends that Hoopes’ introduction of what are functionally tastings and tours requires a use permit and said in its lawsuit that the winery failed to seek one.

The previous owners of the vineyard land had purchased a Small Winery Certificate of Exemption in 1984. The short-lived county program, which issued exemptions from 1982 to 1986, still allows certificate holders to make wine on their land without going through an arduous, and expensive, permitting process. Napa’s county code requires larger wineries to apply for use permits in order to host tastings, weddings, tours and other non-agriculture-related activities on land in Napa’s extensive — and highly protected — agricultural preserve.

According to Arthur Hartinger, who is representing the county in its lawsuit against Hoopes, the program was designed so that low-impact vineyards could “continue to have a small family farm, grow grapes, produce wine, and sell it in a retail fashion” despite the land’s preservation requirements.

“They just can’t do these other kinds of things that bring more people onto the property and create impacts that have very serious potential consequences,” he continued.

Bringing more people onto the property or expanding its footprint would require a use permit because it could have environmental consequences for the preserve land, such as wastewater impacts, increased water use or traffic in the surrounding area, Hartinger said.

While Hoopes’ exemption allows for two employees and no visitors on-site daily, Lindsay Hoopes testified that the winery welcomes around 60 guests to the grounds per day, along with a number of employees. To qualify for a use permit, it would need to make updates to its wastewater, freshwater and fire protection systems, along with its road and parking. According to the county’s complaint, this could cost the winery between $500,000 and $1 million.

Hoopes, meanwhile, has joined with two other small wineries to allege in a federal lawsuit that some of Napa County’s applicable ordinances are unconstitutionally vague and that the county’s interpretation of these ordinances has changed over the years unfairly.

“I have an email [from the county] that says ‘visitor’ means a liquor store owner, but then, two years ago when they sued Hoopes, [the county] said ‘No, visitor means a customer,’” said Joseph Infante, a lawyer representing the wineries in the federal case. “That’s two different things, and so that violates your constitutional right to engage in your business without arbitrary governmental interference.”

The suit follows a similar one in Michigan, in which a federal court found that local municipalities’ vague ordinances were out of line with state law. Infante worked on that 2020 case and said similarly that the goal of the Hoopes federal case is to “enjoin enforcement of ordinances that are affecting and violating the constitutional rights of wineries.”

The county said in a recent federal court filing that it plans to file a motion to dismiss the case and asked the court to stop litigation from proceeding in the interim. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled Monday that the case would continue to move forward and required that the county turn over discovery to the plaintiffs’ legal team in the coming weeks, but it’s possible that the county could ask the court to dismiss the case entirely.

The trial is currently set to begin at the end of the month.

If the county’s ordinances are allowed to stand, and the court grants its injunction next month, it could affect far more than just Hoopes — other similar small wineries could have to change the way they function in Napa Valley.