News / Business

County’s winery code matures, ripens

Widespread reports of Rusty Grape Vineyard's demise one effect as bumps are worked out

The Columbian

Published: January 24, 2015, 4:00pm

Jeremy Brown, owner of Rusty Grape Vineyard, prepares food for a wine tasting on July 26, 2013. County commissioners, in the process of developing a winery code to regulate the new industry, had elected to allow some food service at wineries as long as it complies with county health code.

BATTLE GROUND — Last month, Clark County posted a “do not occupy” notice on the exterior of Rusty Grape Vineyard’s entrance door. If this sounds like déjà vu, it’s because several North County wineries received similar notices around the Christmas holiday in 2013.

Jeremy Brown, owner of Rusty Grape Vineyard, discovered first-hand the power of the Internet when he posted a photo of the notice to his Facebook page. It was quickly visible on the timelines of 40,000 social media fans, leading people to believe that the winery, which opened in 2006, was closed for business.

It turns out, however, that Rusty Grape never closed.

According to Marty Snell, director of Clark County Community Development, a letter was sent to Rusty Grape and two other area wineries on Oct. 15 requesting that work for which permits had been issued be completed by Nov. 14. By the time the county reviewed whether work had been completed, the popular Thanksgiving wine tour weekend was looming and the county decided to wait until after the event to post the “do not occupy” notice.

The notice was posted Dec. 8. Brown contacted the county with updated information, and it was determined that Rusty Grape had a permit with an expiration date of “Dec. 15-ish, so we pulled the ‘do not occupy’ because he said he’d do the work and he did,” Snell said said.

The situation highlights growing pains in Clark County’s budding wine industry, tasking winery owners, neighbors and community development to come together to formulate a comprehensive wineries and tasting room plan based on a unique set of business practices.

The majority of Clark County’s 14 wineries with public tasting rooms have been converted from agricultural buildings never intended to house people — employees or customers — or in historic structures built before current codes were put in place requiring a structural engineer inspection, among other things.

Snell said the more services a winery offers, the more exhaustive the permitting process can be. The scope of permits and inspections required at a winery can be influenced by such factors as the number of days the winery is open to the public each week and whether it offers live entertainment or food service.

Rusty Grape’s desire to create a local hangout that fosters community by hosting everything from craft fairs to art shows to a recent Front Porch storytelling event has been both a challenge and an opportunity to refine the wineries and tasting room permitting process.

The latest version of the rules, issued last February, takes into account annual events, noise limits, food service and input from neighbors who may share a private road with the tasting room.

Referring to a lengthy list of changes that reconfigured the Rusty Grape tasting room, Brown said, “the remodel makes more sense logistically. Now being one bar, it all makes sense and it flows better and the kitchen efficiency’s there.”

“It was a very costly, confusing process in that there’s a lot of people down there (Clark County Community Development) that were easy to work with — very helpful — but there were a few people who seemed very begrudging, as though we were doing something wrong,” Brown said

Brown is so confident in the process going forward, however, that he intends to add more indoor seating to make up for the 20 that were lost in the necessary remodel, and expand outdoor seating with a tiered concrete patio.

“We already have plans submitted because we need some permitting. (We’re) planning on applying for permits in February,” Brown said.

With 2014 being an exceptional grape-growing year, Brown said Rusty Grape enjoyed its biggest crush ever with 68½ tons of grapes, giving the winery 3,000 cases to be released and another 3,000 in inventory.

“I think that everybody wants to move forward and be positive and see Rusty Grape succeed and expand,” Brown said.

“Moving forward, the rules are in place and the rules are there to allow wineries to set up, and whether they have light food service or more intense food service, they can do that,” Snell said. “We’ve written a winery code that is business-friendly, and I would hold ours up to any county in terms of, ‘Is this business-friendly?’ I would say, ‘Yes it is.’ “

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