Joe Filippi knew why the columnist was on the phone. “I guess you’re calling about the rumbles that I want to retire and sell the business,” the winemaker said Thursday.
He was right. And he does.
The Joseph Filippi Winery, founded in 1922 by his great-grandfather, and the only substantial winery left in Rancho Cucamonga, is for sale.
It’s not a simple sale transaction. Filippi leases the property on Base Line Road east of Day Creek Boulevard from the city. The property is the former Regina Winery, with roots going back to 1916, and which Filippi Winery has controlled since 1993.
Filippi approached the city in late 2019 to express his interest in retiring, according to Matt Burris, a deputy city manager, and confirmed to me by Filippi. The 99-year lease, at $1 a year, has more than 70 years left.
To figure out the transition to a new operator, City Hall has put out a request for proposals to hear from developers about what they might do with the 14 acres. That process would have started last spring, but the coronavirus put the Riunite on ice, so to speak.
The RFP, in government jargon, was issued Jan. 21 and asks interested parties to register by March 25 and then be ready to submit a proposal by May 20.
“We’re asking the private sector to propose to us how we can transition. We don’t know the economics on the private side. We need them to tell us,” Burris said. “Sale of the property, lease of the property, both are options.”
In the RFP, City Hall suggests “a winery-related, resort-inspired destination with a mix of hospitality, dining and drinking, open space and hospitality-related residential uses.”
Burris said “resort-type amenities” might include spas, restaurants, wine bars and other features one might find at a nice hotel. “Hospitality-related residential uses” might mean — gasp — timeshares.
It’s hard for me to picture tourists traveling to live a few weeks of the year in Rancho Cucamonga — but what do I know? I work next door and can visit anytime I like.
But back to Filippi. I asked what inspired his desire to get out.
“I’m getting old. I’m going to be 70 in a couple of years. I don’t really have the desire to continue as hard as I have,” Filippi said. “If I can sell it, I can work for the new owners. That’s usually what they want.”
His vision is that someone would take over the business and the headaches and let him grow the grapes, make the wine and greet customers.
He gave the city early notice so there’s no rush and the process can proceed at its own pace. And he wants to be around for next year’s Filippi Winery centennial.
Burris envisions an 18- to 24-month process that would involve evaluating the proposals, entering into an exclusive negotiating agreement with the developer behind the best one, holding neighborhood meetings and going through design review, the Planning Commission and City Council hearings.
“It’s a really important site,” Burris said, “and we want to make sure it’s done right.”
Preserving the winery buildings is not guaranteed. The RFP says the structures “do not need to be retained” and says only that “the future design must include cues from the original winery operations” and use “winery-related architecture.”
City Hall isn’t seeking demolition but wants to give potential developers a freer hand to remake the property, Burris explained.
I took a fresh look at the exterior last week. To be honest, the street view from Base Line is blander and more modern than I had remembered. The complex seems like a hodge-podge.
Burris said a small house seems to date to 1916 and the winery built up around it, largely in the postwar period and with additions up until 1982. In other words, it’s not exactly the old Guasti winemaking village in Ontario, which has structures from the 1920s and the character to match.
The Regina Winery wasn’t quite a world-class operation either. Its heyday was 1949-1971, when it primarily produced not wine, but wine vinegar.
Joked Burris: “Wine vinegar is good on salad. Salad doesn’t make as exciting an evening as wine.”
That said, the property is reputed to be among five survivors out of an original 60 wineries in the Cucamonga Valley, and the lore is that in 1968 it became the first winery in the state to have a restaurant. (Maybe it served salad.)
Filippi said he thinks all the buildings ought to be kept. But he’s not adamant on the subject. He’d like “Tuscan or Mission Inn architecture” for what he imagines would be wedding venues, a hotel and shops.
“To get the right project, and the right people, maybe you have to” demolish what’s there, he said.
Jim Banks, an attorney who farms 15 acres of grapes nearby, called himself “very distressed” about the city’s attitude toward retaining the winery in a letter last month to the mayor and council.
In previous winery redevelopments, the city required the striking facade of Virginia Dare to be kept and an elaborate monument to be built at Masi Plaza. Leaders “so dedicated themselves to the preservation of the last full-production winery in Rancho Cucamonga,” Banks said of the Regina Winery, “that they ultimately granted a 99-year lease to a winery.”
If the winery complex is allowed to be demolished, Banks said, the city might as well throw out its city seal, a cluster of grapes.
That’s a thought. Maybe the seal could be a cluster of timeshares.
brIEfly
Today happens to be my birthday. How old? I’ve got as many years as Heinz has varieties. (One more year and Heinz will need to play catchup.)
David Allen puns Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, visit insidesocal.com/davidallen, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on Twitter.
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