Houses to Supplant Vallejo's Last Winery
By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
Feb. 2, 2004
VALLEJO -- The last sizable slice of developable land in the city will be transformed into a cluster of single-family homes, wiping away an old hillside ranch and a tiny winery.
A developer plans to build more than 450 large houses across the gently sloping hills of southeast Vallejo, a former hardscrabble Navy town under the magnetic tug of suburban sprawl.
Braddock & Logan Inc. of Danville, has filed an application to develop the 190-acre Bordoni property at Benicia Road and Columbus Parkway, just north of the Benicia city limits.
The two cities will be separated by a 500-foot setback for open space, part of an agreement reached more than two decades ago.
A draft environmental impact report is expected to be presented in March or April, and city planners will hold public meetings to review the findings.
With it, Jim Bordoni, whose father, Raymond, acquired this scenic slice of land in the 1940s, will put a cork in the last winery in Vallejo. While Bordoni's 2-acre vineyard dates only to the 1980s, the proposed subdivision represents the swift changes in this diverse city of 120,000.
Bordoni, who produces and sells chardonnay and cabernet grapes, declined to comment for this story.
"It's regarded as unique because it is the only winery in Vallejo," said Jim Kern, executive director of the Vallejo Naval & Historical Museum.
"We're sort of at the edge of the world renowned vineyards, part of that world," he added. "It's sort of interesting to have a piece of that, one that we could call our own."
Solano County, just over the hills from the celebrated Napa Valley wine country, has been stomping grapes since the 18th century.
Nonetheless, its 4,757 acres of grapes represent only a small fraction of the county's 344,000 acres devoted to agriculture. While grape acreage and annual tonnage has doubled in Solano County over the past decade -- creating a
$13 million crop -- no one is predicting a second Napa.
"We grow good grapes here; it's a rugged little crop," said Susan Cohen, county agricultural commissioner. "But I don't think the rate increase of planting we saw over the past five or 10 years will increase at the same rate.
"We'll probably see a leveling off."
For a limited time, Vallejo can show off its last few vines.
Bordoni, a former dentist, produces about 200 cases of wine a year, enlisting a team of friends to help with picking. His humble roadside ranch is dwarfed by the sloping hills above his mint-green, single-story house. A rundown former dairy barn is used to ferment the wine.
All of it will be razed to make room for hundreds of spiffy, two-story homes measuring up to 3,400 square feet. A cluster of eucalyptus trees along Columbus Parkway are also slated to be removed, and new roads will twist and fork through hills once used for dairy farming.
Mary Torres, a retired housekeeper whose house on Shea Terrace overlooks the Bordoni ranch, has mixed feelings about the project.
"I hate to see it all get ruined with houses," she said. "I think a lot of us paid to have this view. But, well, progress goes on."
Contra Costa Newspapers
Feb. 2, 2004
VALLEJO -- The last sizable slice of developable land in the city will be transformed into a cluster of single-family homes, wiping away an old hillside ranch and a tiny winery.
A developer plans to build more than 450 large houses across the gently sloping hills of southeast Vallejo, a former hardscrabble Navy town under the magnetic tug of suburban sprawl.
Braddock & Logan Inc. of Danville, has filed an application to develop the 190-acre Bordoni property at Benicia Road and Columbus Parkway, just north of the Benicia city limits.
The two cities will be separated by a 500-foot setback for open space, part of an agreement reached more than two decades ago.
A draft environmental impact report is expected to be presented in March or April, and city planners will hold public meetings to review the findings.
With it, Jim Bordoni, whose father, Raymond, acquired this scenic slice of land in the 1940s, will put a cork in the last winery in Vallejo. While Bordoni's 2-acre vineyard dates only to the 1980s, the proposed subdivision represents the swift changes in this diverse city of 120,000.
Bordoni, who produces and sells chardonnay and cabernet grapes, declined to comment for this story.
"It's regarded as unique because it is the only winery in Vallejo," said Jim Kern, executive director of the Vallejo Naval & Historical Museum.
"We're sort of at the edge of the world renowned vineyards, part of that world," he added. "It's sort of interesting to have a piece of that, one that we could call our own."
Solano County, just over the hills from the celebrated Napa Valley wine country, has been stomping grapes since the 18th century.
Nonetheless, its 4,757 acres of grapes represent only a small fraction of the county's 344,000 acres devoted to agriculture. While grape acreage and annual tonnage has doubled in Solano County over the past decade -- creating a
$13 million crop -- no one is predicting a second Napa.
"We grow good grapes here; it's a rugged little crop," said Susan Cohen, county agricultural commissioner. "But I don't think the rate increase of planting we saw over the past five or 10 years will increase at the same rate.
"We'll probably see a leveling off."
For a limited time, Vallejo can show off its last few vines.
Bordoni, a former dentist, produces about 200 cases of wine a year, enlisting a team of friends to help with picking. His humble roadside ranch is dwarfed by the sloping hills above his mint-green, single-story house. A rundown former dairy barn is used to ferment the wine.
All of it will be razed to make room for hundreds of spiffy, two-story homes measuring up to 3,400 square feet. A cluster of eucalyptus trees along Columbus Parkway are also slated to be removed, and new roads will twist and fork through hills once used for dairy farming.
Mary Torres, a retired housekeeper whose house on Shea Terrace overlooks the Bordoni ranch, has mixed feelings about the project.
"I hate to see it all get ruined with houses," she said. "I think a lot of us paid to have this view. But, well, progress goes on."
posted by Corey at 1:52 PM
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