Our nation holds a historic inauguration this month, and I don’t intend to miss it—mostly because I missed nearly every aspect of election night that didn’t relate directly to Napa County politics.
As the whole world watched and many wept on November 4, I was doing interviews for Napa’s public-access cable TV Channel 28, with the winners of an unsuspenseful council race in a town that has about 2,100 voters. I never saw a TV and only heard a fragment of the president-elect’s speech on public radio as I dashed from Yountville to Napa in search of happy Democrats to comment on the results.
After that, most people were either rejoicing or going home to bed—but not your all-too-appropriately named Napa Insider. No: I cooled my heels inside the county elections office lobby until well past 11 p.m., in an effort to get an update on the 8 p.m. ballot count. There were some close municipal races up-valley, and a hot contest for the District 5 supervisor’s seat that pitted a former fire chief from American Canyon against the retired county sheriff. (In a telling show of south-county strength, American Canyon votes put the fire chief over the top.)
The count went slowly: Rough edges left when voters tore off their ballot stubs were jamming the optical-scanning machine that counts the paper ballots. The machine counting always happens just inside a door with a big open window, so reporters like me and other election observers can both watch and hear the process—and it was excruciating. Every few minutes, it seemed, workers had to clear the jam and wipe out the fine bits of paper inside the machine.
And needless to say, there was no TV in the elections lobby, which serves other county offices as well. Nor were there refreshments or music. There was a printer. There were water fountains. This was all business—and definitely not show business. I had no idea what was going on at the TV station.
But, once John McCain and Barack Obama’s speeches were over, the call-in lines started to light up back at the Channel 28 studio as Napa viewers tuned in for county results. The beleaguered anchors were desperate for more information—and all I could do was call in on my cell phone, describe the counting scene and tell stories of the many past election nights I’ve languished in what I termed the “purgatorial” waiting room. (One election worker overheard me and said, “Glad to hear we’ve been promoted!”)
In the end, the 11 p.m. results added nothing to what we knew, and I went home to an empty house with no TV, listened to the radio for a while then went to bed. No tears, no cheers, no beers. It was a strangely banal evening for such a historic occasion.
Still, I’m proud to have been asked (and even paid, very promptly) to take part in local coverage on election night. This was no “Wayne’s World” cable experience. Channel 28 general manager Dan Monez, a professional actor who’s also Napa’s most recently retired police chief, put together a team that included a two-person anchor desk and live correspondents in three cities—not to mention the call-in lines. Everyone onscreen had at least one camera handler, and Monez directed. There was even some B-roll (pre-produced video) of county elections head John Tuteur walking a ballot through the entire vote-counting process.
It wasn’t CNN—and every now and then, I felt as if Christopher Guest might be planning a mockumentary on local elections coverage—but we carried on for more than three hours, doing our level best to inform our neighbors.
That’s why this month, I’m going to find an inauguration party someplace with a big TV and just sit still, watch and listen. Racing sailors have a phrase, “getting your head out of the boat,” that’s worth considering in many contexts. I need to get my head out of the Napa County boat every once in a while and look at the broader landscape.
OK, how about China?
The wine business is looking better than ever along the South China Sea. After abolishing its import tax on beer and wine in February 2008, Hong Kong became one of the few members of what U.S. agricultural trade consul Philip Shull calls “the extremely limited club of tax-free importers of wine and beer.” Then, in August, Macao—China’s only other “special administrative region” and also a separate customs territory distinct from Beijing—did away with its 15 percent duty on beer and wine.
“Traders are rejoicing nearly as much in the elimination of the paperwork requirements as they are in the elimination of the excise tax,” wrote Shull in a public report dated August 20, 2008. Shull quoted U.S. Customs statistics indicating that U.S. wine and beer exports to Hong Kong exceeded $8 million in the first half of 2008. That’s an enticing 132 percent increase over the same period in 2007.
For Macao, even before abolishing the 15 percent tariff, the increase was even more startling: $3 million in exports between January and June of 2008 equals what Shull called “an astonishing 1,576 percent.” And at least some of that wine will be heading from the “special administrative regions” to mainland China—Shull notes that visiting Chinese are allowed to bring two bottles apiece back to their higher-tariff home.
Broker Turino Fu, who represents several California wineries in Hong Kong and other Asian markets, says the Napa Valley’s Bordeaux-inspired blends are exactly what the increasingly sophisticated Asian wine consumer is looking for. “When we bring them to Hong Kong, oh my God, people are buying cases. They’re asking for quotes for containers of 50 cases.”
Fu told me this some weeks before the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) began to cast a pall. Nonetheless, now that Macao, with its burgeoning casino business, has joined Hong Kong in ending the wine-and-beer duty (spirits will continue to be taxed), prospects are promising for the Napa Valley wineries that have begun moving into the Chinese marketplace.
