Jen Pelka had a vision for her wine brand, Une Femme. Instead of a traditional tasting room, she dreamed of a pool club in Sonoma where day-trippers could sip sparkling wine with views of vineyards and the Mayacamas Mountains. She would offer a free shuttle to and from San Francisco, catering to young people “in the Marina,” she said, who are “the kinds of people that we want to fall in love with wine and get up to Wine Country.”
Pelka got close to realizing the dream. She persuaded investors to commit nearly $7 million to the project. Her offer to buy the Patz & Hall tasting room, a well-known landmark in Sonoma, was accepted. She hired a pool designer, who began drawing up plans to add one to an open lawn. But when she brought the proposal to the Sonoma County planning department, the dream began to shatter.
Wineries and tasting rooms in Sonoma County cannot have pools, a county planner ultimately informed her…