Cinnabar, a winery that has had a presence in Saratoga for over 40 years, is shutting down its wine bar in the city amid a broader decline in the wine industry and a decrease in patronage at the downtown storefront.
Ron Mosley, who has owned Cinnabar since 2019, came to the winery in 1983 to plant the first chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon grapes in the Saratoga hillsides near Mountain Winery. Cinnabar opened a wine bar in downtown Saratoga in 2007.
The Saratoga wine bar will close on March 30, and Cinnabar will shift its operations to its winery and tasting room in Gilroy.
“It’s sad for us to leave, of course,” Mosley said. “It’s one of those things that it took me agonizing a year to do.”
Mosley said business has been difficult ever since the pandemic. Not only has foot traffic in the area declined, but Cinnabar’s customer base has started to age out of drinking wine, and Mosley said potential customers who are younger gravitate toward products like hard seltzers before wine.
“I hoped COVID would come out better, but it just didn’t; a lot of things weren’t returned back to normal,” he said.
Saratoga’s changing profile has also influenced business, Mosley said, as newer residents haven’t been as consistent in their patronage as older residents. And even though big events in downtown like Saratoga’s annual car show have helped bring in more business to the wine bar, overall expenses have outpaced those potential profits.
“You might generate $1,000 from them, but that’s nothing when the rent is $7,000,” Mosley said.
The wine bar’s departure from downtown Saratoga comes as residents and city officials have been engaged in an effort to revitalize the downtown area, which some have said is on “life support.” The city has been working on a pilot outdoor dining program in the hopes of returning to the vibrancy some say existed only when outdoor dining was the default during the pandemic.
Residents have said that Cinnabar’s departure from downtown Saratoga is an indication that even beloved, longstanding businesses in the area aren’t sustainable.
“They’ve been a great addition to the Village; they brought a lot of people here,” said Vice Mayor Chuck Page. “I think a lot of people have loved the environment that they created with their patio and their porch, to be able to sit outside.”
Resident Nedda Ashjae, who is part of the economic vitality effort, said Cinnabar’s closure is further indication that the city’s outdoor dining pilot program will be essential to that effort,
“The only thing that will bring the city of Saratoga back to life is storefronts,” she said.
Cinnabar will continue to offer events and wine tastings out of its Gilroy location at 3200-A Dryden Ave. Visit www.cinnabarwinery.com for more information.
