Long before marijuana or cannabis was legalised in the United States, growers were already tending to their crops and today they are earning praise for their distinctions of terroir, climate and strain, and the state of California even awards appellations to cannabis farms much like it does wine vineyards, reports Financial Times.
All over Californian growers are cornering the luxury cannabis market from high-end strains to fancy five-star cannabis-infused dinners, the industry has morphed from catering to your average pothead.
Aaron Keefer – the one-time culinary gardener at the world-famous French Laundry restaurant – estimates that the cannabis industry could be worth as much as $13 billion a year. The Napa Valley wine industry is worth between $2-3 billion a year for comparison.
And there is no stopping the massively popular and lucrative industry either. During the height of the coronavirus pandemic – when cannabis dispensaries were declared an essential service in the US – “sales grew by 46 per cent year on year to $17.5 billion.”
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