California starts on road to recovery after devastating wildfires

It will take years for the forests, hillsides and wineries of California’s wine country to recover after 10 days of intense wildfires that claimed 41 lives and destroyed thousands of homes, but damage to the wine industry in the Napa Valley does not appear to be widespread, Napa Valley Vintners (NVV) has said.

Mt. Veeder, Napa. Credit: Jackson Family Wines

As of this morning, NVV had heard from 330 of its member wineries, with 47 reporting direct damage from and “just a handful” experiencing significant property loss. Outreach continues, but the percentage of wineries directly affected is not expected to significantly increase, NVV said.

The wildfires, which began on Monday (9 October), swept throughout northern California by high winds and were most damaging in the Atlas Peak-Stag’s Leap area near Yountville, in Sonoma County between Kenwood and Santa Rosa, and in the mountains north and west of Calistoga. A total of 41 people have been confirmed to have lost their lives, including a fire worker, while many wineries have been severely damaged or destroyed. 

As reported by the drinks business, among the wineries known to have been most severely affected are Signorello in Napa, Paradise Ridge in Santa Rosa, Sonoma, and Paras Vineyards in Napa, Mount Veeder.

“Much of this week’s news has focused on how the fires will impact Napa Valley’s wine industry,” said Michael Honig, chair of the Napa Valley Vintners (NVV) Board of Directors and president of Honig Vineyard & Winery.

“Winemaking is, indeed, our heart and soul and our biggest economic driver. But, first and foremost, these events are a human tragedy with lives lost and personal property destroyed. While we are eager to ‘get back to normal,’ we also have to keep the proper perspective.”

Fires continue to burn throughout the region, however first responders “now have the upper hand,” said NVV.

As of this morning, the eastern Napa/western Solano County Atlas Fire was at 83% containment; the Nuns Fire (a combination of five different fires on the west side of Napa Valley/east side of Sonoma and Santa Rosa) at 80% containment; and the Tubbs fire west of Calistoga and north of Santa Rosa at 91% containment.

According to the National Weather Service, there is a chance of rain late Thursday.

“We are enormously grateful to the first responders, law enforcement personnel, community leaders and volunteers who have worked tirelessly to help our communities,” added Honig. “We are also humbled and honored by the unprecedented outpouring of support and generosity from our friends around the world. Those inquiries, kind words and expressions of compassion helped us to get through this terrible time.”

In terms of the impact on the wine industry and the 2017 harvest, NVV said it was too early to tell, but that based on reports from some of the region’s largest wineries, 90% of grapes by volume were picked before the fires started on October 8.

“Vintners are very optimistic about the quality of the 2017 vintage and the winemaking that was already underway when the fires started,” it said. “Of the grapes remaining on the vine when the fires began, most were thick-skinned Cabernet Sauvignon. Wineries that could safely access their vineyards continued to pick their grapes. The circumstances surrounding these fires and the grapes left on the vine is unprecedented and the potential effects of the fires are not yet fully known.

“For those grapes picked after the fires started, winemakers are diligently inspecting them and having wines made from them laboratory-tested for the possible effects of smoke. No matter the circumstances, Napa Valley’s winemakers remain committed to upholding the renowned region’s reputation for making some of the world’s finest wines. Everything possible will be done to ensure only the highest quality 2017 wines go to market.”

NVV did state that the volume of the 2017 vintage will be lower than average, with early, anecdotal estimates projecting shortages to be “comparable to other years affected by the common irregularities of farming, like drought, frost damage.”