Napa Valley Wine Industry Loses Wine But Keeps Its Spirit
Bouchaine Vineyards
On Sunday, a 6.0 Napa Earthquake rocked wine country during the height of the tourist season. Today, many wineries, restaurants and residents are still picking up the pieces. Seeing the devastation first hand brought tears to my eyes. My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone impacted.
I had the chance to speak with several winemakers including Marc Mondavi who said Charles Krug and Divining Rod suffered little to no damage. Opus One winemaker, Michael Silacci said they were relatively untouched. Yet Silver Oak Cellars who is just up the road from Opus One in Oakville lost hundreds of irreplaceable bottles of wine. Erin Sullivan from Acme Fine Wines told me they only lost one bottle of wine and Farella Vineyard in Coombsville is doing fine.
Aarrot Pott posted a picture on Facebook that reads “Bye bye Blackbird, bye bye” with a picture of his wine barrels toppled over. Seeing this you can’t help but wonder how can Mother Nature be so selective? I spoke Patsy McGaughy from the Napa Valley Vintners and she said it really was a case by case basis. In general, the wineries in the North Valley like Calistoga and St. Helena weren’t hit as hard as the wineries in the South Valley like Napa or the Carneros District.
In this wine video, Monique Soltani has an exclusive interview with a South Valley winemaker from Bouchaine Vineyards who says he hasn’t seen anything like this in his 30 plus years on the job.
UPDATE: Bouchaine Vineyards just counted their loses and they are now reporting 2,000 gallons of wine lost due to Sunday’s earthquake. That is double what they originally estimated.
Good news both the Napa Valley Grapegrowers and Napa Valley Vintners tell me there was little to no damage done to the grapevines and harvest 2014 should not be impacted. As far as what impact this will have on the wine loving public?
Here’s the latest information reported by the Napa Valley Vintners on how Sunday’s earthquake impacted the wine industry. At this time, it is too early to provide damage or loss estimates for wine, equipment and facilities, but here are some things that are known:
Some NVV member wineries did sustain damage to their barrel storage areas, wine inventory and production equipment over the weekend, but details are not currently available.
There were no reports of winery employees being injured by the earthquake.
The majority of the wine that is at the wineries right now is from the 2012 and 2013 vintages – the two most abundant vintages ever. While some individual wineries may experience inventory shortages as a result of the earthquake, it is not expected to have a significant impact on Napa Valley wine inventory in general.
Downtown Napa
August 25, 2014
The NVV’s immediate priority remains the health and wellbeing of those in the community affected by the earthquake, including the more than 200 treated for injuries at Queen of the Valley Medical Center; more than 200 who were offered aid from the Red Cross; the dozens of buildings and homes that have been “red-tagged” following the incident; and the neighborhoods that are still without water and gas and may be for several more days.
The association is taking several steps to serve as a centralized resource for its 500 members, including sending bulletins with updated information about earthquake resources and adding an Earthquake Relief section to its online Vintners Forum to facilitate winery to winery assistance and support. Napa County officials have asked the NVV to serve as a centralized resource by compiling information about damages and losses experienced by wineries.
The NVV is also planning a workshop later this week to help those affected by the earthquake with their immediate questions.
Harvest is underway in Napa Valley and everyone is working hard to get business “back to normal” as quickly as possible. Weather throughout the growing season has been ideal and vintners are expecting yet another excellent vintage, the third year in a row in the region. The earthquake did not impact vineyards or the grapes on the vine and majority of Napa Valley’s wineries are open for business.
For those who did suffer equipment or facility damage, there are resources available to secure temporary tanks and other production equipment to help them get through the next few weeks. The spirit of collaboration for which the Napa Valley is known is expected to prevail, even for those who did suffer damage.
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