The tragedy of lost lives and devastated neighborhoods has made the wildfires in Napa and Sonoma front page news across the country, and those sad stories will remain with us until the fires are contained, which could be days or even weeks from now. Once the smoke has cleared, another story will unfold: the damage to the region’s vital winemaking and tourism industries.
Many livelihoods depend on wine, from hotel workers to vineyard laborers, sales reps to sommeliers, and this year’s harvest could be a bust. Though consumers in Southern California and elsewhere probably won’t notice any immediate effects, the consequences of the fires could well be felt in prices, quality and availability two to four years from now, as the 2017 wines reach maturity and newly planted vines start producing fruit.
In Napa, the fires dominate every waking moment. “We are living through an unbelievable thing right now, from the air heavy (and) thick with ashes to the point you almost can’t see a block ahead of you, to all of the devastation,” said wine writer and marketer Julie Ann Kodmur from her home in St. Helena on Wednesday. “All the modes of communication (have been) affected. We only got cell service back about an hour ago; (we’ve) been out of power and Internet since Sunday night.”
Kodmur said the town of St. Helena appeared untouched by fire, but nearby wineries were threatened. “(My) concern is for Smith-Madrone,” she said of her family’s winery. “There are two fires in different places which could conceivably head that way. Stu and Charlie (Smith, brothers and the winery’s co-founders) are doing everything they can do to prepare.”
Smith-Madrone’s plight, playing out similarly at countless wineries in Northern California, could mean dark days for the industry.
Local winegrowers in Temecula Valley responded to the news.
Krista Chaich, director of operations for the Temecula Valley Winegrowers Association, called the fires “devastating.”
“I always say that even though the wine business is a big business in California, the wine community is a very, small tight-knit community,” Chaich said. “When something happens to one of our wine regions, it certainly affects all of us here.”
The Wine Institute estimates that California is the world’s fourth-largest wine producer. In 2015, the wine business employed about 325,000 people statewide and generated more than $57 billion in economic activity, including $7.2 billion in tourist-related income. Almost 24 million tourists visit California wineries every year, and a majority of them head to the picturesque valleys north of San Francisco where esteemed wineries, world-class restaurants and five-star hotels dot the verdant landscape.
While Napa and Sonoma are responsible for only a fraction of California’s wine – the Central Valley alone produces almost 75 percent of California’s wine grapes – they are home to many of the state’s premier American Viticultural Areas, identified by climate, geology and other factors to be ideal for producing quality wine. Napa and Sonoma are our state’s equivalent to France’s beloved Bordeaux region, and a few producers in certain parts of Napa Valley and its surrounding hills – Oakville Cross, Rutherford, Howell Mountain’s Pritchard Hill, Mount Veeder – fetch Bordeaux-like prices for their coveted Cabernet Sauvignon and Bordeaux blends.
By Wednesday morning, at least five wineries had been destroyed and nine others damaged in different parts of Napa and Sonoma. The total losses include Signorello Estate on the Silverado Trail, White Rock Vineyards in the Stag’s Leap area and Paradise Ridge in hard-hit Santa Rosa. Others, such as picturesque Darioush, a popular tourist attraction for its opulent estate, have been damaged. Many large hotels have also been obliterated, including the sprawling Hilton Sonoma Wine Country Hotel and the nearby Fountaingrove Inn just east of Highway 101 in the north end of Santa Rosa.
The only silver lining for the wine industry in Napa and Sonoma was the hot weather in late summer and early fall. It hastened the ripening process and brought about earlier-than-usual harvests. Various sources estimate that only 10 to 30 percent of the 2017 crop remain on the vine, far less than usual for early October.
But if they survive the flames, some of those grapes will be useless for wine production. “Smoke taint,” as it’s called in the industry, severely damages flavor; it’s especially noticeable in the “nose” or smell of a newly opened bottle of affected wine. “In really bad cases, it can really have the taste of an ashtray,” said Anita Oberholster, a professor of viticulture and enology at the University of California at Davis, in a CNBC interview.
The fires are so severe that no parts of the region will be unaffected, even vineyards miles away from the flames. “The smoke taint thing will be global — both valleys,” reported Alex Andrawes, a wine broker in Texas and owner of PersonalWine.com. “No pockets spared, I fear.”
Chaich, whose nonprofit supports local wineries and vineyards, said Temecula Valley had not experienced a fire like those affecting Napa and Sonoma counties.
“We’ll take what we’re seeing in Northern California and definitely start working on a contingency plan in this area,” Chaich said. “We’ve never had anything this devastating happen to us yet. Obviously there’s some work to do.”
But Jim Gordon, editor of Wines & Vines magazine, said smoke taint might not be as big a problem as some fear. “This late in the year the grapes are basically mature. They’re not taking in air through the leaves. The winemakers I talked to aren’t expressing much concern about (smoke taint) right now.” And the wine that’s already fermenting or aging should be fine as long as the production facilities avoid being consumed by flames and workers are available for pump overs and other procedures, Gordon added.
Orange County wine educator Peter Neptune wasn’t as sanguine about the wine that’s fermenting, noting that much of Napa and Sonoma have been without power since Sunday and most wineries don’t have emergency generators. “You can only go a couple of days without power in a winery at this time of year. Your fermentation (process) will quickly get out of control.”
Gordon said wine-industry leaders he talked to were more concerned about the fire’s effect on wine tourism than the harvest itself. “It’s a huge worry that people will stay away because of the fires, especially this time of year. Wine country does most of its (tourism) business around harvest.”
California has many other respected wine-producing regions unaffected by the fires, and they could benefit from the disaster over the next few harvests, although nobody is talking about that at the moment. The wine industry in other parts of the state is reaching out to help. On Wednesday the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance announced a fundraising effort for affected wineries. Participating wineries in Paso Robles will donate $1 per bottle of wine sold through the end of October to a charity that will assist affected people and businesses.
As for the long-term effect of the fires on wine sales, Gordon said it all depends on certain taste buds.
“Sommeliers and retail wine buyers will all know that 2017 was the fire vintage,” he said. “They’ll be a little skeptical until they start tasting and get reassured.”
Or not. It will be a tense couple of years for Napa and Sonoma winemakers before the 2017 vintage starts getting opened and poured. In the meantime, the fires will leave them, and everyone else in their beleaguered industry, plenty of work to do.
[ad_2]
Source link