eLton Slone and his colleagues gathered at their annual pre-harvest company party at Robert Craig in the Napa Valley last week – when one of his colleagues noticed an alarm on their phone. The Pickett Fire is a fire about 10 miles away near the town of Calistoga, heading towards the vineyards of Howell Mountain.
Know the Glass Fire – The 2020 Fire Damage many breweries and Spoiled A harvest of the year – Burning along the same path, Sloan hopes this new fire has no fuel. “But it is not the case,” he said. Within a week, the winery’s candlestick vineyard will become “a sacrificial lamb for the town of Angwen.”
Vineyards can make the burning good because they usually remove combustible plant matter, and the vines themselves are wet enough to be non-combustible. But heat damage and smoke can still damage crops.
Robert Craig Winery lost all revenue from Candlestick Vineyards, with revenue of $4.5 million. It is estimated that about 10% of vines in the vines need to be replanted – a process that will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and will take a decade to see new bottles of new wine ready for the market. The team will test the grapes in another vineyard to see if the smoke affects the grapes.
The loss occurred at the end of the growing season – nearly $1 million in the vineyards in Slone were sunk in agricultural costs – and became even more devastating due to what had happened before. Memories of the 2020 Glass Fire and the 2018 Camp Fire are still fresh. “It’s a financially devastating situation,” Slona said.
Still burning Pickett FireBeginning on August 21 in northern Napa County, 6,800 acres (2,750 hectares) were quickly burned down, making it the San Francisco Bay Area The biggest wildfire This year. Preliminary estimates suggest that it caused $65 million in agricultural lossesmainly affecting wine grape growers, affecting about 1,500 acres (610 hectares) of agricultural land.
Although this damage is much lower than the losses caused by the glass fire, which burned 67,000 acres (27,000 hectares) and lost $3.7 billion, a growing threat to drought wildfires. California Still shaken the wine industry.
“The Northern California Wine Country is one of the treasures of the United States,” Slolon said. “This is something I think all Americans should pay attention to because it’s a unique thing in the United States.”
“Smell like a bonfire”
On the West Coast, with the support of scientists from American Agriculture and local universities, wine growers have implemented many strategies to prepare for wildfires.
Ben Montpetit, chair of the Department of Viticulture and Botany at UC Davis, said in an emailed statement that the industry has adopted “obstacles to reduce smoke absorption, annual testing to establish baseline smoke marking levels in grapes, and small flue fermentation after smoke events to assess potential wine effects.”
“Researchers are also investigating which grape varieties are more sensitive or tolerant to smoke exposure,” he added.
“We’ve made a lot of progress in the preparation field,” said Natalie Collins, president of the California Wine Glasses Growers Association. Smoke exposure task force After the losses in 2018, help growers after wildfires.
The presence of the task force hints at the perennial problems of vineyards: Although they can usually keep wildfires away from acres, there is little to stop the smoke from smoke. And if the smoke stays in an area for too long, it may leave grapes to taste ashes like a bonfire.
“The smoke pollution problem is a bit fickle,” said Heather Griffin, partner at Summit Lake Vineyards and Winery. “It depends on the variety, on your maturity level, and on the exposure time.”
Griffin’s family’s vineyard was saved from the Pickett fire, she said—“They stopped at the end of the ridge on Mount Howell,” she said—but they needed to send the grapes for testing before harvesting to make sure the smoke did not contaminate it.
Protect the industry
In its first year in history, crop insurers have provided a new coverage called “Fire Protection Insurance” Smoke Index Recognition, which will ensure the loss caused by smoke exposure in vineyards.
But some growers say the cost of crop insurance becomes unavailable after repeated wildfires.
“Our insurance has risen a lot after the 2020 fire. In fact, it’s going from $40,000 a year, all of our properties and inventory are excellent, now it’s $300,000 a year, without coverage,” Slone said.
He added that for 95% of Napa Valley is a family-owned brewery, it could be “disastrous”.
The wine industry has historically relied on federal funding to support USDA and universities’ research on wildfire preparation. Despite widespread cuts from federal cuts, these levels remain stable Get fired and rehired In the layoffs on the Trump administration.
“We want to make sure industries like ours continue to be protected,” Collins said. We continue to see writing on the California walls, and wildfires may continue to be a problem. ”
Some federal relief funds could have a way to affect the vineyards, but Griffin said buying wine from these wineries “helps everyone here.”
“Send them an email and buy some wine,” Slone added. “They will be the ones that they appreciate the most on earth.”
Health & Wellness Contributor
A wellness enthusiast and certified nutrition advisor, Meera covers everything from healthy living tips to medical breakthroughs. Her articles aim to inform and inspire readers to live better every day.
