Hope as vintners assess long-term impact of fires
The moisture in grape vines makes them resilient. Photo/CalFire
By Esther Mobley, San Francisco Chronicle
Many of the most powerful images coming out of the Wine Country fires last week depicted the wine industry as charred, its future threatened.
A generations-old winery engulfed in flames and reduced to rubble. Symmetrical rows of grapevines, backlit by a bright line of approaching fire.
Uncertainty and anxiety grip the wine community. And as the magnitude of the damage becomes clearer and missing loved ones are located, attention will turn to the scale of the devastation to the pastoral region’s multibillion-dollar wine industry.
No one would compare the loss of wine with the loss of life. But wine is these communities’ lifeblood — economic, cultural and otherwise. As Sam Coturri, owner of Sonoma’s Winery Sixteen 600, put it: “Saving our lives up here also means protecting our livelihood.”