The magnitude 6.0 earthquake in California’s Napa wine country damaged buildings and wine held in storage at some wineries. The Sacramento Bee says Napa has nearly 800 wineries and the industry has a $13 billion impact on the county. One large-scale vintner said it was taking stock of the impact on more than 4,000 barrels of wine in its warehouse.
“The early assessment in Napa on Monday was that there were no major losses of wine, though many historic winery buildings were damaged,” said the Washington Post. By good fortune, the earthquake struck during the grape harvest, before wine tanks and barrels used in aging wine were filled with the new vintage. Donald Patz, owner of Patz & Hall winery in Sonoma, told the Post “the little bit of wine we have at the winery right now, it’s just going into barrels.”
“(A)s winemakers and tourism officials began cleaning up and assessing the damage, there was evidence that the impact may not have been as widespread” as feared, said the New York Times. “In many cases, wine had just been moved from oak or metal barrels, where the earthquake could cause the most spillage, to bottles stacked in cases protected by shrink-wrap.”
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters it was too early to say if the damage was large enough to prompt an agricultural disaster declaration, which would open the door to low-cost loans for producers.