2017 was a Vintage of Flame!

This 2017 Harvest in the Northern Hemisphere will go down in history as a “Vintage of Flame.” Major devastating wild fires in the hearts of California, Oregon, Washington, Portugal, and Spain wine country. There are true heart-tugging stories of heroism, community, loss, survival & how the wine community nationwide has come together to support those effected.

It started in early September with a discussion of smoke taint and the Columbia River Gorge wine region. Research by Thomas Henick-Kling, director of the Viticulture and Enology department at Washington State University has concluded that wines exposed to prolonged smoke & ash fall produce a finished wine that has “taints described as sometimes campfire, but also ashtray."

There were wild fires burning in the area and around the vineyards, and may wondered if there would be a taint to the grapes from the smoke that settled in the valley. It was making it hard for worker to breath & it was changing the weather. "When you have this much smoke in the air, you have complete climate change: It's cooler, the atmosphere is different," Jocelyn Bentley-Prestwich explains.

The weather conditions in Northern California just prior had been hotter than average & it had been a very dry late summer. Many vineyards harvested early to help manage sugar levels. It is estimated that 90% of the harvest was in the wineries, and in different levels of post-harvest processing.

The fires were just getting wrapped by the forestry services in the pacific northwest, when the Tubbs fire broke out in the heart of Napa & Sonoma counties, on the night of Sunday, October 8. The winds whipped up and next thing you knew there were evacuation orders underway in iconic towns on the wine tourism route.

Fires were 100% contained by October 27th, but not before 42 people were dead, approximately 8,000 properties homes and business were destroyed, 1,000’s were displaced by the devastation, and burnt more than 210,000 acres. The good news was that many vineyards were the very reason the damage wasn’t as bad as it could have been. See, grape vines are naturally fire resistant and were still in vegetative status at the time of the fires. This meant they were green and full of water. Images show fire burning to the first row of vines and then going completely cold, or going around.

There are heart-breaking losses, such as Backbone Vineyard was completely destroyed along with all their wine made from the past five vintages, or Helena View Johnston Vineyards & Pulido-Walker’s Estate Vineyard that were completely burned to the ground. Go just a few miles away and you will hear stories of the fire skirting a property like Darioush Winery, were the estate sustained landscape damage & some vineyard scorching, but the winery itself was untouched.

The community at large has come to the aid of wine country, with many winemakers, distributors, wine groups, and others who have held fundraisers to help support those effected. There have been lots of efforts to help businesses, farm workers, homeowners and others who lost everything, when they had just enough time to grab some clothes, a family heirloom & their phones before fleeing the flames in the night. Some wineries in areas not effected by the fires, have offered temporary positions to workers who’s winery was destroyed by the fires. Acknowledging it is a temporary fix, many hope that being able to focus on work instead of the headache ahead will help them cope with the loss.

Napa & Sonoma wine regions are also back open for business and trying to convince people that all is well. The smoke has lifted, the tasting rooms are open again and restaurants are back to servicing their reservations. Jean Arnold Sessions, executive director of Sonoma County Vintners. “One of the best ways to support our beautiful, diverse and vast region is visiting the open tasting rooms.”

While the last week of October was the end of the fire storm in California Wine Country, it was really only the beginning of this terrible vintage of flame. On October 15^th fires broke out and spread quickly, aided by dry conditions and high winds from the remnants of Hurricane Ophelia devoured the wine regions of Spain & Portugal. When it was all done 45 people had died, 41 in Portugal & 4 in Spain, and thousands of firefighters were deployed to the region.

Vintners in the Dão region of Portugal and in the Rías Baixas area of Spain have lost wineries and homes, and the smoke covered a large portion of the region for days. In these regions, weather conditions have been so dry this year that some of the vines burned as the fires engulfed the pine forests that line the region. The saving grace to this is that rain began to fall steadily about 2 days after the blazes started, with the forecast for intensifying showers. This helped the firefighters & volunteers put out most of the flames, some large enough to be seen from the isle of Great Britain.

In Spain & Portugal, rumors of arson were widespread, as investigations are ongoing with no cause having been determined quickly. In Spain 1 man was arrested for starting a fire, but authorities say they believe it was a misguided attempt to burn brush and not arson. Authorities believe it was probably just a combination of super dry conditions, strong winds and an unfortunate set of circumstances where an open flame or car backfire sparked a blaze.

If nothing else, 2017 will be a memorable vintage. With 100+ degree heat leading into harvest, FIRES everywhere, and the uncertainty of what will become of the wine in the bottle. We shall see in a few years, when we begin Exploring Wine from this vintage.

Top Image by Pablo Blazquez Dominguez of Getty Images