On the last weekend of September 2020, the wind-driven Glass Fire swept through Napa Valley. For the fourth time in only four years, wildfires were wreaking havoc in Wine Country.
But, unlike the LNU Lightning Complex fires in August 2020, the Kincade Fire in October 2019, and the Tubbs, Nuns and Atlas fires in October 2017, the Glass Fire was taking a deep toll on the area’s wineries. Before the fire was contained on Oct. 20, 2020, it had extended into Sonoma County, and damaged or destroyed nearly 30 winery properties in the middle of harvest season.
Cain Vineyard & Winery, with a 90-acre estate vineyard perched high on a slope in the Spring Mountain district west of St. Helena, was among those wineries damaged by the Glass Fire. The flames engulfed winery buildings, burned through vines and consumed 100 tons of fermenting juice, as well as the 2019 vintage, which was aging in barrels.
The catastrophe cost the winery more than $30 million, explained Cain winegrower Chris Howell. Before the fire, the winery produced 10,000 to 12,000 cases each year. Today, it makes 2,000 to 3,000 cases and focuses on rebuilding.
“Over time, we found some vines that truly didn’t survive as we had hoped, and found others that refused to give up,” Howell said.
As extreme weather conditions continue to threaten the California wine industry, a new book — “A Year in the Vineyard” (Cultureshock) — follows the life cycle of the vine in a series of vignettes from 45 wineries in 35 wine regions around the world and details the challenges winemakers and winegrowers confront throughout the four seasons, including wildfires, droughts and floods.
Cain Vineyard & Winery is among three local wineries featured in the book, alongside stunning photographs shot by dozens of photographers, including co-authors Sophie Menin, an award-winning journalist, and Bob Chaplin, an environmental artist, landscape designer and wine writer.
Winegrowers and winemakers are on the front line of the climate crisis, said Menin, who is quick to explain that she is not an expert but rather an observer of climate change.
The theme of climate change, while not the focus of the book, emerged from the stories winemakers and winegrowers shared with the authors.
“If you listen to the experts, we’re at an inflection point,” Menin said. “Because they (winegrowers) are living with the climate crisis so intensely and having to respond, we can really learn how they’re cultivating natural resilience within their vineyards.”
In addition to Chris Howell of St. Helena’s Cain Vineyard & Winery, the book also includes interviews with Ted Lemon of Sebastopol’s Littoral Wines and Joseph Brinkley of Mendocino County’s Bonterra Organic Vineyards.
These unconventional thought leaders are hoping to bring about a paradigm shift in farming, Menin said.
“Ted Lemon said it all: climate change is a symptom of human behavior. To make changes, we have to find a new way of living. And to do this, we have to find a new way of farming. I think it encapsulates a lot of what we’re trying to show (with this book),” she said.
Howell of Cain Vineyard & Winery said he sensed the canary in the coal mine in 2005, when it was reported that global warming was melting glaciers in Antarctica at an alarming rate.
“We humans respond to dramatic events like tornadoes and wildfires and storms,” he said. “But the gradual frog cooking in a pot, we’re not good at seeing that.”
Now, to better adapt to the changing climate, Cain Vineyard & Winery is focusing on drought-tolerant rootstocks, as well as considering planting varietals that ripen later in the harvest season. And to protect against fires, it has adopted a new farming practice of keeping cover crops away from the base of the vines.
A vintage tainted by wildfire smoke
Smoke hovered over the Sonoma Coast in the fall of 2020, tainting grapes that vintner Ted Lemon, and his wife, Heidi, had hoped to bottle for their Littorai Wines. The culprits were two fires — the Walbridge Fire that ignited in west Sonoma County in August (as part of the LNU Lightning Complex fires) and the Glass Fire that started just north of St. Helena in September of that year.
“We made no Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir because the grapes were all damaged by smoke and there was no way we were going to make compromised wines,” Lemon said. “That would have been 3,000 cases; close to 50% of production. Just off the top of my head, we’re talking about more than $2 million from that one event.”
It was a significant loss for a mom-and-pop winery with less than 20 employees, Lemon explained. And, at the same time, Littorai was hit with spiraling insurance rates.
