California is experiencing its worst wildfire season, with over 4 million acres burned and serious damage to the world-famous wineries there.
Alexandrians could feel these effects in the wine they drink. Napa Valley and Sonoma County were hit by the 60,000 acre Glass Fire, which came within 1,000 feet of Elizabeth Myllenbeck’s California home.
Myllenbeck is co-owner of restaurant and tasting room Sonoma Cellar in Alexandria, named after the region in California they get many of their wines from. Fire effects on vineyards are nothing new to her.
“There was a fire in 2014 up in Lake County, which is north of Napa,” Myllenbeck said. “There was some smoke taint considered, and they say it gives kind of a meaty taste to the wines.”
In the past they haven’t found fault in wines that have smoke taint, finding them to have an umami and luscious flavor. Right now, it is soon to tell what effect the smoke has had on this year's vintage.
Vineyards are in crush season right now, so as they taste the juice they will be able to plan how to adapt to any smoke taint. Adapting to the taint could be done by combining this year’s wine with other vintages.
“So, it will be interesting to see what will end up happening, but I’m sure most of the vignerons and winemakers are being very quiet about that right now,” Myllenbeck said. “They’re just seeing what they’ve got.” She is confident the wine producers will be able to adapt, citing their creativity.
Vineyards actually serve as great fire barriers because of all the open space and moisture in the vines and grapes. As a result, the grapes are often not destroyed, but the wineries where the wine is storied, produced and sold do often fall victim to the flames.
In 2017, in Napa Valley Signorello Estate’s tasting room burned down. Sonoma Cellar has served their wine before, but after they suffered damaged, they wanted to help support them by pouring more of their wines.
This year there were some smaller wineries that were affected, but no major supplier of Sonoma Cellar. Some wineries in the region lost facilities and cases of wine.
Myllenbeck is more concerned about the long-term effects of the wildfires. Many smaller vineyards are solely dependent on selling wine directly to consumers from their tasting room. It is very expensive for them to find a distributor and ship the wine out to places like Alexandria.
“I think people think it is devastating for the wineries, and it’s really not,” Myllenback said. “So, when people are afraid to go to Sonoma and visiting the wine tasting, [wineries] lose so much revenue.” People stop visiting because they think the vineyards are damaged from the fires, but in many cases, they are still open and need the business more than ever.
If you have a favorite vineyard out in California, Myllenbeck encourages you to buy a case of wine from them.
