By Caleb Hampton, Ag Alert
Below an ashen hillside, farmer Johnnie White picked shriveled grapes off flaking vines, surveying for the third time in a decade the ravages of a wildfire on Napa Valley vineyards. Nearby, fire crews stamped out remnants of the Pickett Fire, which started Aug. 21 in Calistoga and burned around 6,800 acres at the northeast end of the valley.
“There are some vineyards that got quite a bit of fire damage,” said White, a sixth-generation winegrape grower who manages vineyards across Napa Valley. “And then there’s concern about the smoke.”
In recent years, wildfire smoke has caused major losses for the renowned wine region. In 2020, fires cost California’s wine sector an estimated $3.7 billion, with smoke from that year’s Glass Fire and other blazes tainting entire crops in Napa Valley.
In comparison, the Pickett Fire was less damaging. It helped that winds carried the fire east over Howell Mountain, away from the heart of Napa Valley, that it largely burned within the footprint of the Glass Fire, limiting the fuels in its path, and that Cal Fire had more personnel and resources available to fight the fire.
A yearslong effort by the wine industry and community groups to better prepare for wildfires also made a difference, according to farmers and fire officials.
“A lot of people have been proactive about trying to minimize their fire exposure,” said Peter Nissen, who grows winegrapes in Calistoga.
Since 2020, farmers and wineries reduced wildfire fuels around their properties and installed sprinkler systems to deter flames. They were motivated to protect their assets, Nissen said, especially as many lost access to property insurance. But the effort extended to protecting Napa Valley as a whole.
Trade associations representing vintners and grape growers donated millions of dollars to build fire access roads and containment lines strategically placed along ridges. The nonprofit Napa Communities Firewise Foundation worked with growers to map agricultural infrastructure such as irrigation reservoirs, water tanks and farm roads that could be leveraged to fight wildfires.
“It came into play on this fire,” JC Greenberg, deputy chief for Cal Fire and the Napa County Fire Department, said of the preemptive work.
As the Pickett Fire burned, Greenberg said, the new access roads and containment lines may have saved firefighters days of work cutting through rough terrain to get bulldozers to critical locations. “We were ahead of the game,” he said.
In Pope Valley, east of Howell Mountain, crews used at least one vineyard as a fire break, with the irrigated vines and closely mowed grass helping halt the fire.
Photo/Caleb Hampton
“We had helicopters dipping out of all the reservoirs around here,” added White, who is a volunteer firefighter with the St. Helena Fire Department.
The Pickett Fire caused an estimated $65 million in agricultural losses, according to an initial survey by Napa County, including damage to about 3% of Napa Valley’s vineyard acreage.
“It’s still a little bit early to tell what is going to get harvested and what will not,” said Caleb Mosley, executive director of Napa Valley Grapegrowers.
Most red varieties, which are more susceptible to smoke taint, won’t be picked until October, and they had not yet been tested for smoke taint. Growers said smoke exposure was largely concentrated around Howell Mountain and Pope Valley.
More than a week after the fire started, a haze lingered over vineyards in the area while some 10 miles south in Rutherford, along the Napa Valley floor, workers picked grapes under clear skies.
“Napa Valley proper has been spared for the most part,” said White, whose company Piña Vineyard Management began harvest last month for white grapes and varieties used for sparkling wine.
Growers were optimistic about the quality of the vintage, especially red varieties that have enjoyed long hang times thanks to a cool summer.
“That usually fares well for anthocyanin production,” Mosley said, referring to compounds that create complex flavors. “For all intents and purposes, we’re looking at a banner year.”
Early reports indicated yields were up.
“It’s not a light crop by any means,” said Don Munk, president of the Napa County Farm Bureau and director of vineyard operations at HALL Winery, which sources grapes from across Napa Valley.
A big crop may be more than the market can handle. During the past few years, a steady decline in wine sales has devastated California growers. To correct for the oversupply, farmers in the state ripped out an estimated 80,000 acres of vineyards—more than a tenth of the state’s acreage—in the past couple years. Last year, despite the reduced production, a record portion of the crop was left to rot on the vines.
“We’re seeing a lot of grapes that will go unsold again, and unfortunately, that’s a total loss for the grower,” said Jeff Bitter, president of Allied Grape Growers, a grower-owned marketing group that sells winegrapes for 400 growers across California. “We’re still dealing with a very difficult market.”
Napa Valley’s hold on the top tier of the market has partly insulated the region from the industry’s woes, but not entirely. This year, as with elsewhere in the state, local wineries increasingly discontinued long-term contracts and were offering low prices for uncontracted grapes. Because of surplus inventory, growers said, at least a handful of Napa Valley wineries paid growers not to deliver their fruit.
Caleb Hampton is assistant editor of Ag Alert. He can be reached at champton@cfbf.com.
