On a morning TV show, I learned a magnitude 6 earthquake in the Napa area. Details to follow. I would be interested in 'lessons learned' and in particular power issues. Tornadoes in our area pretty well rips up the power line structures leading to wide spread power outages. Best wishes for our Prius friends in the area. Bob Wilson
Wow thanks for the heads up, will call my parents in Sonoma. I lived in the Napa valley for 31+ years, moved as it became Disneyland North!
It woke us up just before 3:30am. We're about 50 or 60 miles Souith of Napa. No damage here. Lots of news coverage this morning. Couple or three serious injuries, maybe 80 minor. Several mobile homes caught fire due to gas and water line broke, so they burned up. Some buckled roads, crumbled parts of old buildings.
Can anyone say,,,, WINE SALE!!! Hate to say it, but they near always throw all that away! Unless you know someone! When I worked at Freemark Abbey as a teenager, (40 years ago), a case dropped, broke one bottle, got the rest wet, and we HAD TO throw the whole case away, even though the rest of the bottles were unbroken. Something about they could not risk a bottle with the potential of broken glass inside, but not visible on the outside, and the labels being wine- stained, (so what). I DID take some of that "damaged wine" home, and it WAS FINE WINE! (Never ask a teenager to throw wine away without someone watching!) Made me want to "oops" and drop another case! The Barrel rooms, and case storage area's will be some of the hardest hit area's as they are stacked floor to ceiling in very tall Costco sized warehouses on nothing but metal cradles for the barrels, and wood pallets, for cases of wine. (Many of the large winery warehouses are located in the hardest earthquake hit "industrial area" of south Napa, and American Canyon. If it did damage the wineries a lot! Buy your Napa Valley wine now, before the shortage causes the price increase. (Or plan a trip to the Valley in a week or so, maybe they will sell some of it,, as "damaged" and CHEAP! I am worried for some of the 100+ year old beautiful stone wineries in St Helena which are built of native stone. Not too good a material for surviving earth quakes. I sure hope Charles Krug is OK, I know the owners.
No, not really. Wine gets transferred (pumped) from big fermenting tanks, to barrels, to bottles, to cases tossed around from winery to store- so it is real "well shaken and stirred" by the time it is actually drank. Something REAL old, & shaken, would not be good as you would be siring up dregs by shaking it, but still drinkable. I sure miss smelling the inside of the winery during all those pumping transitions. Oh it smells SO GOOD! A High school buddy worked for BV winery, and got the job of shoveling the dregs out of these huge OLD wooden fermenting and aging tanks. Think like 12' tall, made of oak tanks. (Or was it redwood, hmm). Anyway He would stay in the tank shoveling away until well drunk, but even with fans running bringing in fresh air, they had to have someone outside watching to insure he did not pass out! When they went to metal fermentation tanks, and tore apart some of the old oak tanks, my brother tried to use the old oak tank wood to build water bed frames out of it, but it was too curved, and he could not get enough of that wonderful wine smell out of it. My Friend said Charles Krug's old stone buildings are fine, with no damage, too! Trefethen winery's old building is bad though, its leaning! My x Mother-in law worked for them, use to give me cases of their Eshcol Red for birthdays! Num! Good old days, missem.
Probably didn't matter for fermentation, but the aging barrels are nearly always oak. Dad's Hat whiskey has a couple of ryes that are finished in barrels that were used for vermouth or port wine aging. That should have been a selling point.
