Posted on 10/14/2005 4:45:52 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
NAPA, Calif. (AP) - California wine country was reeling after a huge warehouse fire wiped out millions worth of rare vintages.
No one was seriously injured in the fire, the cause of which was still under investigation, and the losses weren't expected to put a big dent in the state's multibillion-dollar wine industry.
But for some, the potential loss of years of effort and hope spelled big trouble.
"It is a terrible thing," said Gary Lipp, who suspects that most of his 2003 cabernet sauvignon and all of his 2004 pinot noir are gone.
Lipp and Brooks Painter, both wine industry veterans, started the small Coho Wines brand three years ago and had been getting good reviews.
They still have some wine stored in another warehouse and some in barrels. But the new wine will have to be aged at least 18 months before it can be sold, meaning stalled momentum during the crucial holiday period.
"We'll send letters to our customers telling them we look forward to seeing them again in the spring of 2007," said Lipp with resigned good humor. He's hopeful he'll be able to keep the brand going although he predicts a tough couple of years.
The same dilemma was facing Julie Johnson of the Tres Sabores winery in St. Helena, a premium producer of cabernet sauvignon and zinfandel.
Johnson, who's been building up the brand for seven years, stored half of her 2002 vintage and all of her 2003 in the warehouse. That includes most of her cabernet sauvignon, savored by fans for its fruit-forward flavor underpinned with the tannic spice known as "Rutherford dust," from the area's famous growing soils.
"I'm really hoping that it's just water damage," Johnson said. "I buy the best corks in the business just for such an eventuality. If it's just label damage, then I'll have a huge party and everyone can come and relabel."
The fire broke out Wednesday afternoon in the warehouse, which is on the old Navy shipyard of Mare Island in Vallejo, just south of the Napa Valley and about 30 miles northeast of San Francisco.
Warehouse general manager Debbie Polverino was there when alarms started going off. "I turned around and saw this huge wall of orange," she said as she sat outside the warehouse Thursday afternoon, her jeans blackened with soot.
Structural damage from the fire, which took about eight hours to control, was estimated at $10 million, said Vallejo fire department spokesman Bill Tweedy. Losses to the contents of the building were unknown, although Polverino estimated it could be in the tens of millions.
Wine doesn't have a high enough alcohol content to burn, said Tweedy, but the bottles are packaged in cardboard boxes and wooden shelving that fed the flames.
Wines stored in the building ranged from huge chunks of smaller wineries' inventories to "library" collections of rare vintages. Even if bottles are intact, it's feared high temperatures will have spoiled the wine.
Agents with the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax & Trade Bureau will eventually determine if the wine is ruined, Tweedy said.
The fire is being regarded as suspicious partly because the building appeared to be fire-resistant, a dense, concrete structure once used to repair submarines.
About 70 wineries leased space in the building, which also stored sugar and other food products.
A team from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives planned to begin investigating Saturday. That effort was expected to last until early next week, after which people would be allowed in to inspect property damage, Tweedy said.
While she waited, Johnson was busy with this year's harvest, in full swing right now.
"If it turns out that I've lost my 2003 vintage and part of my 2002 so be it," she said in a message to friends and customers. "There are some really lovely 2004 wines ready and waiting to be sprung from their barrels in the cave."
Calls and e-mails of support and sympathy were pouring in and Johnson was hopeful.
"You just have to keep the perspective," she said, "and you have to keep going."
Insured.
Now there's a government job I'd do.
My brother was a Medic is the Army. Every so often they had to "destroy" the old medicinal alcohol! A little OJ...
If heat made wine better, then wineries would heat the wine, which they don't. You can do with it as you please after you buy the bottle.
I am sure more worried about Spanish and Italian wines than California.
With veneration and gratitude.
Well then you're missing out on the world's finest cabernets. Funny thing about cab is that, with the right fruit, it practically makes itself so there's lots of great ones around that don't cost a fortune.
Clearly, you can't cook the wine at THOSE temperatures. However, my wine crosses the equator in unrefridgerated containers. The reds are drinkable soo much sooner than usual..
I hear that the French place their wines in containers and send them around, storage plus, I suppose, and they are prematurely aged that way. I could be wrong. But MY experience has helped my cellar along.
Except my whites. Those turn way too fast because of it..
A very sad day.
"Brandy has been made in California since the mission days when Aguardiente [that is, "fire water" = mission wine brandy] as it was called, was a staple commodity. After the first great influx of gold seekers in 1848 and 1849, brandy was produced in large quantities particularly in southern California.
That could not have been a gasoline and rags arson, IMO.
Maybe employees were cooking crack or meth in the back?
Employees don't reset the alarm unless they either KNOW there isn't a fire or they were covering up some chemical operation and they thought they had it under control.
Nobody is going to risk losing their place of employment unless they're covering up something they don't want the bosses, and the police, to know about.
my first thought on this one was "insurance job". So cynical, i know.
Wine tasting for the Feds? Woo Hoo! Me, too. Where do I sign up?!
Eventually? "Uhhh ... hey Skinner ... gimme some more of dat Caber ... Caber ... Cabernet ... I'm not sure it's good or ruin .. ruin ... bad. (hic)"
Along with Violence, Adult Language, and Nudity
I'm still crying over the Pride Mountain loss a few years ago in a similar situation (Parker called it liquid Viagra).
It doesn't seem prudent to perform an experiment such as this on an over-rated, over-priced bottle of grape juice.
Yes, understood you're joking but got my stab in too.
I just talked to a firefighter who was on the scene. Evidently the roof was being refurbished and it was the first to catch on fire. This is probably why the staff didn't notice the fire inside the structure.
The burning roof eventually collapsed on top of offices and the warehouse which was full of wooden racks, partitions etc and the whole place got incinerated.
My partner lost two years worth of wine and he's pretty devastated. His whole effort got smoked.
I hope your partner is insured. Thanks for the local update.
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