Fire Destroys Westport Winery Distillery

The spirit production building for Ocean’s Daughter Distillery, Aberdeen, Wash.,a subsidiary of Westport Winery, was destroyed by fire Saturday (5/15).  The building contained the business’s still, all their warehoused spirits, shipping supplies, tools, and thousands of empty wine bottles staged in preparation for an upcoming bottling.

The Roberts family, which owns the business and lives on the property, were alerted of the fire by drivers.  One of those who called the fire in to 9-1-1 was a winery employee passing by on her way home from an evening with friends.

She pounded on winery co-owner Carrie Roberts door to notify her of the disheartening scene. Another good Samaritan, a deckhand from a charter boat, pulled into the winery’s commercial entrance and began fighting the fire with a garden hose. He prevented the adjacent winery production building and the company’s harvest cargo trailer from catching fire.

Blain Roberts said, “It was shocking to run out of our house to see a large part of our business going up in flames. We do not know the cause of the fire. At the time, we were distilling water.”
There were no people in the building and no one was injured.
The family used this still to produce hand sanitizer during the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Westport Winery’s tasting room which includes the Sea Glass Grill and the Ocean’s Daughter Distillery tasting room was never in danger. The non-profit International Mermaid Museum was also spared from the fire. These two enterprises will be open offering regular service daily from 11 am to 6 pm.
The building was insured, and they plan to rebuild. There will be a temporary pause in spirit production until they can purchase and install another still in a new building. There is no pause in wine production.
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