Wine Institute said it expects “no impact on the overall statewide 2019 winegrape harvest. Wineries in the North Coast and around the state are finished or were in the homestretch of the harvest prior to the fires. The 2019 California growing season presented vintners with winegrapes of high quality and a large harvest just slightly smaller than 2018. Sonoma County accounts for 6% of California’s winegrape tonnage.”
The fire has burned 74,324 acres and is 15% contained, CalFire says. Weather conditions were expected to aid firefighting efforts Monday night, but strong winds were expected to arrive again today. The blaze has destroyed at least to wineries, 123 structures, including 57 homes.
Sonoma State University, home of a major wine business education center, will be closed for the rest of the week.
Pacific Gas & Electric, whose transmission lines were blamed for devastating fires two years ago and have been implicated in the current fire, said power was restored to 5% of the nearly 1 million account that had been temporarily shut off. But the utility warned a new outage was likely today in advance of high winds.
Some structure damage was reported at the Field Stone Vineyard property (Jackson Family Wines) and at Robert Young Winery.
Most grapes had been picked during this year’s harvest, but the grapes that are still on the vine will likely remain unpicked because of smoke taint concerns.
And while wines already in tanks and barrels shouldn’t be at risk of smoke taint, they won’t have the normal amount of supervision, particularly relating to temperature control.