The entire wine business is affected. Big companies and corporate wineries have far more resources to face difficulties. For small family businesses, it’s potentially an existential crisis.

For some, the anxiety is assuaged by a direct connection to the earth. Vineyards in the Northern Hemisphere are at a delicate moment.

Just around now, give or take a few weeks depending on the climate, weather and grape variety, vine buds are bursting forth with leaves and the first tender shoots.

It’s a tenuous time agriculturally as the potential for deadly frosts, which in one cold night can literally nip a harvest in the bud, lingers for weeks. Farmers must be prepared to sometimes work through the night to protect their fragile vines.

At the same time, these ordinary anxieties provide a distraction from the pandemic.

“Throughout this confused and disorderly time, we are finding some respite in the vineyard activity here at home,” Andrew Mariani, a proprietor of Scribe Winery in Sonoma, Calif., wrote in an email. “Mother Nature’s course continues, and bud break still requires our attention.”

So far, Scribe has not had to lay off or furlough any of its team. Mr. Mariani said that it was hard to know what to expect, but that Scribe was trying not to make any big decisions with such uncertainty.

“The situation continues to change so quickly, it’s hard to tell what hurdles we are actually facing,” he said. “But we can’t imagine anyone is in a long-term, sustainable position at the moment.”