Winemakers evaluate Napa earthquake damage 'A lake of wine': Big blow amplifies brutal drought

Saintsbury Winery's Ry Richards (left) and Chris Kajani work on removing the stacks of empty barrels that tumbled over after an earthquake in Napa, Calif. on Sunday, August 24, 2014, Saintsbury Winery's Ry Richards (left) and Chris Kajani work on removing the stacks of empty barrels that tumbled over after an earthquake in Napa, Calif. on Sunday, August 24, 2014, Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 88 Caption Close Winemakers evaluate Napa earthquake damage 1 / 88 Back to Gallery

Sunday's earthquake in Napa jolted 900-pound wine barrels from racks, damaged winery buildings and warehouses, and smashed bottles of the valley's best - a painful hit for an industry already struggling with the most severe drought in decades.

The Napa Valley Vintners trade group was collecting damage assessments from its members. The toll appeared to be worse at wineries close to downtown Napa and the quake's epicenter. But with more than 500 wineries in the region, a complete estimate of total damages to the valley's $13 billion industry could take at least another day. Many of the largest wineries were tight-lipped about their condition.

For some winemakers, losses will be significant, depending on where and how their wines were stored.

At Napa Barrel Care, a large warehouse for wine storage just south of the city, Carole Meredith and her husband, Steve Lagier, surveyed an array of tumbled barrels. "We're physically fine but emotionally shell-shocked," Meredith said. "It's just devastating."

"There is a lake of wine on the floor," Meredith said. Workers were siphoning the spilled wine into tanks just to clean the facility. Wines from the 2013 vintage are mostly still in barrel, and "there's just going to be huge losses," said Meredith, a former UC Davis vine geneticist who owns the Lagier Meredith winery on Mount Veeder.

Because the 2013 vintage was a particularly bountiful one, and many wines have yet to be released, the quake's impact may not be felt by wine consumers immediately. But for individual winemakers such as Meredith, "this is going to be a really expensive earthquake for the wine business."

Just outside the city of Napa, winemaker Steve Matthiasson and his wife, Jill, "almost got thrown off our bed." Outside, they found significant damage to their restored 1905 farmhouse.

Just as troubling was the state of his wine. Some barrels of his reds, which are stored at Silenus Vintners near his house just north of Napa, were toppled to the winery floor. He had yet to assess the full damage, but some bungs - the stoppers used to close wine barrels - had come out.

"Silenus is an ungodly mess," Matthiasson said. "Luckily most of the bungs are in them. I'm sure we lost some wine, but it's not a wipeout." His white wine, which is made at the Bin to Bottle facility near the Napa airport - near the epicenter - was unharmed.

Generally, wineries north of Oakville "seem to have much less disruption and damage," said Cate Conniff, communications manager for the vintners trade group.

One hopeful sign: Most wineries recently had bottled their 2012 wines. Cases of wine are often shrink-wrapped after being stacked on pallets for storage, and according to several winemakers, losses appeared to be minimal at the case-goods warehouses in southern Napa.

"We lost exactly one bottle of wine, and we've got 80,000 cases of wine here," said Michael Greenlee, CEO and president of Amedeo, a fulfillment company that stores and ships wine for about 190 mostly small winery clients.

That could be chalked up in part to seismic-approved metal racks and well-secured pallets, with only a few inches of room between them. "So not much room to move," Greenlee said.

The worst damage appeared to be concentrated farther south in the valley. Just north of Napa in the Oak Knoll area, damage was reported to the historic winery building at Trefethen Family Vineyards. Aaron Pott, winemaker for such wineries as Blackbird and Seven Stones, posted online photos from Oakville of toppled fermentation tanks and dozens of toppled barrels.

The quake occurred just as many winemakers are poised for the 2014 harvest, and any delay or disruption might affect how they complete the picking.

At Saintsbury, located on heavy soils in the Carneros area northwest of the airport, barrels tumbled to the floor - most were empty, said winemaker Chris Kajani. But Saintsbury's 30-year-old water tank jumped its foundation, leaving the winery without water and delaying its planned grape picks. Crushing grapes requires significant amounts of water to clean equipment.

While Saintsbury lost almost no new wine, it did sustain a heavy loss to its collection of vintages from the 1980s and '90s. "When I opened up the library, it was like a foot deep in glass," Kajani said.

And the winery, like many in Napa, had a particular saving grace: 80-kilowatt solar panels, which provided power despite widespread outages.

In his house near Napa, grape grower Larry Hyde sat in the morning hours without electricity, trying to get his battery-powered computer working.

He had yet to hear from picking crews for his 180-acre vineyard in the Carneros area. The workers would have begun harvesting around midnight, Hyde said, but were likely interrupted by the lack of power.

"It shook my house pretty hard," Hyde said. "The kitchen's a mess with the cupboards all open. I don't even want to go in the cellar."

The valley's robust restaurant industry was also affected.

"It's not a pretty day in Napa. That's for sure," says Marion Emmanuelle of the Thomas and Fagiani's, the downtown Napa restaurant and bar where there's "a lot of broken everything." The next step is the engineers' assessment of structural damage.

Many downtown Napa restaurants, including the Thomas, were closed Sunday. Farther up the valley, it was closer to business as usual. In Yountville, Bouchon, Bouchon Bakery and Ciccio were open, among others, while Ad Hoc and Redd were still without power Sunday. St. Helena and Calistoga had similar intermittent power outages.

But on the restaurant side, downtown Napa was a stay-away zone.

"If you're traveling to Napa, and you have plans, it's better to call first," says Tom Fuller of Fuller & Sander Communications, a Napa Valley-based public relations firm.