California wildfires ‘not particularly’ affecting wine country

By Lisa Riley

Published: 12 November, 2018

The wildfires currently raging in California have ‘not particularly’ affected wine country.

So far, it seemed that the fires were mainly in grasslands and woodlands away from the major wine producing regions, the California Wine Institute (CWI) told Harpers

“These fires are not particularly affecting wine country, although the fire near Thousand Oaks is just over the coastal range from Santa Barbara County and the Santa Ynez Valley they would have harvested everything in those areas by now,” UK director Justin Knock MW said.

Similarly, the fires up around Paradise were in and around Sacramento where there are some vineyards (part of the Central Valley), but again these would also have been harvested and didn’t seem to be directly impacted, he added.

“But it is terrible to have to be talking about awful fires again so soon after the summer and last year,” he said.

The latest wildfires sweeping California follows the summer fires this year and come just over a year after the devastating wildfires that ravaged northern California in October 2017, with the most impacted regions Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino.

Several wineries were destroyed in the latter, including Signorelli, and there was significant damage to both Darioush and Stag's Leap.

While not affecting wine country, the current wildfires now equals the deadliest on record in California, with the death toll having risen to 31 and 200 people still missing, according to officials.

An estimated 250,000 people have been forced to flee their homes to avoid three major blazes in the state.

With strengthening winds threatening to spread the flames, California Governor Jerry Brown has urged President Donald Trump to declare a major disaster, a move that would harness more federal emergency funds.

The appeal came a day after Trump threatened to cut funding for California, blaming the fires on poor forest management.

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