As a winemaking community, The Napa Valley Vintners has a long history of pulling together for the common good. In fact, this spirit of camaraderie and collaboration is the bedrock upon which the Napa Valley Vintners was founded 75 years ago this month.
While Napa Valley has experienced significant power outages, we are ready:
- With last week’s cooler weather and mild temperatures the rest of this week, harvest is progressing at a steady rate, allowing vintners to process their fruit at a moderate pace. Cool, sunny days such as those predicted for the next couple of days are ideal for letting red wine grapes hang a bit longer to develop additional flavors.
- The majority of wineries in Napa Valley are small, family owned operations that can accommodate fluctuations in the harvesting rhythm.
- Harvesting wine grapes is basically a manual effort in Napa Valley, requiring little to no PG&E power source.
- Most wineries have some sort of alternative power source, mostly generators, often multi-system generators for sorting, heating, cooling. Our experiences with the fires of 2017 and two years of educational workshops have helped to prepare our members for sound responses related to power outages.
- Our winemakers are well equipped to use traditional winemaking methods when push comes to shove (manual pump-overs, sustainably using water to chill, propane to heat, etc.)
“Our winemaking community is full of creative people who can adapt when the weather, power availability or other environmental changes take place.” — Pam Starr, Crocker & Starr, winemaker and owner
