Yeah! And how about all those fools who own grocery stores that don’t strap down their product instead of leaving it on open shelves? And all those stores with big plate glass windows? Don’t they know that they’ll get broken in an earthquake? How about all the morons that live in earthquake country with pictures on their walls and refrigerators that don’t have latches?
Those barrels in wineries get moved around a lot. They don’t just sit there for years. Strapping them down is impractical. Spreading them around in a single layer is impractical.
In the reports I’ve read the wineries have lost two or three barrels - hardly a catastrophe. (The reference stock loss was a much worse problem.) Most of the pictures have been from liquor stores, and you can hardly expect them to lock down the bottles the customers are picking up every day.
It’s possible that a good earthquake will make riddling machines more popular.
You don’t just point the bottle upside down; riddling involves repeatedly turning the bottle 1/8 turn and tipping it at a slightly steeper able over a period of months. I forget how often each bottle is turned, but it’s a regular repeated process. During this time, the bottles are capped with a crimped metal cap, like a pre-twist-off soda bottle. When the time comes, the bottles are placed with the top in a cold brine to freeze a bit of the champagne with the dead yeast in it. The bottle is uncapped, the yeast & ice shoots out, and the bottle is topped up and corked.
No doubt. Just reporting my impression as a native Californian. We’ve all felt plenty of earthquakes, but for most of us, actual damage from one is something that happens to other people. Except for the really major quakes, actually damage is quite localized. There wasn’t any significant damage from this one more than about 10 miles from the epicenter.
No, not suggesting that at all. Just pointing out that there is no incentive to spend a ton of money to protect the stuff from falling in case of a rare earthquake. If the stuff gets broken, they get paid anyway from the insurance claim.
Now, for arguments sake, say that back catalog of stuff stacked up in the back room that didn’t move as well as expected from last year’s batch. Gosh, it seems that got broken as well. What a shame…
I was checking on a friend that has a vinyard just northwest of Napa in St. Helena and thank goodness yes, you’re right, no damage. It looks like they’re still trying to determine which of the known fault lines this was associated with but leaning now towards the Brown’s Valley section of the West Napa Fault.
To repeat what I already said, there isn’t any reason cask and bottle racks can’t be reasonably earthquake-resistant. However, the ones that are look like the industrial machinery many wineries not in Napa already use. What makes Napa wines so so *special *is that they’re all made by hand in manually-carved barrels and hand-blown bottles and cradled in oak racks handed down from the Mexican landlords.
Napa/Sonoma makers could produce just as fine results using modern tools and technology. Most do, out of sight of the wine tourists. Many don’t because word of their heresy might leak out and knock their prices down. So a moderate shaker comes along and dumps all the authentic all over the floor, just like it did back in the 1800s.
The yeast has to interact with the wine for a while before you settle it out & remove it. Then the process needs to collect whatever might have stuck to the side of the bottle. Riddling.
Every time there’s a hurricane or a tornado, I wonder why people don’t live in homes that are better protected against extreme weather. And why do people build homes on the shore or in flood zones that aren’t elevated to protect them against water damage?
[QUOTE=Dewey Finn]
… Napa Valley, despite its fame, represents only a very small fraction of total California wine production. So it’s not going to be scarce.
[/QUOTE]
This may be just the opportunity they’ve been waiting for at the Russian River and Livermore Valley wineries.
Napa Valley is just one of about 110 appellations (grape growing regions) in Californa, so no worries about running out of wine. There’s more danger from phylloxera and glassy-winged sharpshooters than there is from earthquakes.
The quote I got for earthquake insurance on my middle class single family home was a premium of >$10K/year, with a $190K deductible. I’m sure most wineries self-insure; I certainly do.
