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WINEMAKING TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT 44 WINES&VINES August 2017 W hen the 2014 South Napa earthquake subsided, wine consultant and master sommelier Larry Stone surveilled the wreckage of his Napa home and thought, "Wherever I work next, it's gonna be earthquake-proof." Stone almost got his wish. His next move brought him to Oregon, where he and his family had purchased the Janzen farm in 2013 on Willamette Valley's Eola-Amity Hills in partner- ship with attorney and publisher David Honig. Stone planted 66 acres of the 140-acre property to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, with future plans for another 15 acres of vines and 35 acres of usable farm land. Next, Stone enlisted Burgundy winemaker Dominique Lafon, with whom Stone had worked previously at Evening Land Vine- yard, and Lafon protégé Thomas Savre to join him in the Oregon project christened Lingua Franca, or "honest tongue" in French. After the winery was bonded in 2015, the partners scrambled to source grapes throughout Willamette Valley, renting space from Coelho Winery in Amity to produce their inaugural vintage of white and red wines. Yet throughout that first harvest, the team members understood they needed their own facility and set about constructing it. Challenges and restrictions Initially scheduled for completion by harvest 2016, the project faced a few unexpected obstacles (including earthquake and design issues) in addition to the tight schedule. Lingua Franca engaged architectural firm Laurence Ferar and Associates of Portland, Ore., to blueprint the 24,000-square- foot facility. Winemaker Thomas Savre shared via email that the goal was to create a building "to make wines in a traditional way with innovative techniques." The project penciled out to an estimated cost of $192 per square foot including all site work except landscaping for a final price tag of approximately $5.2 million. The building's low-slung design hugs the hillside in homage to "undulating ribbons floating across the rolling landscape," per the architect's project description. Located on Hopewell Road, the southeastern-facing site is at 350 feet elevation, boasts favorable Nekia and Jory volcanic soils and rubs shoulders with Argyle's Lone Star, Domaine Serene's Jerusalem Hill and Eve- ning Land's Seven Springs vineyards. Ironically, Stone thought he'd sidestepped California's San Andreas Fault, only to discover that Lingua Franca straddles the Cascadia Subduction zone. In the end, the new structure meets the area's robust building code and seismic requirements conceived to "resist" up to a 9.0-magnitude earthquake. This means that while the building may sustain some damage, it will not collapse. Stone elaborates regarding the seismic accommodations: "The entire winery was designed around withstanding seismic event(s) around 9.0. All large tanks are secured. Catwalks are designed to stay together like the building, too. "The large space of the winery was proposed so that we wouldn't need to stack barrels more than three high, but no further measures were possible considering how frequently we move the barrels and racks. Still, the rooms in which the barrels are kept are isolated from the rest of the winery and the work- ing spaces where employees normally operate, unless they are working on the barrels." Other design considerations drove Lingua Franca to contract with structural engineers Ralph Turnbaugh and Geoff Gore of T.M. Rippey Consulting Engineers. Both long cantilevered eaves and clear span requirements, plus a peaked crush pad canopy Lingua Franca Willamette Valley winery builds a state-of-the-art, quake-resistant production facility By L.M. Archer TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT