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16 WINES&VINES November 2017 WINE INDUSTRY NEWS nearly all of the estate fruit before the fires except for one small block. "We can sequester the wine from that one block and, if it has the dreaded smoke taint, then it will not get into our finished wines." The relatively new Fountaingrove District AVA was directly in the path of the Tubbs Fire, and many vineyards and homes in the area were destroyed. Mary Lou Marek, owner of Antonina's Vine- yard and president of the Fountaingrove District Winegrowers Association, reported Oct. 13 that 12 homes and 90 acres of vineyards had been lost, while the fate of another 110 acres was uncertain. Mendocino County Fires in the Redwood and Potter valleys of Men- docino County also destroyed some vineyards as well as one winery and caused extensive damage at another. The small Backbone Vineyard & Winery in the Redwood Valley suffered severe damage to the estate vineyard, and the winery was de- stroyed. "The winery burned to the ground, along with all the wine we've made since we moved here in the spring of 2013—five vin- tages," winery owner Sattie Clark said. Clark said she remains grateful that her home and the shop where she produces decora- tive, custom lighting under the Eleek brand survived. Frey Vineyards, one of the nation's largest organic wineries, suffered extensive damage but was not destroyed. "The original winery building that housed the offices and bottling room were destroyed, but our production facil- ity can be easily restarted as soon as we can get full access back to the winery," Nathan Frey told Wines & Vines in an email. He added that Redwood Valley Cellars, Par- ducci Winery and Fetzer Vineyards had all pro- vided assistance crushing grapes from the current vintage. "We are really grateful for the help from a few local wineries that are crushing some of our grapes," he said. "Plans for the winery are to get fully up and running again as soon as possible." Shawn Harmon, general manager of Red- wood Valley Cellars, said the custom-crush winemaking facility processes 7,000 tons of grapes in an average year, and it's likely to process an extra 1,000 tons for wineries af- fected by the fires. "It's overwhelming at this point. It's a tragedy, and I'm not sure when it's going to end." Kevin Barr, owner of Redwood Empire Vine- yard Management, said the ongoing fires have affected employees at all levels of his business: Some were residents of Fountaingrove and Coffey Park in Sonoma County and lost their homes to the Tubbs Fire. In addition to the problem of access—wine- makers either couldn't reach their wineries due to road closures or couldn't operate crush equipment due to power outages—Barr says he's never seen people so upset. Even so, 20% to 25% of the North Coast wine grape crop was still in the vineyards, Barr said. "These grapes are tired; they want to be picked. It's been a long season. The heat waves have beat the hell out of these grapes, and the sugars are way up," he said. "It's not doing the grapes any good—or the farmer's bottom line any good—that these grapes are shriveling on the vine." —Kate Lavin and Andrew Adams The winery building at Backbone Vineyard & Win- ery in Redwood Valley, Calif., was destroyed.