{"id":866,"date":"2018-01-30T23:07:13","date_gmt":"2018-01-30T23:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=866"},"modified":"2018-01-30T23:07:30","modified_gmt":"2018-01-30T23:07:30","slug":"tasting-after-the-fires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=866","title":{"rendered":"Tasting after the Fires"},"content":{"rendered":"

Power Tasting<\/em> isn\u2019t really about reporting the news, but we feel we owe it to our readers to give a description of what it\u2019s like to go wine tasting in early 2018, in what we like to call Napa\/Noma.\u00a0 The fires that ravaged many areas of Napa and Sonoma Counties are out now, and if you smell smoke, it\u2019s probably from people\u2019s fireplaces.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t go searching out the most badly damaged areas such as Atlas Peak in Napa and Fountaingrove in Santa Rosa, you would not particularly know that the conflagrations occurred.<\/p>\n

There are, of course, numerous signs that they did.\u00a0 There are billboards announcing fire-related charities and lawyers to help with cases. \u00a0Most poignant for us was what we didn\u2019t see: as we drove up Route 101 in Santa Rosa, the Hilton we used to stay at and the nearby landmark, the Round Barn are no longer there.\u00a0 Considering the loss of life and those made homeless, these are certainly lesser tragedies, but for frequent visitors such as ourselves, they are stark reminders of what happened there.<\/p>\n

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The Round Barn, before the fire.\u00a0 Photo courtesy of the San Jose Mercury News.<\/em><\/p>\n

At the same time, for those wondering whether to go wine tasting in the affected areas, the answer is definitely \u201cyes\u201d.\u00a0 For one thing, it\u2019s a chance to aid the local economy that is still feeling the shock.\u00a0 For another, you get the chance to speak with the people who lived through the disaster and hear their personal stories.\u00a0 Interestingly, the people we spoke with all knew someone who had experienced significant losses but did not themselves.\u00a0 With a few lamentable exceptions, almost all the wineries were spared.\u00a0 Even more remarkable, there was very little damage to the vineyards, although one well-known producer did tell us that they lost a few rows in one of theirs.<\/p>\n

The rest told stories of extremely hard work, miraculous escapes and good news for the 2017 release.\u00a0 Over and over we heard that a vineyard had just been picked the day before the flames came. One did admit that a portion of their crop at one sourced vineyard had been left on the vines because it was impossible for the trucks to get there.\u00a0 For the most part, we heard that the grapes had been crushed and were in barrels before the fires occurred.<\/p>\n

We are wine tasters, not growers or makers.\u00a0 We are nonetheless concerned as to how the 2017 vintage will turn out in Northern California.\u00a0 A new term has entered our vocabulary, \u201csmoke taint\u201d, which is different than the pleasant smokiness in certain wines, particularly Northern Rh\u00f4nes and Pinot Noirs.\u00a0 It\u2019s a highly unpleasant taste, so we\u2019ve read, akin to licking the bottom of a well-used ashtray.\u00a0 It will be a few years before we learn whether Napa\/Noma wines are affected.<\/p>\n

If you go wine tasting there now, you\u2019ll be offered 2014\u2019s and 2015\u2019s, with perhaps a newly released 2016 available.\u00a0 We can happily report that we tasted a 2017 Sauvignon Blanc at Rochioli in Russian River and the taste was grapefruit, not smoke, and it was delicious.<\/p>\n

It will be hard to forget these terrible fires, for years to come.\u00a0 But the fact is that if your goal is wine tasting, you can visit Napa\/Noma without fear.\u00a0 It looks and feels the same as ever, even if the usual pleasures are mixed with more than a bit of sadness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Power Tasting isn\u2019t really about reporting the news, but we feel we owe it to our readers to give a description of what it\u2019s like to go wine tasting in early 2018, in what we like to call Napa\/Noma.\u00a0 The fires that ravaged many areas of Napa and Sonoma Counties are out now, and if … Continue reading Tasting after the Fires<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":868,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions\/868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}