Wine Grapes and Wildfire Smoke Pt 3
With today’s Fruit Grower Report, I’m Bob Larson. The wine industry in Washington and Oregon got a taste of what California wine makers have been dealing with for years, wildfire smoke.
It’s a signal, according to Washington Winegrowers Association executive director Vicky Scharlau, to what may lie ahead and why learning more about it is so important …
SCHARLAU … “It will take a while, unfortunately, and that was the premise of a letter to Congress where the Washington Wine Growers got together with nine other regional and national organizations and we asked Congress to extend the Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity Program Plus, it’s called WHIP-Plus, to help these grape growers and wine makers in California, in Oregon, and in Washington that are affected by wildfires.”
The damage from last month’s wildfires, Scharlau says probably won’t be fully known for a while, but they’re gathering information daily …
SCHARLAU … “And, in some areas we do know damage. There’s many areas, especially California and parts of Oregon that had damage to the vineyard, they had damage to wineries, they had damage to many buildings, and sadly to life. In Washington state, so far, we’re only, probably, 20 or 25% of the way into harvest and we’re just starting to see now some of the lab samples come back to determine whether or not we have damage.”
Scharlau says just because we had smoke doesn’t mean there was damage, it all depends on the proximity of the grapes to the fires, what’s burning, how fresh is the smoke, and so many nuances they hope to become more familiar with.
