The devastating North Bay Area fires feel and have felt personal. The evacuated and newly homeless people are our friends and relatives. The South Bay Area has been glued to KRON’s 24 hour coverage.
The Silverado Resort damaged? This is the place where my husband’s golf ball literally bounced off a goose’s back and landed on a green during one of the practice rounds in a pro am event. Memories!
We’ve seen beloved wineries on the Silverado trail, like Signorello, reduced to rubble. (Will we ever cherish the apron we got in their tasting room on one of our many anniversary weekends, now!)
Currently, the whole town of Calistoga has been evacuated and is at risk. What about the Lincoln Avenue Spa with those awesome steam tables where we have spent many a weekend sweating out the stresses of the 60-80 hour work weeks of Silicon Valley?
However cherished, our memories are insignificant in the face of the devastation and the complete life-altering changes the residents and businesses of the North Bay Area wine country have and are experiencing. The thing is…the fire continues day after day gobbling everything in sight in this cherished area. Unfathomable.
Our Harvest-
We are harvesting our backyard vineyard Saturday, which feels a bit odd in the face of the “real” wine country’s disaster. We will be wearing masks in the rows, because of the Napa/Sonoma fires’ smoke. Our grapes have begun to wither and show signs of stress from the big winds that have driven the North Bay fires and felt here.
Do we cancel the harvest in honor of the loss in the North Bay’s wine country or carry on to honor the grape-growing/wine-making traditions started there?
Our harvesters have called to tell me that they need to get in the field and work with the grapes, in order to lessen the horror they feel for our North Bay neighbors. With heavy hearts we will soldier on (bringing baby food, dog food, toiletries, etc to the harvester that will take these supplies on Sunday to the eight, now homeless, families she knows in the North Bay.) We will celebrate everything this California soil has to give to each of us no matter where we live: grapes, artichokes, strawberries—a fruit and veggie basket for the nation.
Please uncork a Napa or Sonoma wine this weekend to honor the men and women who have created and continue to care for our original wine country and for those amazing disaster fighters hard at work to end the burning of the North Bay area.
GF Wine Country Living 
The rest of the country is watching the fires in horror with you all. Our hearts are breaking at the devastation. I think it’s wonderful that you are carrying on with the harvest with the North Bay in all your hearts. I will have some wine this weekend and raise my glass with all of you in mind.
Good luck this weekend with the harvest.
Thank you for your heart’s support. What is odd is that parts of the nation have faced equally awful devastation. Natural disasters are rolling through the US at mind numbing, heart breaking speed. Crazy.