Fire Update

It has been a devastating week for those of us in Sonoma County.  Thousands of homes have been lost, hundreds are reported missing, and families across the county are displaced.  As we write this on Thursday morning October 12th, the fires are not yet contained, and the vagaries of the winds still dictate the potential path of destruction. So far we've been very fortunate.  While we've been evacuated multiple times, we've remained safe, and our home and the Torrey Hill vineyard have escaped damage.  Our new winemaking facility at Grand Cru Custom Crush and our cased good storage facility Alexander Valley Cellars have maintained full power.  This means that both our bottled wine and our 2017 barreled wine are perfectly preserved and unharmed.  We had already harvested all of our grapes before the fires, so our 2017 vintage is safe from smoke contamination or fire damage.  Lastly, hats off to our amazing harvest interns who have worked day after day through this crisis, diligently showing up to work through thick and thin.  In fact, next week they begin processing fruit for other facilities who cannot presently accept grapes.  We are lucky indeed on every front.

Logistics remain a challenge - power, gas, cell service, and roadways are functional only intermittently.  For our mailing list members who placed a Fall Release order online or over the phone, half of those orders shipped on October 2nd and the balance were scheduled to ship on October 9th.  We have put a hold on the October 9th shipments and hope to ship out in the next couple of weeks.  The wines will remain safe in our temperature and humidity controlled warehouse until we can safely ship wine to you.  We promise to keep your wine safe.

We want to thank everyone who has reached out to check on us.  It's been humbling to know how many people we've touched from around the world.  The recovery of our beloved Sonoma County will be a long process.  We'll be dedicating our charity efforts to that process.

If you are interested in helping out, please consider a donation to the Red Cross in support of the California wildfires.  And, of course, do your part by continuing to drink California wines!

With much love and gratitude,

Kerith, Brian, Bruno, Lily & Amelia (and Dexter)