Andrew Jefford

‘The acquisition of experience over decades cannot be duplicated’

‘I was Screaming,’ remembered Janet Trefethen, ‘and then I woke up. my body had registered the earthquake before I was conscious. John was in north carolina and I was home with my dog. The dog and I went outside and watched the swimming pool rock back and forth. I looked down and saw that my feet were all bloody – I’d run out of the house over broken glass. I got into the truck and drove down to the winery, still in my flimsy nightie. The gates were locked and I couldn’t open them. all the power was off.

‘I was worried about fire. The winery was in a sad shape – leaning four feet to the west in the middle. If the earthquake had carried on for another two minutes, it would have been total collapse.’

It was sunday 14 august 2014, shortly after 3am, when a magnitude 6 earthquake shook the southern end of napa Valley. It was caused by movement of the west napa Fault, a small part of the gigantic san andreas Fault system. The earthquake injured 200 people, one of whom later died (she’d been hit by her falling TV), and caused up to $1 billion of damage. Trefethen’s wooden winery was built in 1886; its pioneer lines and reassuring colour, like coral sand, made it a familiar overture for those driving up Highway 29. after the quake, as Janet said, it took on macabre fairground ‘fun house’ distortions – but held up.

a week ago, I walked around inside it and saw its new, quake-proof structural re-fit: a happy if expensive end to the story – despite being recognised as a national Historic Landmark, the building was uninsured when the quake struck, as no insurer would take on its risk.

earthquakes are a hazard of Pacific rather than atlantic winemaking – countries in the ‘ring of Fire’ experience 91% of all of the world’s earthquakes. This is never far from the minds of those making wines not just in california, Oregon and washington, but in chile (which has experienced three of the nine worst earthquakes in recorded history) and new Zealand, too. The earthquakes on 22 February 2011 in christchurch and on 4 september 2010 in canterbury were stronger still than the napa quake (magnitude 6.3 and 7.1 respectively), and the canterbury quake far more deadly, with 185 fatalities. atlantic zones aren’t immune, though: within europe, Portugal and Italy are just two winemaking nations to have experienced catastrophic earthquakes.

Together with the damage that can be caused by hail (and 2016 has been another catastrophic hail season for many european producers), an earthquake is one of the most unpredictable disasters to affect any wine producer. It’s hard for those of us not involved in an activity exposed to risks of this sort to imagine how we might react. almost all winegrowers, though, wherever they are, do just as the Trefethens did – which is to take a deep breath, roll up their sleeves, and begin to make good the damage.

we should all feel gratitude for that since, as Trefethen’s ceO Jon ruel points out, ‘the one thing you can’t build is history’. Janet Trefethen mentioned how, after bracing and some painstaking restoration work, the winery seemed to find its ‘structural memory’. You can extend this analogy, I think, to the activity of winemaking itself: every wine region has its own ‘cultural memory’, and the acquisition of experience over the length of decades cannot be duplicated. If the disasterstruck gave up and moved on, that wealth of experience would be lost.

I tasted three superb cabernet sauvignons at Trefethen – one from 1975 that was poised, perfumed, sweet-fruited and cedary; one from 2003 (another cabernet showing remarkable aromatic complexity, lift and freshness); and a 2013 (bright, sturdy, floral, with the same combination of aromatic complexity and natural poise). These wines underlined what a fine location Oak Knoll is – for satisfying yet texturally rich cabernet that expresses the warmth and generosity of napa in a lively, graceful and uncaricatural manner.

‘The way we farm now is so different from the way we farmed in 1973,’ stressed Janet – but I’m sure the 2013 wouldn’t have been as good without the experience of 1973. Just one lesson: endure. whatever it takes.