Heat, fire and hope

‘For us, hell began in May, after the first heatwaves,’ says Jean-Baptiste Rivail (left), general manager of Newton Vineyard in Napa Valley. ‘ 100% of our irrigation is from collected rainwater, and by May we hadn’t had a drop of rain.

‘We realised we would have about 30% of the normal amount, so we worked really hard on irrigation. It went pretty well at first. We thought, “We’re going to be fine after all; it’s going to be a great year”.

‘The first fire was in mid-August, just in front of the winery, which was very concerning. We couldn’t get any smoke damage tests back because all the labs were overwhelmed.

‘When the third heatwave came in early September, we were hit pretty bad. Grapes on some of the blocks we were happy with had started to shrivel.

Then, on 28 September, the Glass Fire jumped from east to west and destroyed everything. We spoke with firefighters that day, and they said they couldn’t even try to save us. It was like a fire bomb.’

Newton’s entire facility, and most of its Spring Mountain estate vineyard, burned to the ground.

‘We will be able to save 3ha out of the 35ha we had,’ says Rivail. ‘Most blocks are 60%-70% burned. We had already harvested everything, which was a complex operation between the heatwaves and smoke damage. We worked so hard this year to save everything along the way...’

A long process of rebuilding awaits. ‘If everything goes as we hope, we will have something ready by 2025. But that’s a long time, and it depends on so many factors.’