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 The epicenter of the 6.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Northern California yesterday, the strongest in the area after 1989, was barely 10 kms southwest of Napa in California, the center of its winemaking region."It's devastating. I've never seen anything like this," reportedly said Tom Montgomery, a winemaker for B.R. Cohn Winery in Glen Ellen, California. The winery lost "as much as 50 percent" of its wine, Montgomery said. The winery focuses on high-end, single estate wines that retail between $40 and $100 a bottle. "It's not just good wine we lost, it's our best wine," he said.
"Everything and everyone in Napa was affected by the quake. My house, along with everybody else's, is a disaster. It looks like somebody broke in and ravaged the place, room by room," said CNN iReporter Malissa Koven, who was awakened by the shaking at about 3:20 a.m. "Anything and everything that could fall, did," she said according to the Report in CNN.
The damage in Napa is fairly significant, said Glenn Pomeroy, the CEO of the California Earthquake Authority, who surveyed the area Sunday afternoon. He said that downtown was particularly hard hit, probably because of the age of construction.
 In Oakville which is slightly away from the epicenter, Silver Oak Winery lost "a couple hundred bottles of wine as well as three barrels full of wine. Most of the product damaged at Silver Oak was single-vineyard wines the winery uses for testing. None of the wines sold to consumers were damaged in the quake”, said Ian Leggat, a spokesman for Silver Oak. David Duncan, President and CEO of Silver Oaks tweeted, ‘All else is well and no one hurt. Thank God.’
Bruce Cakebread, President of the family-owned premium wine producer Cakebread Cellars situated in Rutherford in Napa Valley informs delWine that the damage was little at the winery though the staff living in Napa suffered damages to their houses. He says, ‘Quite the shake! We were fortunate at the winery with very little damage. Our employees who live in City of Napa have lots of clean up to do at their houses. Damage is varied outside of City of Napa downtown and west Napa. We were open today (Sunday) and will be crushing tomorrow since it is an early harvest.’
Napa Valley is California's best-known winemaking region known for producing premium wines that fetch premium price even though the quantity produced represents only 4 percent of California's total wine crop. Napa Valley reportedly does $50 billion of economic activity a year, or roughly a quarter of the wine industry for the entire U.S., according to Napa Valley Vintners, the Association of Napa Valley producers. Napa Valley is a prestigious appellation (AVA) that includes the City of Napa, Oakville and Rutherford.
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Subhash Arora
Tags: California, Napa |