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It has been a truly bad time for some of the world’s important wine regions in the U.S. and abroad . We don’t yet know what the full impact from the fires will be.
In Spain, prime minister Mariano Rajoy called the recent raging fires there “provoked.” He believes the fires were the result of arson. According to drinksbusiness.com, more than 500 wildfires consumed northwestern Spain and parts of northern and central Portugal at the same time fires raged through northern California.
Some believe the Iberian fires were set by arsonists using balloons made combustible to make the fire spread quickly. It helped, too, that winds from Hurricane Ophelia fanned the flames.
On Sunday, October 15, flames threatened 30,000 residents on Spain's border with northern Portugal , and at the wineries of Vigo, the most populace location in the municipality of Galicia.
In the southern Galician region, the fires moved hot and quick in the famous Rias Baixas region, where more than 90 percent of the wine is white and the Albariño grape is king. The Rías Baixas wine appellation provides 7% of the area’s employment (12% during harvest).
Fire destroyed vineyards at Bodegas Marques de Vargas and Señorío de Rubiós in the municipality of As Neves. Señorío de Rubiós is known for still and sparkling wines produced from ancient native grape varieties like Pedral and Souson. The winery’s Albariño and Treixadura vines also succumbed to the fires.
The damage at Señorío de Rubiós extended to winery workers and grape growers, engulfing their homes, animals and cars. A spokesperson told drinksbusiness it is too soon to know the exact toll in vineyard and household damages, but said it is extensive, and added it's a major blow to people whose vineyards go deep both in the soil and in ancestry.
At last count 41 people have been killed by the fires in Spain and many have been injured. Hundreds of homes had to be evacuated. It was reported in one instance, two women were trapped and engulfed by flames in a van outside the town of Vigo.
As it was in California, thousands of firefighters were supported with helicopters and planes dumping water on the furiously spreading flames. It rained Monday night, a day after the fires raged out of control, which helped extinguish most of them, but not all.
In Portugal, a state of emergency was declared Sunday, Oct 15, as firefighters battled around 500 fires in its central and northern regions. About 4,000 firefighters managed to extinguish more than ten percent of the fires by Monday morning, but they could not save the 43 lives lost.
The terrible fires raged particularly in the Dão wine region.Through many grapevine preservation projects, Dão is home to Portuguese grape cultivar diversity. The region also hosts Centro de Estudos Vitivinícolas do Dão, a stellar research and development facility and one of the most important producers of Portuguese grapevine cultivars. Wind across the region Sunday night exceeded 62 miles per hour, (100km) spreading flames and threatening the region’s important grapevine research. According to decanter.com, the owners of the organic producer Casa de Mouraz in Tondela lost vineyards, their home and a warehouse holding pallets of wine. Some of the winery’s employees were among the 43 dead.
Last week was the second time in four months for fires to ravage Portugal. 64 people died last June in another wine district, the central Pedrogao Grande region.
Certainly, it is trying times for the wine world.
