Wine and Grapes Analytical Chemistry Lab in Corvallis, which provides chemical analysis for wine growers around the state. As a result of 2020, many wineries now keep smoke contracts with their fruit producers. They’ve also altered their library practices. Maintaining a stocked cellar, or wine library, is common in commercial winemaking as a form of insurance for unforeseen events. Since 2020, many Oregon wineries have elected to sell from the libraries due to a shortage of current- vintage wines. Others have begun selling from 2021 and 2022 earlier than planned. Wineries in this camp, including Patricia Green, now operate on the edge with diminished reserves to draw from in the event of another 2020. Though the winds of 2020 were historic, attorney Dustin Dow says the 2020 fire season was no accident of nature. To date, Portland-based power company PacifiCorp has settled more than 1,500 claims relating to the 2020 wildfires for more than $1 billion. Patricia Green Cellars is among the 34 plaintiffs in the so-called Sokol Blosser lawsuit — named for the Dayton winery serving as lead plaintiff. With a court date set for November, the lawsuit is the first of five pending mass tort cases brought by Dow’s Ohio firm, BakerHostetler, scheduled to go to trial. PacifiCorp is accused of leaving power lines energized ahead of the Labor Day wind event despite strong warnings from public officials and even the company’s own forecasters. “This wasn’t just failing to de-energize the power lines,” Dow says. “It was failing to de-energize power lines after being warned by the state fire chief that if they left their lines energized, it was going to start fires. And that’s exactly what happened.” A spokesman for PacifiCorp said the company has a “robust” wildfire mitigation plan approved by the Oregon Public Utility Commission. “PacifiCorp has added in-house meteorologists, installed hundreds of weather stations that monitor fire conditions in real time, and continues to improve its ability to provide safe, reliable power to Oregon customers,” writes PacifiCorp spokesman Simon Gutierrez. Guiding Spirits On a brisk afternoon in early January, Jim Anderson read news updates as he prepared research forms to send to his lawyer in his ongoing case with PacifiCorp. As if poring over financials from the past four years wasn’t enough to put him in a bad mood, catastrophic wildfires were ravaging Los Angeles. It seems to Anderson that with each fire season since 2020, his winery has barely escaped disaster. But he knows luck eventually runs out. A fire could burn in Canada and all it would take to shut him down is a shift in the wind. “If another 2020 comes along, we’d be out of business,” Anderson says. “The whiskey thing is great, but we couldn’t survive on it. I mean, we lost maybe 90% in 2020, and we’re still recovering financially from it. So I’m extremely nervous.” Diversifying beyond wine has been a learning experience for both Sardell and the team at Patricia Green Cellars. Despite initial losses, they’ve succeeded in making unique whiskey, including rye and barley varieties, and often hear favorable reviews from customers. To say a product is Oregon-made isn’t unique, but few whiskeys can claim to be made here entirely — using only Oregon-grown ingredients and local labor. A dirty secret in the industry is how many Oregon distilleries simply bottle and repackage whiskey made elsewhere, Sardell says. These efforts to stay afloat since 2020 are in keeping with the real-life Patricia Green’s approach to winemaking. The winery’s namesake died in 2017 at 62 of an apparent stroke at her cabin near Roseburg. Patty Green was one of the state’s first female winery owners, and those who remember her say she was always willing to try new things. They think the distillery project would have been right up her alley. Jim and Patty met in the early 1990s when both worked at Torii Mor Winery in Dundee. In 2000 they decided to go into business together, opening their own winery on 52 acres in the Ribbon Ridge region. When it came time to give the place a name, they decided they wanted a simple name with a simple story behind it. “It came down to the wire,” recalls longtime Patricia Green winemaker Matt Russell, repeating that simple story. “They sat around the table and Jim was like, ‘Look, you’re the only marketable person here.’” Anderson sees Green’s legacy alive in the person of Lynsee Sardell, one of the few women to crack into the region’s distilling boys’ club. Anderson says Green was at least his equal in winemaking, though unwitting guests would often ask her if they could speak with the owner or the manager. Committed to sustainability and imbued with a DIY sensibility, Green also never threw anything away. She kept pieces of old equipment in bags she’d store all around the property. After she died, those bags remained. One day years later, at a critical stage of wine production, power at the winery went out suddenly. Panic started to set in until Russell had a thought. He looked up and down the property until he found it: a plastic bag containing old fuses, labeled in Green’s distinctive handwriting. “She saved our butts that day,” Russell says. “It’s cool she still helps us out.” Longime Patricia Green winemaker Matt Russell Patricia Green Cellars is among the 34 plaintiffs in the socalled Sokol Blosser lawsuit — named for the Dayton winery serving as lead plaintiff. 24
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTcxMjMwNg==