Snow, power outages disrupt new Calistoga winery debut
CALISTOGA -- It was an inconvenient start to a new era at Memento Mori winery in Calistoga.
Road closures and traffic kept employees from making it to the boutique cabernet producer's new property on Azalea Springs Way. The power was out for much of the day.
The 17-acre estate was covered in snow Friday morning.
"Unexpected. I'm from the Midwest originally and it was like waking up back at home and I haven't experienced that in quite a long time," said estate director Travis Retherford.
Retherford was dealing with his first power outage. He had planned to spend the day fielding phone calls from clients about the announcement of the winery opening and long-anticipated debut.
"And instead, (I) spent a lot of time trying to figure out this relatively new property, get things up and running, a lot of time trying to figure out how to connect with people, because we didn't have phones, electricity, internet," he said.
Currently, the brand, which started in 2010, has a tasting room in Napa.
About 15 miles away, at CADE Estate in Angwin, video showed one winemaker having fun with the fresh powder by snowboarding down a driveway between rows of vines.
That town got 8 inches of snow. St. Helena was also blanketed in 7 1/2 inches. Parts of Calistoga received 9 inches of snow.
The CHP said Highway 29 is likely to remain closed from Tubbs Lane north to the Lake County line through the weekend due to hazardous road conditions.
If you're wondering whether all that snow affects winemaking, Retherford weighed in with his expert opinion.
"The vines themselves are doing just fine. There's nothing growing yet so the snow doesn't hurt them at all. It's just kind of a shock to see snow on grapevines in California."
Retherford said he doesn't expect to see bud breaks on the vines for at least another month.
