Northern California Earthquake Causes Problems For Local Winery

The 6.0 earthquake that shook Northern California made opening registers for Firestone Vineyard in Central California challenging Sunday.

“Our servers are in Sonoma County … and the computers weren’t up and the concern was we wouldn’t be able to process customers,” said Tony Lulling, supervisor at Firestone Vineyard.

However, that wasn’t the local winery’s only concern. Paul Warson — a winemaker at Firestone Vineyard — said they were also concerned about their sister vineyards.

Warson told Newschannel 3 reporter Cory James that “winery employees are going to need to go in with a hose and a pump and pull the wine out of the barrel,” because when filled, each barrel weighs about 600 pounds.

Warson says that means their sister vineyards in Northern California facing the damaged by the earthquake will have to spend several weeks cleaning up.

Firestone Vineyard also said structure damage is an additional problem because “if you don’t have a place to house [wine] or make the wine, then you’re really in some dire straits.”