(Wines&Vines) - A month after a severe earthquake hit Napa Valley, a freak hailstorm and heavy rains Friday could have wreaked more havoc on the Napa Valley wine community, but fortunately the hail was confined to a small urban valley, and the rains came when most grapes other than Cabernet Sauvignon and Petite Verdot had already been picked.

“Surprisingly we were OK,” said Anthony Truchard at his family’s eponymous winery in Carneros close to Brown’s Valley, the area where hail piled up inches deep. “There was lots of hail here, but it didn’t seem to bother the grapes.”

The story is much different than in the Tuscany region of Italy, where recent hail did widespread damage.

Reports from the field
Jon Ruel, president of Trefethen Family Vineyards in Oak Knoll, said, “We got about three-fourths of an inch of rain in one hour. It was heavy rain, but thankfully no hail like they had in Brown’s Valley. The rain didn’t affect the grapes since just Cab and Petit Verdot are out there now, and they are both tough.”

Mike Reynolds, the president of Hall Wines in St. Helena, lives in Brown’s Valley in the western part of the city of Napa. “It was really quite amazing,” he said. “My backyard garden was completely devastated by the hail. We still had ice out in front of our front door two days later.”

Reynolds added, “We didn’t have issues with hail in our vineyards. All of our Pinot Noir and Chardonnay was harvested.

Up to a half-inch of rain did drench vineyards. “Fortunately, nearly all that we