(NYTimes) - Imagine that your entire inventory goes up in smoke. And your insurance doesn’t cover it.

That’s what happened to Delia Viader, owner of the Viader winery in California’s Napa Valley, nine years ago, when an arsonist set fire to a warehouse storing her 2003 vintage. In one day, she lost 84,000 bottles. She had just been about to reap $4.5 million by shipping the wine to restaurants, distributors and exporters. And then poof. “I had absolutely nothing,” she said.

Nothing prepares you for the moment you lose everything, and even now, Ms. Viader has difficulty talking about that day. “It is something I try to put behind me,” she said. But when pressed, she recalls how it unfolded — and the combination of strategic decisions and lucky breaks that allowed her to rebuild.

Ms. Viader had been walking into a private dinner at a Napa resort when her son Alan, who managed Viader’s vineyard, called to say that flames had engulfed the warehouse — a giant structure in Mare Island, Calif., that stored wine for close to 100 wineries. “He tells me, ‘Mom, I am looking at the smoke — I can’t even get close,’” she said.

Ms. Viader, who started her winery in 1986, had fire insurance, but she immediately feared the payout would take months if not years — and probably wouldn’t cover her losses. (She would be proven right on both counts.) Her first reaction was to tick through various situations that might keep the winery afloat. “I immediately calculated cost and cash flow,” she said. She had production bills and 28 employees who needed paychecks.