(PD) - On paper, it’s not the kind of expense that would pencil out for a publicly traded corporation. But at Sonoma’s Rhinefarm, where six generations of Gundlachs and Bundschus have worked its fertile, clay-loam soil, typical business formulas don’t apply in the face of 150 years of history and tradition.

So when the Napa earthquake dealt a devastating punch last August to the old redwood barn that has served as the heart of the agricultural operation for more than 100 years, there was no question that it would be repaired rather than replaced.

“When you have a dollar and 100 ways to spend it, it’s hard,” said Jeff Bundschu, president of Gundlach-Bundschu Winery and Vineyards. “We’ve got deferred maintenance that if added up would take centuries and centuries.”

But Jeff was persuaded to redirect money from other projects to protect and preserve the barn because of a mistake his own father Jim regrets to this day.

Back in the 1970s when Jim began reviving the premium winery at Rhinefarm, which had been shut down since Prohibition, he went to his father, Towle, and asked permission to tear down another historic old barn to build a modern, new structure for dry storage.

He got the OK and the old barn was razed. As it turned out, that 19th-century barn was never replaced, making the remaining barn, with is multiple additions, ever more important as the winery grew.

“It was absolutely beautiful. It’s one of the worst mistakes I ever made, tearing that barn down,” Jim Bundschu lamented of that historic, two-story structure with horse stalls and a bell tower.

“It’s one of the reasons we’re restoring the current barn. It’s more expensive to maintain one’s history, but it’s definitely worth it.”

The remaining barn is a survivor, built sometime after the 1906 earthquake. Gundlach Bundschu wines at the time were produced in a block-long facility in San Francisco. A million gallons of wine and three family homes were destroyed by the fires that ensued after that terrible temblor, prompting the family to retreat back to the country and rebuild near the vineyards at Rhinefarm.