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4A | WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2020 | APPEAL TRIBUNE Wine Continued from Page 1A smoke," he said, "campfire strong." Lab backlog leaves winemakers blind At Lingua Franca Winery, just out- side Hopewell, assistant winemaker Kim Abrahams is calling friends at Cali- fornia wineries for advice and studying up on how to handle smoke. "Everything we've been reading is about intensity of smoke and time," Abrahams said. To be impacted, she said, grapes must be exposed to "72 hours in an active fire zone." Wineries conduct sensory analysis on grape juice and they also test grapes for chemical indicators of smoke impact by sending fruit samples to a laboratory. Locally, one is ETS Labratories in Newb- erg, which ships samples to St. Helena, California for testing. But this year wait- ing for lab results isn't an option to de- termine whether Oregon wineries should harvest fruit. Fires have been so abundant in Cali- fornia, and now in Oregon, too, that re- sults of samples received this week won't be available until, ETS projects, mid-October. Many, Abrahams explained, are sending samples anyway, because lab results can legitimize a crop insurance claim. "Most people are sending in samples so they have it in case they need to dump the wine down the drain," she ex- plained. Instead of waiting for lab results, Oregon wineries will have to decide whether or not to proceed with harvest based on other factors. "Mostly we're concerned with the ash falling from the sky. All of our equip- ment, everything is covered with ash," she said. They are talking about wash- ing the grapes before crushing them. "We're worried about our crews, we don't want people out there for any amount of time." Lingua Franca planned to start pick- ing fruit in the days ahead, said Abrams, "we'll see how it goes, if we have to stop picking we'll stop." Workers harvest Pinot noir grapes for sparkling wine under smoky skies at a Willamette Valley Vineyards site in Dundee on September 10, 2020. EMILY TEEL/STATESMAN JOURNAL Pinot noir grapes for sparkling wine harvested under smoky skies at a Willamette Valley Vineyards site in Dundee on September 10, 2020. EMILY TEEL/STATESMAN JOURNAL At what point is the wine crop lost? Wineries producing still wines, both white and red, have a few weeks to make a plan. They typically won't start har- vesting fruit until the third or fourth week of September. The decision is accelerated for those producing sparkling wines, one of the Oregon wine industry's hottest new categories. At Hillsboro's Ruby Vineyard, wine- maker Andrew Kirkland pressed spar- kling wine grapes the morning after winery owners Steve Hendricks and Flora Habibi were evacuated from their nearby home near the Chehalem Moun- tain-Bald Peak fire. "The winery is on level 2," Kirkland said. "The fire has spread rather quickly, we're sitting on the north side watching it blow east." He continued to press wine and col- lect vineyard samples, even as aircraft looped overhead, dropping water to fight the fire. Sean Allen, winemaker at Salem's Pudding River Wine Cellars, evacuated his girlfriend from her home in Stayton on Tuesday. "It was the scariest thing I've ever seen," he said. "It was noon and it was black out." Pudding River has closed its tasting room and Allen is focused on bottling. If conditions closer to the winery begin to resemble what he saw in Stayton, Allen said, "maybe we should not make wine this year, not risk it." Most area winemakers aren't there yet. They're cautiously moving forward, weighing the daily shifting information. On Thursday, the Oregon Wine Board released a statement. "While we may not know the effect of smoke on this harvest for years, wine- makers can implement procedures for mitigating the effects of smoke affected grapes." Perhaps the 2020 vintage will yield an abundance of wines showcasing wi- nemakers' creative solutions to manag- ing smoke impact; a year heavy on rosés and other production styles that limit the time wines spend on potentially smoke-impacted skins. For now, said Willamette Valley Vine- yards' director Christine Clair, it's im- portant to keep perspective. "There's not going to be a Willamette Valley wide consistent harvest for this year. It's all really site specific." The smoke in the air and the orange skies, she said, "it looks really bad, but what we're seeing in the vineyard doesn't look that bad yet." Previous fires and smoke impact from fires in Southern Oregon, Califor- nia, the Gorge and even earlier this year in Australia, said Clair, are increasing the body of knowledge around mitigat- ing smoke impact on grapes through the technique of the winemaking process. "Our winemakers feel they have a lot of tools to work with." Emily Teel is the Food & Drink Editor at the Statesman Journal. Contact her at eteel@statesmanjournal.com, Face- book, or Twitter. See what she's cooking and where she's eating this week on In- stagram: @emily_teel Rescue Continued from Page 1A Escaping the fire Angela Mosso, Angie to most, is a de- voted wife and mother. When her son's baseball team need- ed a coach, she volunteered. It didn't matter that she barely knew how to throw a ball. She's also been a dedicated caretaker for her mom, Peggy Mosso, for nearly 10 years. She had watched the wildfires come out of nowhere and spread swiftly. When evacuation orders seemed immi- nent, she began packing some of their belongings and putting items on the porch. Her husband could load them when he returned with the trailer he was borrowing from a friend. He still wasn’t home when they went to bed — only to wake up to their house on fire. The three of them were able to get out, with their dog and three cats, and were set to leave in one of the family's vehicles when something went wrong. Chris figures the car must have caught fire. It was clear to Angela they would not be able to drive out. She needed to save Wyatt. She told him and Duke, the fam- ily's 200-pound bullmastiff mix, to run for it. Escaping on foot wouldn't be possi- ble for her mother. Peggy, 71, had recent- ly fallen and broken her leg. She was scheduled to have surgery in a few days. Ultimately, Angela knew if she wanted to survive, she had no choice. She had to leave her mom behind. Peggy Mosso died in the fire. Her re- mains have yet to be recovered. Angela got out by walking nearly 3 miles on the blazing hot asphalt. If she had shoes when she started, they melt- ed away. Chris, the grandson of the creators of Enchanted Forest in Salem, still doesn't know all the details. He never will. Even when Angela has been able to provide some, they've been difficult to absorb. He hadn't slept since Sunday night and barely knows what day it is. Angela was transported first to Salem Hospital, then to the Legacy Emanuel Hospital Burn Center in Portland, where she remains in critical condition. In ad- dition to her feet, she has burns on her arms and back. She's been heavily sedated but knows her son, who's athletic and loves video games, is still missing. Her instructions to her husband of 24 years, after he visited her on Tuesday: "Don't come back until you find him." Searching for Wyatt What she didn't know was that Chris drove back up North Fork Road that first Chris Tofte, right, directs volunteers on how to get to his house to continue searching for his son Wyatt Tofte,13, and his dog Duke in Stayton, Oregon on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2020. BRIAN HAYES / STATESMAN JOURNAL Angela Mosso, her mother Peggy Mosso and her son, Wyatt, in an undated photo. This photo of Wyatt Tofte circulated on Facebook throughout the search for the 13-year-old from Lyons. SPECIAL TO THE STATESMAN JOURNAL SPECIAL TO THE STATESMAN JOURNAL night, while she was on her way to Ore- gon's only burn center, looking for Wy- att. By then, though, the fire had spread. He couldn't make it half as far as he did the first time before turning around and even then, had some close calls ne- gotiating fallen trees. He saw flames ris- ing over the ridge and wasn't sure he could beat the fire down the hill. Chris continued to search the next day and night, his throat hoarse from yelling his son's name. Friends and fam- ily spread the word by posting photos of Wyatt on Facebook. Thousands of peo- ple shared the posts. Some responded by joining the search. Others could only offer prayers. False hope surfaced when someone posted that the boy had been found safe at a friend's house. If only it had been true. Friends and family still clung to hope that Wyatt, who turned 13 in February, had made it out safely. But they had seen his mom, her injuries, her bare feet. How long would Wyatt's shoes last? Chris grew frustrated with the re- sponse from law enforcement — limited to what it could do because of extremely dangerous conditions in the evacuation area — and organized his own search ef- forts. He gathered a group Wednesday af- ternoon at the Stayton Park and Ride to coordinate plans, and they caravanned to the base of North Fork Road, the same place where Chris blew past the block- ade that still stands. Then he spoke with Marion County Sheriff 's deputies. He listened, obvious- ly distraught over what they told him. He hugged someone, spurned attempts from friends trying to console him, then got in his Jeep and sped away. Wyatt had been found. Leann Moore, a friend of Angela's for more than 20 years since they were co- workers at Willamette Humane Society, said he was found in the driver's side of a vehicle on the family's property, with Duke draped over him. No one knows how or why Wyatt re- turned. Earlier in the day, his dad rehashed his worst nightmare. What if he had been allowed past the blockade or blown through it earlier? Could he have saved them? The grandmother's remains were lat- er found in the same car with Wyatt. Extended family have started a relief fund for Angela and Chris. Capi Lynn is the Statesman Journal’s news columnist. Her column taps into the heart of this community — its peo- ple, history and issues. Contact her at clynn@StatesmanJournal.com or 503- 399-6710, or follow her on Twitter @CapiLynn and Facebook @CapiL- ynnSJ.