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Illinois Valley News, Cave Junction, OR Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Draper Valley Vineyard a
juicy matter for Curtices
By SCOTT JORGENSEN
IVN Staff Writer
What began as a health
problem eventually became
a new beginning for Draper
Valley Vineyard owners Al
& Sandy Curtice, of Selma.
The couple was living
in California’s Napa Valley,
where he was an electrical
contractor and she worked
at St. Helena Hospital, when
Al was diagnosed with
Meniere’s disease in 2001.
That ailment had caused
Al to experience dizziness,
vertigo and nausea. After
talking to a specialist, he
learned that improvements
in his diet and lifestyle could
help recover the hearing he
had lost.
“It made me start think-
ing about what I could do,”
he said.
The couple purchased
property at 1751 Draper
Valley Road in Selma in
August 2002. During spring
2004, Al remodeled the
house on the property,
which was built in the early
1900s, then brought Sandy
and their infant son, Nelson,
up to Oregon.
The 48-acre property
was already a vineyard, but
needed some work. “It was
in disrepair,” said Al. “It had
been neglected for five to
eight years.”
So the Curtices brought
in a “couple of tons of
grapes,” he said, and began
planting them.
Now, the vineyard
grows a total of four grape
varieties -- Cabernet Sauvi-
gnon, Chardonnay, Pinot
Noir and Riesling. But these
grapes will not end up in
wine glasses. Rather, they
will go to make nonalco-
holic juice.
While Draper Valley
Vineyard follows many of
the same processes as the
average vineyard, it uses
sterile filtration instead of
pasteurizing.
“This way, we get to
keep the fresh goodness of
the grapes,” said Al. “Our
process is what really sets us
apart.”
Part of what simplifies
the process is the fact that
since they won’t be used for
alcohol, the grapes do not
have to ferment. It also al-
lows Draper Valley Vine-
yard to develop its own spe-
cial niche.
“It’s an all natural prod-
uct that’s good for you,” Al
said. “It’s a classy beverage
that the entire family can
enjoy.”
Al Curtice with juice processing equipment. (Photo by Scott Jorgensen)
Draper Valley Vine-
yard’s juice has been selling
commercially for the past
eight months, and is carried
at Taylor’s Country Store in
Cave Junction, Gooseberries
in Grants Pass, and Harry &
David in Medford among
other locations.
With the fall season
rapidly approaching, the
Curtices are anticipating
their busiest time of the
year. Aside from harvesting
the grapes, they have to
process and bottle the final
product.
“There’s no time to sit
and wait,” said Al. “It has to
be done all at once.”
He added that the busi-
ness may add a testing room
next year, depending on
how business goes during
the next few months.
He also might expand
the vineyard beyond its cur-
rent 18 acres, and would like
to try mixing blends of
grape juice with other fruit
flavors, like pears or
peaches.
For more information
on Draper Valley Vineyard,
phone 597-4737 or visit
drapervalleyvineyard.com.
Biscuit Fire study contends natural regeneration resulted in lesser fire severity
The Biscuit Fire of
2002 -- which nearly caused
evacuation of all 17,000
Illinois Valley residents --
burned more severely in
areas that had been salvage
logged and replanted, com-
pared to similar areas that
burned in 1987, but were
left to regenerate naturally, a
new study concludes.
The analysis, one of the
first to quantify the effect of
salvage logging and replant-
ing on future fire severity,
was published in Proceed-
ings of the National Acad-
emy of Sciences, a profes-
sional journal. It was pub-
lished by scientists from
Oregon State University at
Corvallis and the Pacific
Northwest Research Station
of the U.S. Forest Service.
It found that fire sever-
ity was 16 to 61 percent
higher in logged and planted
areas vs. those that had
burned severely and were
left alone in a fire 15 years
earlier. The study was con-
ducted in areas that had
burned twice -- once in the
1987 Silver Fire, also in
Illinois Valley, and again in
the massive 2002 Biscuit
Fire, one of the largest forest
fires in modern U.S. history.
“Many forest managers
in the past have assumed
that salvage logging after a
severe forest fire, along with
replanting new trees, will
reduce future fire severity,”
said Jonathan Thompson, a
doctoral student at OSU in
the Dept. of Forest Science,
and lead author on the study.
“This is based on the as-
sumption that removing
dead trees reduces fuel loads
and planting conifers has-
tens the return of fire-
resistant forests.
“However, those as-
sumptions have never really
been tested,” Thompson
said. “This analysis showed
that, after accounting for the
effects of topography, Silver
Fire severity and other envi-
ronmental variables, the
Biscuit Fire severity was
higher where they had done
salvage logging and plant-
ing.”
It’s not completely clear
from these data, Thompson
said, what the causative
mechanism is -- the tree
removal, the addition of
more fine fuels to the forest
floor during the logging op-
eration, or the growth of
new trees that for several
decades may be very vulner-
able to new fires.
The study is not, re-
searchers said, an indictment
of salvage logging -- it may
still have value for eco-
nomic purposes or to assure
the establishment of desired
tree species. However, “the
hypothesis that salvage-
logging, then planting, re-
duces reburn severity is not
supported by these data,”
the scientists said in their
report.
“Young forests in this
region are susceptible to
recurring severe fires,”
Thompson said. “Compared
to an older forest with
branches high above the
forest floor, young trees are
very vulnerable, whether
they are planted or naturally
regenerated.”
However, in the after-
math of a wildfire, removal
of large, dead trees, fol-
lowed by planting conifer
seedlings, does not appear to
lessen the risk of severe fires
during the first 10 to 20
years, Thompson said.
This may be because
the logging process leaves
more available fuel on the
forest floor; the dense, ho-
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mogenous replantation of
young trees provides a good
setting for fire; or some
combination of these factors
over time.
“Dead woody fuel ... is
only part of the fire risk
story, and it may not be the
most important after a few
years,” the study noted.
By contrast, natural re-
generation of forests, he
said, appears to result in at
least slightly -- and some-
times significantly -- less
risk of severe future fires.
This could be because the
regenerating trees are patch-
ier, have open gaps, more
species diversity, or other
factors.
But the study showed
that total consumption of
tree crowns in a recurring
fire situation is more severe
in the managed stands than
the natural ones, at least
when there are one to two
decades between fires.
This research was con-
ducted with satellite data,
government agency records
and aerial photography, in
the mixed-conifer, mixed-
evergreen hardwood zones
of the Siskiyou Mountains.
It analyzed burn severity
patterns with a commonly
used metric of fire damage
(Continued on page 10)