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B.R. Cohn: Quake losses less than feared

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Sonoma Valley Sun

As the dust settled from Sunday’s earthquake in Napa, B.R. Cohn Winery president and CEO Dan Cohn was able to get a more accurate assessment of the damages at B.R. Cohn’s Napa warehouse facility. He was relieved to find that damages were less than they originally feared.

“We have a barrel warehouse pretty close to the earthquake epicenter, so we were very concerned about damage,” said Cohn. “As our cleanup has progressed, we’ve seen that the damage and loss of wine is less than we originally thought.”

The initial report in the hours after the quake was that the winery might have lost up to half of its 2013 vintage in barrels.

“As we sift through things, it’s clear that estimate was not accurate, fortunately,” Cohn said. “It looks more like 10 or 15 percent. We are still assessing the extent of the damage.”

B. R. Cohn’s Napa warehouse had approximately 2,600 wine barrels at the time of the quake, but only about 1,100 were full with wine. A significant portion of the 2013 vintage was in tanks and secure at B.R. Cohn’s Glen Ellen winemaking facility for bottling, which reduced losses, according to Cohn.

“It looked a lot worse than it was,” said Cohn. “We’re hard at work cleaning up, but we’ll come through fine. We’ve been around for 30 years – we’re dusting ourselves off and moving on with business.”

He added that the B.R. Cohn winery and tasting room in Glen Ellen were largely unaffected by the earthquake and were open for business as usual.

“It’s times like these that give us perspective and strengthen us,” Cohn said. “I’d like to thank our wholesalers, restaurants and retailers for their support through this tough time.”




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