Louisiana Winery Weathers the Storm

After its 2005 reds survive Katrina, Pontchartrain Vineyards tries to restart sales

Eric Arnold
Posted: September 21, 2005

Just as New Orleans' restaurants were about to enter their busy season when Hurricane Katrina hit, so was Louisiana's main producer of vinifera wines. Pontchartrain Vineyards, near Covington, on the opposite side of Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans, was right at the end of its harvest.

"The red wines were literally born in this hurricane," said winery owner John Seago, whose bottlings include Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Zinfandel, as well as a blend of Cynthiana and Norton. "We were inoculating on the Sunday before the storm came through on Monday."

The winery and vineyards are in the hills north of Covington, well above sea level, so flooding wasn't a problem. "But the winds were extraordinarily fierce," said Seago. "It took ancient pine trees and uprooted them and snapped them off." The fencing near the winery was simply flattened by Katrina's power, and downed trees took out some trellising in the vineyards. "But by and large, the vineyards stood strong," Seago said.

So did the winery. Though the building was without power for several days and is now running on generators, all the fermentations were ticking along in the middle of the storm. "The winery is pretty well-insulated. We protected all the product that was in process, and everything we had in the winery is in good shape," Seago said. The tasting room, however, did suffer some damage, and the property in general is so cluttered with debris that cleaning up will take weeks, he added.

In the meantime, Seago has to sell some wine. And there are three problems with that. The first is that his biggest market, New Orleans, is "kind of like a black hole"--no one can come or go unless they have a pass. The second problem is that right before Katrina hit, Gov. Kathleen Blanco signed a bill that eliminated the right of the state's wineries to sell directly to retailers and restaurants. And the wholesaler that subsequently agreed to distribute Pontchartrain wines is Republic Beverage, which is now operating out of Lafayette since its New Orleans warehouse remains inaccessible.

But Seago is still optimistic. "The good news is that our vineyard is standing, and we protected this year's harvest," he said. And he has been in touch with Republic in Lafayette. "We're trying to get the first wine out sometime this week."

Though the recovery has been cumbersome, Seago thinks that everything will be back to normal in three months. "We're moving along."