Three Napa County wine businesses have filed a lawsuit against high-profile vintner Jayson Woodbridge, alleging that smoke from last year's Pickett Fire ruined their 2025 harvests on Howell Mountain, a wine-growing area on Napa Valley's east side. The plaintiffs, Outpost Wines, Laelius Winegrowing and Impensata Wines, filed the complaint in Napa County Superior Court, pointing to Woodbridge's Calistoga-area property as the origin point of a blaze that scorched more than 10 square miles of the county.
The Pickett Fire erupted on the afternoon of August 21, 2025, on the outskirts of Calistoga and was aided by gusty winds as it tore through the region, according to The Press Democrat. The fire ultimately burned more than 6,800 acres, destroyed one home and four outbuildings, and forced evacuations from Calistoga through the Palisades and Swartz canyons to Pope Valley Road. More than 2,700 emergency personnel spent 17 days battling the flames before crews reached full containment.
Attorney Daniel Reidy, who represents the plaintiffs and is based in St. Helena, filed the suit against Woodbridge and his company, Hundred Acre Wines. The complaint identifies 2343 Pickett Road — an address that lies within adjoining properties owned by Woodbridge — as the location CAL FIRE identified as the fire's starting point. Early CAL FIRE dispatch traffic referenced a vegetation fire and a possible escaped control burn, the same dispatch communications cited in the complaint alongside public reports about the fire's starting location and possible causes.
Smoke Taint Versus Direct Flame Damage
The lawsuit alleges that Napa County wine-growing residents have a duty to take precautions against causing or spreading fires. Impensata Wines purchases grapes from Laelius Winegrowing's 15-acre Howell Mountain vineyard, and the plaintiffs say the smoke-affected vines had only recently reached maturity after being replanted following the 2020 Glass Fire — a detail that sharpens the financial sting for growers who had waited years for those vines to produce again.
Regionally, the damage was severe. The Napa County Agricultural Commissioner estimated crop losses of at least $65 million in 2025, with survey data showing that roughly 80 percent of the damaged grapes suffered from smoke exposure rather than direct flame destruction, according to CBS San Francisco. Wildfire smoke taint occurs when airborne volatile phenols absorb through grape skins as they ripen, chemically binding with fruit sugars and producing unpalatable ash or medicinal off-flavors during fermentation — a defect that cannot be filtered out without altering a wine's character.
Woodbridge's Attorney Pushes Back
Sam Singer, who represents Woodbridge and Hundred Acre Wines, said the complaint contains unproven allegations concerning the cause of the fire and responsibility for the plaintiffs' alleged losses. Per the same account, Singer has previously stated that no controlled burns took place on the Hundred Acre property that day; instead, he said a contractor was curing bricks for an outdoor fireplace when the fire broke out and believed the ashes had been properly extinguished. Hundred Acre Wines denies the claims in the lawsuit.
Singer told the outlet that Hundred Acre's attorneys asked CAL FIRE to consider a battery inside an on-site trailer as a possible alternate ignition source. He also said the three plaintiffs chose litigation after Reidy's clients were invited to mediation by the defendants, an offer he said was not reciprocated. Singer added that other wineries affected by the Pickett Fire are working with Hundred Acre Wines to resolve claims outside of court.
Investigation Still Open, DA Reviewing Case
CAL FIRE has described its investigation into the fire's cause as ongoing and turned over its findings to local officials, though the agency rejected a public records request from The Press Democrat for the final report as of late July. Napa County District Attorney's Office spokesperson Carlos Villatoro said the office is reviewing the referred case and hopes to decide soon whether to file charges. According to Singer, Woodbridge himself has not been contacted by the District Attorney's Office.
The Pickett Fire's path through terrain already scarred by the 2020 Glass Fire made it especially difficult to contain. Dense brush regrowth and residual dead fuels combined with steep slopes and triple-digit August heat to drive aggressive fire spread, according to a Wikipedia summary of the incident. CAL FIRE's own incident records show the scale of the response: up to 2,727 personnel, 248 fire engines, 75 bulldozers and 14 helicopters, including night-flying aircraft used to maintain containment lines over steep hillsides after dark.
A County Already on Edge Over Fire Risk
The fire's origin drew scrutiny in part because CAL FIRE had suspended all residential burn permits across Napa County months earlier, on June 23, 2025, due to rapidly drying summer vegetation and elevated fire danger, according to Permit Sonoma. That suspension was still active when the Pickett Fire broke out nearly two months later. Days after the fire began, the Napa County Board of Supervisors declared both a local emergency and a local health emergency, citing public health risks from heavy smoke and toxic wildfire debris.
Woodbridge had expanded his Napa Valley holdings just a year before the fire, acquiring the 286-acre Kelly Fleming Winery estate at 2343 Pickett Road in Simmons Canyon in August 2024, adjoining his existing Few and Far Between vineyard, according to a PR Newswire release announcing the purchase. The estate includes a 5,000-square-foot stone winery and hillside cave facilities. Firebreaks and access roads built into Napa's hillsides after prior blazes, including ridgelines like Hogback Ridge, played a role in helping crews hold containment lines during the Pickett Fire, Hoodline reported in its look at Napa's new wall of defense.
With CAL FIRE's investigation still unresolved and the District Attorney's Office yet to announce a charging decision, both the cause of the Pickett Fire and any criminal exposure for those responsible remain open questions. For now, the civil case in Napa County Superior Court moves forward as the county's wine industry continues to reckon with a fire that, by the Agricultural Commissioner's estimate, cost growers tens of millions of dollars even in vineyards the flames never touched.
