美国国家公共电台 NPR After Fires, California Wine Country Wants Tourists Back

 

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The fires that ravaged¹ parts of Northern California came during peak tourist season for the wineries in the area. Now that the fires are out, Sonoma County wineries and restaurants are open but feeling an economic hit. From member station KQED, Farida Jhabvala Romero reports.

FARIDA JHABVALA ROMERO, BYLINE²: Buena Vista³ winery in Sonoma Valley is considered the birthplace of California wine, founded in 1857. Now, the black tree stumps⁴ and scorched⁵ hills right next to the winery cellar show just how close the flames came - about 30 feet.

TOM BLACKWOOD: The fire could not have come any closer. Buena Vista was surrounded by flames.

ROMERO: Tom Blackwood is general manager here. He thanks firefighters that the winery survived untouched. But now, he's got another problem. He says the month before the fires, they had close to 6,000 visitors, but since they reopened two weeks ago, just 500. He walks to the tasting room and shows me.

BLACKWOOD: You know - what do we have? - six people now at the bar.

ROMERO: Blackwood says it should be like 50 and that the big hit is from tourists who canceled their trips entirely⁶.

BLACKWOOD: The people that called us that saw the destruction, that thought or think that, you know, wine country was destroyed, everything was destroyed.

ROMERO: News coverage⁷ all over the world showed destruction from the fires says Caroline Beteta. She heads Visit California, the organization tasked with attracting tourists to the state. Beteta spoke⁸ to a conference of wine marketers in Santa Rosa, the biggest city in the county. News images of charred⁹ houses and red glowing skies flashed behind her.

CAROLINE BETETA: Just the imagery alone, I would argue, did more damage than the actual damage to the tourism infrastructure¹⁰.

ROMERO: If you start driving on back roads in Sonoma Valley, you could see some scorched houses and cars. But Tim Zahner with Sonoma County Tourism says most hotels and wineries in the county are fine now and are pouring in their tasting rooms today.

TIM ZAHNER: You know, if you're back in Chicago and it's November and it's snowing - out here, it's not snowing. You know, it's gorgeous. So it's a good time to come visit.

ROMERO: His group and Beteta's are trying to convince people to come back. Visit California launched a $2 million ad campaign to bring back images of sunny vineyards and happy couples enjoying a glass of red - you know, wine country images.

ROBERT EYLER: This is something that is a brand challenge in the short term.

ROMERO: Economist¹¹ Robert Eyler at Sonoma State University says, for now, that's all he expects it to be.

EYLER: Unless we have, let's say, repeated fires year after year after year, which will unfortunately act as an erosion of brand, but there's no history to expect that to happen.

ROMERO: That brand is something local small business owners like Mingma Sherpa are counting on. He co-owns La Casa, a Mexican restaurant about 2 miles away from the fire line. It's happy hour here, but Sherpa says half of his customers are gone. Before the fires, at least one tour bus would stop here daily.

MINGMA SHERPA: But since that happened, we get like once a week. So all six, seven days, most of them are cancelled.

ROMERO: He says this town is special. And for those tourists that return, he'll be serving them ice-cold margaritas. For NPR News, I'm Farida Jhabvala Romero.

1 ravaged   

毁坏( ravage的过去式和过去分词 )； 蹂躏； 劫掠； 抢劫

参考例句：

• a country ravaged by civil war 遭受内战重创的国家
• The whole area was ravaged by forest fires. 森林火灾使整个地区荒废了。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 vista   

n.远景，深景，展望，回想

参考例句：

• From my bedroom window I looked out on a crowded vista of hills and rooftops.我从卧室窗口望去，远处尽是连绵的山峦和屋顶。
• These uprisings come from desperation and a vista of a future without hope.发生这些暴动是因为人们被逼上了绝路，未来看不到一点儿希望。

4 stumps   

（被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分

参考例句：

• Rocks and stumps supplied the place of chairs at the picnic. 野餐时石头和树桩都充当了椅子。
• If you don't stir your stumps, Tom, you'll be late for school again. 汤姆，如果你不快走，上学又要迟到了。

5 scorched   

烧焦，烤焦( scorch的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（植物）枯萎，把…晒枯； 高速行驶； 枯焦

参考例句：

• I scorched my dress when I was ironing it. 我把自己的连衣裙熨焦了。
• The hot iron scorched the tablecloth. 热熨斗把桌布烫焦了。

6 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

7 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。

8 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

9 charred   

v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦

参考例句：

• the charred remains of a burnt-out car 被烧焦的轿车残骸
• The intensity of the explosion is recorded on the charred tree trunks. 那些烧焦的树干表明爆炸的强烈。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 infrastructure   

n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施

参考例句：

• We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
• We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设，发展各类群众文化。

11 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。