Chateau Montelena no red wine produced in 2020

[Merrill_Lindquist]

I just spoke with a vineyard foreman at Montelena and he confirmed that Montelena will not be producing any 2020 reds. Sobering.

[Adam_Lee]

I am not making any Clarice Wine Company Pinot Noir and half of the Beau Marchais Wines have been lost.

Adam Lee
Clarice Wine Company

[Adam_Lee]

I am not making any Clarice Wine Company Pinot Noir and half of the Beau Marchais Wines have been lost.

Adam Lee
Clarice Wine Company

[David_Bu3ker]

I just spoke with a vineyard foreman at Montelena and he confirmed that Montelena will not be producing any 2020 reds. Sobering.

How are your grapes doing?

[Markus_S]

Guessing answer is NO but do some winery’s have insurance for this kind of thing?

Not sure about wineries. But, I would hope the vineyards have crop insurance that covers the winery not purchasing their fruit.

In general crop insurance covers crop loss from listed natural issues. …

This is interesting. So what if a fire was not caused by “natural issues”, such as arson or a person’s sex-reveal goes haywire? These were man-made events and this gets into the territory of arguing with insurance companies like the old hurricane insurance: “was it rain or was it flooding” that caused the damage.

[Merrill_Lindquist]

I just spoke with a vineyard foreman at Montelena and he confirmed that Montelena will not be producing any 2020 reds. Sobering.

How are your grapes doing?

I picked on the 8th and tasted from the fermenation bin the other day. Delicious. It should be dry and go to barrel next week. Then I will send a sample of the actual wine to ETS and wait probably a month to find out if my wine passes the test. If it passes, I will be advertising the lab results. If it doesn’t pass, that’s an expensive loss. Wine gets dumped.

[RichardFlack]

I was reading Flawless and he mentioned that there isn’t any carryover effect of taint but it can or does cause smaller yields the following year so 2021 should be interesting. I’m curious if anyone will decrease price knowing their grapes have some issues or would they just sell them as normal. Maybe they’ll do some reverse osmosis and try to reduce taint?

My understanding (which is nothing) is they will not do that. It’s either sell at full price or dump. Reputation is too important.

Sell off to a third party? Just thinking about loss reduction.

[Jidhin_R]

I was reading Flawless and he mentioned that there isn’t any carryover effect of taint but it can or does cause smaller yields the following year so 2021 should be interesting. I’m curious if anyone will decrease price knowing their grapes have some issues or would they just sell them as normal. Maybe they’ll do some reverse osmosis and try to reduce taint?

My understanding (which is nothing) is they will not do that. It’s either sell at full price or dump. Reputation is too important.

See my post for EMH Vineyards on the Weather and Farming thread.

Thanks! Lots of good information on there. Hope everything works out for you and the others. The early glass looked really nice!

[Brian_Gilp]

Not sure about wineries. But, I would hope the vineyards have crop insurance that covers the winery not purchasing their fruit.

In general crop insurance covers crop loss from listed natural issues. …

This is interesting. So what if a fire was not caused by “natural issues”, such as arson or a person’s sex-reveal goes haywire? These were man-made events and this gets into the territory of arguing with insurance companies like the old hurricane insurance: “was it rain or was it flooding” that caused the damage.

I should probably be careful as to how I word things. My knowledge is secondhand and my be flawed. But I think the intent is loss due to acts of nature outside of the control of the farmer. If the source of the wildfires would be questioned to determine act of nature, I don’t know. But the question as to if the crop was actually impacted will be questioned which was my point. Just because the fruit was rejected or if delays to pick caused the issues, then crop insurance may not provide coverage.

[ken_emery]

I was reading Flawless and he mentioned that there isn’t any carryover effect of taint but it can or does cause smaller yields the following year so 2021 should be interesting. I’m curious if anyone will decrease price knowing their grapes have some issues or would they just sell them as normal. Maybe they’ll do some reverse osmosis and try to reduce taint?

My understanding (which is nothing) is they will not do that. It’s either sell at full price or dump. Reputation is too important.

Sell off to a third party? Just thinking about loss reduction.

This would assume that you could get more bulking the wine out than it cost you to pick and ferment. Not being in the wine business I’m not sure if that’s a good assumption (but I could be wrong). From what I’ve heard/seen the bulk market sells wine at pennies on the dollar it seems.

[John_Kight]

Given that there is a market for wines with names like “Butter” and “Sexual Chocolate”, I don’t understand why they can’t sell this stuff off under a brand-name that capitalizes on the smokey aspect of the grapes. It could be called “Wildfire” or “Ole’ Smokey,” “Ash Barrel” or “Smoked Pole Red”. They could age it in bourbon barrels and market it as a complex, smokey, red to go with your cigar…

[larry_schaffer]

And PLEASE note that not all areas should be painted with the same picture. My heart truly goes out to all of those affected - as a long time customer of Chateau Montelena, and a friend of Adam Lee and the folks at Smith-Story and others, this news is quite sobering and depressing. I know how hard wineries work to do the best they can with their fruit - and to not have the chance to do what they do is unnerving.

All of that said, please do not paint the entire West Coast or even all of California as ‘affected’ by this - we have been incredibly fortunate down here in Santa Barbara County and though we didn’t experience a tremendous heat spike that has caused numerous growers to not harvest parts of certain varieties, for the most part, it is been a harvest that should yield the potential for great wines.

Cheers.

[HoosJustinG]

My understanding (which is nothing) is they will not do that. It’s either sell at full price or dump. Reputation is too important.

That makes sense but I figured you still gotta pay the bills and have some cashflow? I remember one of the forums someone mentioned someone was selling their wine regardless of the taint and just ignored it. Maybe this is where we see more merchants/negociants? COVID plus the fires and smoke taint have to be making things difficult cashflow wise.

Can only speak of Cameron Hughes / deNegoce and there is no way he will purchase bulk wine that has smoke taint as that would ruin his brand. Maybe some of the large supermarkets would?

Not if you disclose it. If he buys declassified screaming eagle and says “this is sourced from an estate with multiple 100 point scores … they are not producing wine for the 2020 vintage because they are worried about long-term smoked taint, but the wine does not exhibit any smoke taint now and can be consumed with confidence in the short term.” He could probably easily get $50 per bottle if not more. For an NDA bottling, the only reputation hit would be from trying to hide it.

[RichardFlack]

Given that there is a market for wines with names like “Butter” and “Sexual Chocolate”, I don’t understand why they can’t sell this stuff off under a brand-name that capitalizes on the smokey aspect of the grapes. It could be called “Wildfire” or “Ole’ Smokey,” “Ash Barrel” or “Smoked Pole Red”. They could age it in bourbon barrels and market it as a complex, smokey, red to go with your cigar…

Toasted Cru?