Have yet to notice anything in the 2017 CA wines I’ve drank. Either I’m fortunate or my palate does not care; or both. We’ll see what 2020 brings.
And I think that Mike Judge would approve of the prodigious use of taint in this thread.
In 2017, most fruit was already picked by the time the fires started. Almost no fruit has been picked now. Also, our fires are much more widespread than they were in 2017.
Thx, that makes sense. I just recalled that 2017 was prolonged with the fires, had friends out there I checked in on. Prolonged doesn’t mean much if the juice is in a tank.
Still, if there’s a risk of taint in the skins, it’s not worth employing some techniques with whites that might extract some of that, so it takes options out of the playbook that might normally help make a better wine.
2008 was amateur hour. Such a broad ignorance on the issue. People just winged it, employing techniques they thought would work to remove it, only to have it come back, and so forth. I’ve talked to people who look at me like a conspiracy nut, because they simply can’t imagine how unprepared and unknowledgeable the winemakers were and how proper guidance wasn’t readily available. Even services in the business to assist winemakers and treat wines didn’t seem to know what they were doing. These days the labs are ready and can test the grapes before harvest, how to actually treat the wines is known, a whole array of techniques and options are in the tool box to make the best decisions.
There are a bunch of threads on this currently active as well as archived. Timing of the fires matter, as the grapes need to be ripening to be affected. The compound does drop out of the air over time, so it can be smoky without the possibility of contamination. Also, it’s a compound that’s in oak. Depending on the wine, a certain level wouldn’t stick out, though you’d want to avoid adding to that level with a bad oak choice.
Think back to 2011. The press focused on all the disastrous stuff that happened, but most of that meant no crop. Then there was declassification. Of what was left, a lot of the goofy wineries were forced to make their best, most classic wines. With 2020, I think the better producers will either have no crop or wines that are just fine.
LOL a Board member actually tried to tell me that, when I called out a Board darling for selling horrifically smoke-tainted Pinot from 2008. Hopefully we don’t see a repeat of that vintage.
There were several wineries that I know of, a couple rather prominent come to mind, that bottled and sold some of their 2008 knowing full well of the taint problem. However, they acknowledged the taint, sold them as such, and the wines were sold strictly out of the tasting rooms as I knew it to be.
Smoke settled into the valley yesterday, at least around St Helena. Not super thick but not super fun.
Fears of smoke taint from a consumer perspective will be mostly unrealised. Testing has improved a lot in both coverage of smoke compounds and throughput of analyses. People can test grapes, musts, and finished wines. Winemakers will be able to make informed choices at picking, pressing, blending, and bottling.
We had grapes rejected in 2018 due to Mendo ranch fire. Much was misunderstood before and then everyone was an expert in 2 weeks I still have samples of our chard which has bitter finish. To my knowledge grape development plays a part as well as concentration of smoke
Such as ?
Thank you for an INFORMED voice of reason.
Navarro for one released a pinot at something like $12 that they acknowledged had some pretty horrific smoke taint.
Cheers.
I had that Hungry Hollow Pinot. It was bad, tasted like a bottle of campfire. I trashed my last few bottles when I was rearranging my cellars last year because I knew I was never going to drink it.
I’ll continue to buy at the winery, as long as we’re having an open dialog about the issue. I agree that a broad brush is of no use here.
1 Like
I agree in general - but we still don’t know all there is to know about smoke taint from a scientific standpoint at this time. Yes, you can tell if you have it in your grapes, and yes, you can tell if you have it in your wines, and yes, you can micro-filter and do other treatments to ‘remove it’ from affected wines - but it still may come back later as it binds in different ways than most compounds.
Let’s hope that the smoke moves on faster than slower so that this is a non-issue . . .
Cheers.
Here’s a good overview I’ve partially skimmed: https://www.wineaustralia.com/getmedia/07c52619-2f6a-44a6-8502-2a67f238abd7/Krstic_et_al-2015-Australian_Journal_of_Grape_and_Wine_Research.pdf
Ugh. If this is accurate, all the vineyards I care about are in the solid red area. What number is the “danger” level?
There were others, though, that sold it without disclaimer. Duckhorn was one such offender. I tried a seriously smoked-out Pinot of theirs at a tasting, and told the rep they should not sell it at all.
He laughed, and said that for every person like me who pointed it out, another would walk out of the tasting room with a full case. I shit you not.
It’s true that some people are less sensitive and/or just view smoke taint as a nicely oaked wine. But, it’s pretty risky to knowingly treat your customers that way. There were some wineries that thought they had fixed things. It appears that it may not be a problem that can be fixed, because it just comes back later as mentioned above. I bought wines from a couple of wineries in that category and I don’t hold it against them. There just wasn’t that much experience prior to 2008.
I’ve also been at large tastings where people were pouring smoke tainted wines, some of them massively so.
-Al