Hey, you’d be upset, too, if you were sunning yourself on a nice California vine when off in the distance you saw a big black cloud of smoke, or worse – a wildfire — heading your way.
With increases in both frequency and severity of wildfires, California winemakers have at least three very big challenges to contend with.
First, they must figure out ways to mitigate the risk of fire and smoke damage to their grapes. It’s now becoming commonplace for wineries to install sprinklers, fire hydrants, and water storage areas on their property. Some have gone so far as buying sheep to eat the underbrush that contributes to fire spread; sheep manure also helps, as it turns out, to produce a more resilient soil.
Second, as a result of these – and other – added costs, winemaking has become more expensive. One Paso Robles winemaker reported that his property insurance costs have increased by more than 40% in the last five years, while the amount of coverage has declined by almost 80%. There are reasons why we pay $20 for a glass of good wine these days.
And third, winemakers have had to contend with the effects of smoke on their grapes. It turns out that smoke from wildfires contains lots of phenol compounds that can penetrate a grape’s skin and result in the wine having a “smoky” or even “ashtray” flavor.
In 2020, the worst year so far for fires in California vineyards, some winemakers simply gave up and threw out most or all of that year’s vintage. Others found other uses for their grapes – turned them into vinegar, for example, or distilled them into brandy, which was aged in oak barrels. And still other winemakers expanded their wine tasting efforts and learned, to their great surprise, that some customers really liked that ashtray taste.
Thankfully, there are efforts underway to better understand how smoke affects grapes and how to mitigate those effects. For starters, red wine is much more prone to developing that smoky taste because the skins of the grapes used for red wine are left on during the winemaking process. And there are new devices that can detect the presence of, and even remove, the phenol compounds most likely to disturb the wine’s natural flavors.
For now, however, perhaps the best we can do is come up with a better adjective for smoke-tainted wine than “ashtray.”
Cheers!
-Submitted by Bill Good
(Image credit: Pixabay.com and Vinepair.com)
