Experience w/Very Slight Smoke Exposed Grapes?

I am looking for someone who has done careful sensory work and/or lab tests on grapes that have been exposed to low amounts of smoke. Anyone?

Here is the story…

We are taking grapes from a farmer in North Eastern Humboldt. There were fires in that area, but the smoke never lingered more than a couple of hours per day. For about 2 weeks +/-.

Based on the severity and number of hours of exposure, I think (guess) it is about 2% - 5% the exposure that much of Mendocino got in 08.

Even so, based on our experience in 08, I am concerned (traumatized) and want to have the best info I can for making decisions about what direction to go with these wines.

I have been cold soaking the samples and doing careful tasting of the juice at crush, 8hrs, 24hrs and 48hrs. Of the 5 samples, I rate the amount of smoke from none detected to faint to slight. The varieties include Zin, Merlot, Cab, PV, and Syrah. So far, I have not detected smoke in the whites from this site even after 24 hr soak of the samples.

I am thinking of having ETS run at least one sample, but it is costly. $175+/- per test.

Has anyone run this sort process all the way through to correlate taste in crushed must with what shows up in the finished wine?

Of course, there are tons of variables. At the same time, any direct experience with the issue could help shed light on it for me.

Thanks in advance.

I think it depends on when the exposure occurred. I have read here that exposure after verasion is not an issue. http://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=948657#p948657

In 2008 the fires were during verasion.

Thanks Brian.

Yes, I am aware do the idea that the time of exposure is one of many variables.

I am looking for anyone who has worked through it and can correlate very slight taste at 48 hrs with what shows up in the finished wine.

We had it so light in 2008 that we could not taste it any juice samples no matter how long they soaked. 1-4+ days is what i tried with berry samples post testing. I even used whole clusters because I could not get it in juice samples or form from tasting the stems. It was my understanding that some/most of the smoke compounds were bound to the sugars so until fermentation started you could not taste it. We actually did not taste it and thought we got lucky until malo had finished in all the wines and the wines were sulfured, in February I think.

People around here tried everything imaginable during fermentation as well as in barrel. To my palate nothing worked enough to do to our wines. Knowing that with contamination you really only have 2 options in my opinion dilution (1:50 ratio for smoke tainted wines) or filtration. I choose filtration and it did knock the smoke back a good bit but did not eliminate it. This spring we tasted every vintage including the 2008 with club members, as the wine has aged the smoke has dissipated even more to the point that of 50 people only a handful could taste it on my “Zero”(0% new oak), however on the other wine with 35-40% new oak most tasted it. It seems to have dissipated with time under cork and I am interested to continue to taste it over the next decade or so.

I think if you can taste it in the juice you will have a pretty big effect on the wines at least from my experience in 2008. I also would not use any new oak and add any more of those compounds to the wine. It also seemed those who hung fruit longer got more of an effect not sure if that also correlated to more extracted styles higher brix wineries tend to prefer or not. The ETS test number was not a great indicator of amount perceived either. We tasted so many wines that had a high test and low perceived and visa versa. Some even sent samples of previous vintages aged in new oak as well as other wineries wines that do 100% new and those numbers did not correlate either.

We have talked many times about a game plan next time this comes up in my winemaking career. I have not come up with what I would want to do. Originally I though straight to the press and make white wine out of it as our whites did not show any smoke but not sure how I would sell that. Our other and more wishful plan is to have enough reserves in the bank account to skip it altogether just as many burgundian houses are forced to do this year because of hail. The only other thing I could think to do is ferment it and bulk it out.

Best of luck.

Since white wines didn’t show any impact back in 2008, it couldn’t hurt to avoid cold soaks and post-fermentation maceration. The less time spent absorbing whatever is in the grape skins, the better, right?

Thanks for your comments, Joe, and thanks for talking to me about it.

It is a bummer that the ETS numbers did not correlate well.

Has anyone gone through this with red grapes other than Pinot Noir?

Joe’s post brings to mind a couple things I learned about smoke beer. These are made with smoked grains. One thing, which I experienced with my first rauchbier is the smoke dissipates over time. (I recently finished a smoked porter, which could use a few months.) The second thing is more interesting, and I wonder if it could translate to wine. It’s advice I saw a couple times in researching doing a rauchbier. Apparently the headspace, as it develops, in kegs allows the smoke character to increasingly diminish. So, the question is why?

Any volatile compound will do that.

Well, if all of the smoke character is volatile and will do that, then it’s a question of designing a system that will allow/encourage it to happen while protecting the wine (and not costing too much).

I wonder if micro-ox would help? If it’s bad, there are RO membranes that will remove it.

Maybe we should ask the Devil (Clark Smith) when he is back in town.

I would think that if RO worked perfectly producers like Ant Hill Farms would not have had tainted releases like they did. Or maybe they didn’t use RO and it came back to bite them?

[quote="Linda BaehrI wonder if micro-ox would help? If it’s bad, there are RO membranes that will remove it.[/quote]

How about using the micro-ox process, but with an inert gas? Or rig something up to replicate how you would use a keg for topping wine, to prevent the mixing of inert gas and oxygen? Actually, maybe someone here can do that experiment with a smoke tainted wine in a topping keg.

I did some research a few years ago about smoke taint since i had an incidence:

  • smoke taint compounds are conjucted with sugars and until finishing alc. fermentation you cannot be sure.
  • among others guaiacol and 4-methylguaiacol are more often responsible for taint. Since these compounds are also found in oak barrels and methodolgy already exists it is easy to track them with GC.
  • at the time i was doing research, the mechanism that the smoke compounds were transferred into the grape was not clear. It was proved although that the compounds were not entering from the grape skin but were transferred possibly throught leaves and shoots.
    -after veraison smoke could also cause problem. Important is also that smoke compounds are accumulating with repeated exposures.

Solutions:

  • fining agents didn t work apart from act. carbon but at too high dosages
  • blending is not working nice either. You need great dillution and by time since wine is losing fruitiness smoke taint comes out again and getting even worst.
  • only RO seems to work but have never tried it.

For more check Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research. They have dome amazing work on thiw topic.

That was my understanding as the smoke up here started in June pre version and was heaviest just before the start of it when the backfires were set that tripled the burring acreage for about a week. There were no fires in the AVA just on the ridges to the north east.

This is my understanding as well. If I recall correctly from the Australia info amount of smoke and duration were big factors. Thick smoke for just a couple days or light smoke for a week or 2 and they did not pick the fruit. They mostly studied things to do in the vineyard and not much in regards to winery techniques. That may have changed since 08-09 as I know they have had many more fires down there since then.

Agree as well. Even with different clones and or different vineyard location made a difference. Picking later and more extractive winemaking with new oak did not help at all either.

From the land of bushfires - we know about smoke taint https://www.awri.com.au/information_services/current-topics/smoke-taint/

There is tons of information and smoke studies on the web out of Australia. Too many links to list here. Here is one…
https://www.awri.com.au/information_services/current-topics/smoke-taint/