Smoke taint 2020...

How long does it take? Here in the Central Valley Ca. we’ve had a layer of smoke and ash for the last couple days now…pretty heavy as you can see the ash and smell the smoke persistently. I would think Lodi is getting this…and am wondering about the other wine areas? How much of this does it take before we start seeing the effects in the grapes? And…does heat play any part in how much absorption the grapes take in the smoke…as it’s also been 100+ here for the last week or so?

Why are you buying CA wines anyway? [tease.gif]

Unfortunately, this looks like a repeat of 2017. Prolonged heat speak approaching Harvest and the fires. At least in 2017, the vast majority of the fruit had been picked and was safely in tank. This time around, none of the cabernet has even been picked yet. Add this event to the entirety of 2020, and, well…

Smoke has been hanging out at elevation. Air quality in Napa has been better than Sacramento & San Francisco. Duration & wind direction will ultimately dictate how this goes but incredibly premature at this point to be drawing any conclusions.

Good insight. Thanks!

Good insight or blind hope… Only time will tell.

I just sent this to my list an hour ago but made the blog “public.” Anyone interested can watch. It covers the fires and taint in the first 1/3. You can skip my berry tasting in the middle, if you want. The last 1/3 is the map of the fires and where we all are by comparison.

Summary… the fires are right up on the ridge and out to Vacaville, but it’s close to blue skies in Napa much of the time. Visibility is miles. Except for a couple hours a day, not even the smell of smoke. We have been lucky. In 2017, it was fires and smoke all through the valley for ten days. This is nothing by comparison. We just have to hope it does not change. Right now, I have no “taint” fears at all. So far.

This situation is different cuz there aren’t the strong winds the the prior years had, which made matters much worse. For the places I’m paying a lot of attention to, west of Sebastopol to the coast (and roughly south of Graton), and the east bay (where I live), things are surprisingly good for most of the day. The problem is the late afternoon/early evening when the winds shift direction. Smoke blows through for a bit early in this cycle (from late afternoon, to early/late evening, depending on the location) until it blows through.

Smoke taint comes from time and concentration of exposure…just like Covid, which is sadly appropriate…but also, the amount of time from the moment of the burn to the grapes exposure is important, the more the time the less, or no, impact on the grapes (from an aussie research paper, the kings on this topic). I’m thinking the critical time is the first 12 hours, but it’s been a couple of years since I read this stuff, and if I weren’t tired, I’d refresh myself on it. Maybe someone out there knows before I get to it.

The situation up in the foothills doesn’t seem so great right now. It seems terrible in fact. The only glimmer of optimisim is the sensors are more sparse up there, so might be better than I think. We’ll see.

If you want to track the smoke, the best site is the following. Make sure that only ‘PM2.5’ (aka smoke particles) only (not Ozone or PM10) is turned on. It’s updated every hour or two (sometimes more slowly than I’d like).

https://gispub.epa.gov/airnow/?tab=0&clayer=ozonepm&mlayer=none

Unfortunately, I don’t think the ‘Purple Air’ (home based air quality sensors) based data is useful or worth paying attention to (the data from the above link is from commercial air quality sensors). That’s not entirely true…getting your own Purple air device can be helpful, cuz you can get to know what reading levels are problems and which aren’t…even tho the data from machine to machine can be quite variable if they haven’t calibrated to a standard.

+1, the smoke has been blowing East, air quality in the Valley has been excellent.

This is the greatest vintage…

since 2017.

It depends what you’re smoking, Buzz!

The real difficulty for those in the biz is that the customer will perceive this as a smoke taint year, even if it winds up having no or little impact.
Best, jim

Possibly, but I’d guess that years from now when the wines are released, if there didn’t turn out to be a real smoke taint problem, consumers won’t make that connection in their heads.

Having said that, I DEMAND A 50% PRICE REDUCTION IN MY 2020s DUE TO RISK OF SMOKE TAINT!!!

Smoke taint is only one of their worries. Fires are moving towards Healdsburg and one West Side Highway winery Passalaqua has been trimming his trees and spraying the roofs of all of his buildings with water as a hopeful fire break,

Smoke taint is just a part of terroir these days.

Want to go LOL but it’s not.

The stupid-response-density has been especially high on this thread.

You can add your completely-lacking-in-contribution post to that number.

Still a lot of uncertainty about this will all play out (as others have noted.) Esther’s note in the SF Chronicle this week highlighted an interesting point. Apparently grape skins are particularly vulnerable to penetration by smoke compounds and so winemakers might opt to make more rosé this year:

“So it stands to reason that if smoke taint is a problem primarily of the grape’s skin, then whites and rosés would be much less susceptible to damage than red wines, simply based on the amount of time that the skins remain in contact with the fermenting liquid.”

Link to the article (paywall): Rosé could be the solution to wildfire smoke damage in California vineyards

Its horrible up here

Hopefully Napa spared, but some in SC Mountain AVA looking to be less lucky - California fires: Wineries in Santa Cruz under threat - The Drinks Business

“He [Owner of Big Basin Vineyards] said that with the dense smoke, there is a chance the estate will be unable to use its fruit from this vintage.”