I received the fall offering from a California producer this week and was a bit surprised that their detailed harvest and tasting notes had no reference to smoke exposure during the vintage or smoke taint.
I’m not a big Napa buyer but had a look at some other quality producers who have released 2020s and found this wasn’t uncommon, although some producers (eg Dominus) do have good disclosure.
What are peoples’ thoughts? Safest to assume that it’s unwise to buy any quality 2020s that don’t disclose, or is that too paranoid?
If anyone has seen a useful map or list of areas that were badly hit by smoke, that would be very handy too.
My default on 2020 from the west coast is to pass, but I appear to be quite sensitive to the issue. I would only purchase if there was a positive affirmation that smoke did not impact the vineyard. Simply not worth the risk of cellaring flawed wine for 10+ years.
That they picked before the smoke. That would be like not mentioning weather or extreme weather events that affected the region in question just because it didn’t actually adversely affect their wine.
When I tasted at Beta last year, for example, Ketan talked about the insane September heat wave, but said it didn’t affect his wine since he picked before it. It would be odd to just ignore that whole issue, just like it’d be odd to ignore the infamous smoke that plagued a lot of the region.
In all fairness Santa Barbara county was one of the only areas that did not have any smoke issues. I know that other areas had varying degrees of smoke and yes some folks picked before there were any real problems but I have also tasted some wines from Napa for 2020 that showed no smoke taint currently.
Guessing it’s not that simple. What if they have several wines? Do they put different disclosures for each one? What if most grapes were picked before the smoke but not all? What if some areas were affected and some weren’t? It would quickly become a hot mess of disclosures.
For inexpensive bottles, that’s fair. But for more premium wine the producer will usually put out a decent note for each bottle anyway, and in a vintage like 2020 I would have thought it wise to address likely customer concerns.
This is the Dominus note, which seems to me a reasonable standard of disclosure for a product in this price range.
This is a very sensitive subject, 2020 was certainly not an easy vintage and those who picked prior to the fire or were far enough away from the fires made decent wines, this is certainly not like 2018, however still a decent vintage. Tasted a handful of 2020s earlier in the year and the wines I tasted did not show any smoke, however as others have mentioned I feel you either need to taste for yourself or trust others who have tasted. Spottswoode, Dalla Valle, Rudd and VHR showed no signs of smoke taint.