The “deeply shocking” comment iby the author is a little naive.
Predictable would be more appropriate. 2026 will probably be the hottest year on record globally and 2027 is almost a certain with El Niño.
Gonna be a rough couple of years if not decades.
London has had more days over 30C this summer than the whole decade of the 80s. They say a picture tells a thousands words…
I was in London in July, 2022, when the temperature was the hottest in recorded history. This looks worse.
Well I hope you’re right! I didn’t think there was any risk of smoke taint, but that was before the fires spread. And the fact that the land is flat and that the winds predominately come from the west (and not to) are what worries me, since the fires were to the west of both the Southern Medoc and Pessac-Léognan. My wife’s cousin lives about ten minutes away from Léognan and told us of the awful smoke, the garden coated with ash, etc. Anyway, fingers crossed!
I don’t think we’ve reached the peaks of that year but it has been consistently hotter for much longer than ever before. Nearly an unbroken 2 months now with zero rainfall and 25-35C temps vs 20-25 more typically.
The real question for me is what concentration of phenols, carbonyls and organic acids is necessary, and at what kind of duration, to taint wine grapes? Our apartment in Bordeaux continues to be bombarded by strong smoke odors every time the wind shifts to west; we look forward with eagerness to every north, south or (rare) east wind. I have to believe that the southern Médoc and those properties in Pessac, at the very least, have borne the brunt of whatever smoke effects have hit the vineyards.
Perhaps St Estephe will be the big winner in Bordeaux from all these cruel changes.
The only way to tell if grapes have been tainted by smoke at this point is through lab tests. The smell in your apartment or in the air does not accurately reflect what went on with the grapes.
And we have to assume that, at this point, there will be a lot of testing done in the area. If not, that would be a problem. They will probably start by doing micro ferments to get a good early indication of potential issues . . .
Cheers!
Rained a decent bit in Burgundy yesterday, and the day prior…
I was in Vienna and the Wachau in early May and have continued to watch the temperatures there. Here’s the next week in Duernstein, in the heart of the Wachau:
It’s even hotter in Vienna:
Le Monde had an interesting article on the vintage a couple days ago. It was stated that until the end May, the weather had been quite favorable this spring and early summer. They reported on the lack of hail and frost And hence no disease pressures reported from most of France. The abrupt heat and fires may not be as severe as reported. It was good to see some good news
The news in the article was like the Curate’s egg - good in parts! On one hand, so far at least, there shouldn’t be any diseases, as you say, but on the other, the drought conditions for anywhere north of a line from Lyon to Bordeaux were reported to be the worst ever encountered, for now - all the wine-producing areas need colder nights and plenty of rain. Taking the example of Pauillac, apart from possible storms tomorrow, not much rain is forecast until at least mid-August, but the good news is that temperatures are likely to be under 30° with cooler nights. It sounds like a repeat of 2003, but the fat lady hasn’t sung yet!
One comment from my high school teacher has somehow managed to stay in my mind since around 1996-7 - water will become the most scarce valuable resource in the future. That’s what she said as we were going through the geography, underground water and how river goes.
I believe something was going on with the Kurds (related to Turkey) and she showed through how the rivers ran, why they were very unlikely to ever get their own country.
@Alan_Rath - heard on the news that it turned out that the regional head instead of using the reserved money for emergencies like what’s happening spent the money on a very fancy apartment, claimed to be an office, though in reality used for private purposes.
Can’t recall her name but she also had the balls to blame the central government for not doing enough at the same time.
Is that the one who wrote the paragraph we were discussing a while back? I just read it again, and it makes a little more sense now, though I still think it’s misdirected.
The one who wrote the paragraph was the winery. Didn’t know the details then for the rant, but with the corruption background it makes more sense even though they swung rather wide in the post.
Record heat plus record fires just after veraison means caution, as a buyer. Having gone through our own fires in 2020 at almost the same time, we tested like crazy but there is very little consensus of what levels of various compounds on the vine translate to taint in the final wine. Testing after malo has completed is much easier to figure out. I will be interested to see those results. Results from tests done by non-estates, that is. I’ve been looking at live cams of the city of Bordeaux and it’s been mostly blue skies for some time. Not sure how that translates out in the wine growing areas, but only saw three days of ugly skies there. Of course, if ash is falling and it smells smokey out, that is not good. But the actual tainting compounds are heavier and do not travel as far as the smell does. Evidence is that even a few hours of hard exposure can affect finished wines. So we will see.
