Just fyi, and @David_Patte, in 2024 there was a fire next to the Bednarik vineyard pre-veraison. That fruit was smoke affected even with the exposure that early.
This year the fires were east of Mt. Hood, and proximity is a big part of smoke taint. With the distance the smoke was traveling, I would think that the two days of mild impact would be really unlikely to show up in the wine.
EDIT: sorry, posting in harvest comes with some issues. The fire by the Bednarik Vineyard was in 2024, not 2023.
If you have the 2023 Goodfellow Bednarik, that wine saw no smoke at all (nor did the Valley as a whole). In 2024, somebody next door to Bednarik and Cancella Vineyards lit a burn pile and it got out of hand. The fire didn’t get huge but it was right next to the vineyards. We’re not releasing the 2024 (pressed for Rosé but ultimately we’ll just have it distilled).
Thank you, Jim, David, Marcus, and Saul. I appreciate the insights. May you all have a wonderful harvest!
I look forward to hearing more as the fruit comes in. I suspect it’s too early now, but hearing/reading comparisons to previous vintages as reference points (e.g. a bit like 2019 but with less x and more y) are always interesting and helpful to hear, even if I know those also vary a bit by geography, perspective, etc.
Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to share behind-the-scenes info as you all do so well here.
Chiming in to say I’m not concerned about smoke this year. More confused about how slow veraison has been to finish and how slow sugar seems to be accumulating in general. Which is fine, just not what I expected earlier this summer. I like Saul’s idea that smoke might block a lot of the sunlight so we may have had several days of low photosynthesis. All day golden hour. Now the rain is here and I’m excited to see what we find on the other side. I assume I’ll begin picking next week some time. For now, another cup of coffee and lots of weather model riding.
Under the tin foil hat theory, the 2017 haze (it was very high up and to my recollection less noticeable than the two days this year) took a set of days from a forecast of 97-99 F as highs and gave us highs of about 80F.
It certainly had a helpful impact as that week was by far the hottest weather forecast for the year, at the time.
The few days of smoke a month or so back were concerning in the moment and while likely not an issue in the long run they nonetheless are there in the back of the mind. There is a seemingly valley-wide slow down of verasion that is counter to what we have experienced over the past 3 vintages where there was a rush from the beginning of color change to the end. This rain incident could have both the rinsing effect that is helpful around this time of year and a kick in the pants to the plants to get back in gear.
Back in June we were thinking an end of August beginning to picking was possible. That moved to the first week of September, then to the 9th/10th and is still lingering around there for a couple of spots.
Yeah I’ll admit on day one of the smoke I was like, no big deal. But later on I was like, go away. Of course anything could result, but I remember being concerned in 2017 and there wasn’t any issue. I’m hoping for the same here (and not really worried about it).
The slow down has been odd indeed. Related to smoke, I’m not worried either but ETS just released its harvest guide today and I found this to be interesting about Pinot Noir-- some good news. (On the opposite end of the spectrum, their analyses over the years have shown Petit Verdot to be the most sensitive to smoke.) "Pinot Noir is a particularly challenging variety, partly because it can naturally contain reportable levels of guaiacol. Due to this, taking advantage of non- smoke years to determine natural background of smoke markers, specific to your vineyard, is a smart strategy. This data provides a baseline to reference for assessing smoke impact if wildfires do occur.
A second feature of Pinot Noir is its tendency to be a poor converter of smoke-derived volatile phenols into glycosylated forms. We already observed this particularity in 2020 in the Willamette Valley. While this may deprive us of ways to assess smoke impact, it may be good news from a winemaking standpoint: It suggests that the pool of odorless precursors ready to be converted into odor-active volatile compounds during fermentation may beless substantial than anticipated. Winemakers may get valuable information by preparing and testing micro-ferments before harvest.".
This was in the context of a piece on low to moderate exposure, titled “Interpretation of Smoke Impact on Grapes is Evolving Science” Subheader: Examples of 2026 Pinot Noir exposed to wildfire smoke, but relatively distant from location of the actual fire"
Yes this was the Lees Falls fire. It only burned for a day or so, and is about four or five miles West of Bednarik (mower sparked on the gravel road along the river). First Man vineyard is further East on Patton Valley Road, next to Cherry Grove, both about two miles East of Bednarik. Some folks noticed what they considered “smoke” qualities in their Cherry Grove and I suspect that First Man has a small dose as well. Not anything like 2020 in terms of intensity, but certainly something more gravelly in the wine. Either way, the exposure was nearby but very short, and still had impact.
I never felt like I had smoke in ‘17 but I did work with Sunny Mountain outside Monroe, and owner Steve Price thinks that there was smoke taint in this vintage from fires further South in California. I was never so sure. I didn’t notice anything in any of the Eola Hills stuff that year.
I am hopeful that the smoke we had in August was too early in the season but we shall see, and yes, the smoke was from fires very far away in this case
Yes I agree. Ben Casteel was sharing some of the volatile phenol numbers from testing they did during 2020. They used previous vintage wines as a chemistry control against the smokey 2020s. The numbers indicated as high or higher level of the phenols in wines they had from years that did not have “smoke” issues, presumably some of this from toasting in barrels and the like. I only mention this because sometimes the chems may not tell the whole story about whether we are suffering from “smoke taint” or simply have chemistries that would indicate we should be (but sensory wise have no negative issues)
I am feeling confident about making the wines and think the vintage is shaping up to be not so early as we all thought
Bud break was early, sure, but it really has been one of the most pleasant summers I can remember. No real heat waves after mid-June, just lovely mid-80s highs and very cold nights…. I guess I am scratching my head a bit that anyone would be surprised at lower Brix compared with recent years at this point.
And agree that the two days of smoke we had was much more in line with 2017 than anything else: in distance from fire and severity of smoke… though I think we had more days of it in 2017 than this year.
Thanks everyone for the perspectives. Just chiming in here to +1 this - the idea that smoke impact pre-veraison is not an issue is outdated. Once there is fruit on the vine, smoke exposure can be a problem - even on pea-sized berries.
sure this is true but research has shown that the impacts are greatest 7 days post-veraison all things considered. Check out page 3 of this Australian study below-- this is the one everyone cites.
Any heavy smoke event in proximity to a vineyard is a huge issue (fresh smoke, high intensity) even for only 30 minutes apparently (page 4)
This publication is 17 years old and our understanding of smoke exposure has grown enormously since then, especially from direct experience with actual wildfires. That is in no way to diminish the extensive contributions the researchers at the AWRI have made and continue to make to our understanding of this issue. Whether grapes are more or less sensitive to smoke 7 days after veraison or a month before is almost irrelevant in practice because the primary controls are smoke freshness and smoke intensity. As you say, a short exposure to intense fresh smoke can impact the fruit. And extensive exposure to old smoke and ash can have no measurable or sensory impact. My experience working in this area is that people focus way too much on physiological stage but that is mostly a distraction.
Spoke to one winemaker today who has already done micro ferments in the lab and tested samples with zero smoke. Not sure how widespread this practice is as this was a big budget corporate winery.
@David_Patte the plant may be the MOST susceptible 7 days post veraison, but it’s still susceptible to smoke damage well before veraison. We’re still distilling the 2024 Bednarik as it was susceptible enough to pick up perceptible taint due to the close proximity of the fire.
While Oregon set a record for acres burned this year, none of it was in the Willamette Valley and east of the Cascade mountains is a very long way to travel.
While Jackson Family can do smoke analysis in house, doingnit via ETS Laboratories is ridiculously expensive. I don’t mind spending money on real risks but the lack of proximity and short duration of smoke in the Valley makes dropping thousands and thousands of dollars a very poor use of funds. (Panels through ETS are several hundred dollars per test and give relatively poor data in terms of correllation.)
I’m very focused on quality and we’ll be watching everything to see if any evidence appears.
The few times I checked, it also appeared the wind from the Oregon fires was mainly spreading east/northeast away from Willamette Valley. But, as Marcus and others noted, probably far enough away to not be a factor.
