I have a divided mind on reading things like this.
smoke taint is a bitch
I’ve sat on too many panels of this type, and no longer participate in them regardless of whether they are judging finished wines or are technical assessments of barrel samples. It generally becomes a competition to see who can find the most flaws, and there is too much of a schooling(as in fish) of opinions for me to feel the process is accurate(or worth my time). Also it is too many wines at one time, but that’s not salient to smoke taint.
I’m sure that the article is correct in many occurrences. But many of the 2020 wines that were released up here seem to have sold just fine, typically at more modest price points. And consumers don’t seem as put off by hints of smoke as I would have expected(we haven’t released any Pinot Noir).
I think this board is very different from the average consumer, and would guess that many here would be more sensitive/aware of smoke taint. Unquestionably, try before you buy should be the watchword for 2020s for sure.
It shows a strong correlation between wineries that would release a flawed/tainted wine and ones that enter wine competitions. Not sure why they’d think they’d have a chance at a medal, but that’s inherent to certain mentalities.
Anyway, I don’t envy the judges who have to deal with that. To me, that dirty ash tray is something that lingers and builds up on the palate. It’d be a real worry trying to judge subsequent wines after a significant exposure.
What sort of retailer would buy badly tainted wines like that? I mean, other than Trader Joe’s?. (Sorry, but most people on this forum haven’t had wine as bad as I got from them. Undrinkable, non-flawed, unimaginably bad.) So, at least with a little common sense, I’m not sure the risk to consumers is high.
Laura also notes there are many exceptionally good Central Coast wines from 2020.
I guess I see this differently, Wes - I’m not sure many of these wineries perhaps believe that the wines showed noticeable taint, and therein lies the biggest potential problem. Perhaps the wines were ‘treated’ to get rid of as much as possible and they were satisfied with the before/after comparisons; perhaps the wines were tested but not as comprehensively as possible or for the wrong markers; or perhaps the taint has emerged after bottling in a way that is not predictable.
I tasted 3 wines that I think were smoke tainted on my recent trip. (1 disclosed, 1 not, and 1 when out to eat)
2 of the 3 were drinkable and interesting to me. The 3rd tasted like an ashtray on the finish. I would never drink one like the 3rd, but will keep an open mind to wines that could be very mildly “tainted”.
Recently I was involved with a work event where the team called up BevMo and said “We need alcohol for X many people.” All of the wines were from 2020 and I am pretty sure they were all part of BevMo’s private labels.
This is the first time I have noticed detectable smoke taint a 2020 NorCal wine. The Cab was undrinkable with an ashtray finish. The Pinot was tolerable but the smoke taint did get more noticeable after a glass and it had a very strange mouthfeel.
That seems inline with what I have seen. Some wines are quite tainted, and unpleasant. Some have some smoke notes and are a bit more astringent than the average WV wine, but are still interesting wines.
Perception of smoke taint is quite variable and apparently so is an aversion to it, though I have yet to meet anyone who enjoys an ashtray flavor/texture.
Explaining various “whys” that so many submitted such wines, which I didn’t get into here, doesn’t address the correlation. It shows different facets of amateurism. The excuses were valid for 2008 north coasts. The California industry learned big lessons from that. There were new things to learn this time around, but that fact the treatments that failed in '08 shouldn’t have been one of them. No one should be surprised if taint showed up. 100% of tainted wines had a concerning degree of smoke in the vineyard.
Anyway, what’s the time window between submitting wines and the judging? It’s hard to imagine it being very long - a couple weeks? I don’t see the shear volume Laura described as badly tainted going from clean to “good enough” tasting like a dirty ash tray all at once over the same short period.
One thing a lot of low-end wineries do is enter every wine competition they can, because the results have a big random factor. How a bottle shows a particular day, subjective preferences, tastes, sensitivities, experience of the judges, etc. Good wines can have a bad day, mediocrity can win an occasional gold or silver. Some wineries even brag about getting bronze.
Complete side note here: but i’m newer to wine berserkers. Great info from everyone here…especially as I (and a lot of others clearly) start to think about how much they’ll buy of CA 2020 vintages. I’m usually willing to buy some before buying…feels like 2020 is a try before you buy, and then still bears risk, even for big name wineries with reputation to risk.
You also have online resources - other people you’ve learned to trust having tried the wines.
Time is your friend, too. Wineries may have filtered for free taint before bottling, so when a wine was bottled/released is relevant. Any bound up taint will start becoming perceptible over time. There were some absolutely fantastic wines made. If their regular customers shied away, yo may see some deals on perfectly good wine.
I wonder what wine shop policies are on smoke taint. Like, if they have any integrity and presented a wine as clean and it turned out not to be, they should be disappointed that happened, accept your return and apologize, then pull the rest and make a call…
Daniel’s BevMo story - that would have me pissed off. I’d want a full refund and apology, at the very least. That’s inexcusable bad faith. I’d guess the corporate side is pushing them to move that crap that some bean counter thought was a good idea to pick up on the bulk market. No respect for their customers.
The scary thing is, I was the only one to notice it. The Gin and Bourbon went quick - maybe the guests realized the same thing as well and were too polite to tell us. I am not reading in to that too much as it’s always hard to judge at big conference events on what the crowd is going to drink. I did let some of the Sales and Marketing team know that I was a wine geek and had a cellar. Sales people are always shocked when the engineers are in to wine.
All of the NorCal 2020s I have purchased so far are good - it is really producer and vineyard dependent. If these wines are tainted, then it is really bound up. At the same time I am expecting to consume all of these early if the bound up smoke does release. And I will echo that the Central Coast 2020s have been really good and not to fear them.
However, I do not think we are going to see smaller retail stores be as accepting on tainted wines given how places like K&L are now acting with TCA tainted bottles. Recently, they “inspected” a corked bottle of SVD ABC PN before my partner was allowed to exchange it. If shops like K&L are doing that to wines tainted with TCA, I have no faith in them owning up to 2020 NorCal Smoke Tainted wines.
I’m surprised to hear that about K&L…they’d always been great when I had a corked bottle in the past. I don’t remember them ever really inspecting a bottle.
Wes - agreed there. Like many others I’m sure, starting to do my diligence now as offers start to roll out and people start tasting the 2020s.
Retail response to smoke taint will be interesting…especially if there’s any delay in its appearance. Though it does sound like a good excuse to taste purchases early…
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