Short, interesting piece on the economic impact of smoke taint in California wine, and research on methods to combat it, such as topical chemical application.
This, however, stuck out to me:
“(Professor of Cooperative Extension in Enology Anita) Oberholster says the most promising solutions are those that treat wine made from tainted grapes through methods like reverse osmosis.”
Is this what we want? I can only presume that such manipulations would be totally undisclosed to the consumer.
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Ummmm - that technique is used for alcohol removal, VA removal and a bunch of other stuff 1 think of it as micro filtration…
Cheers
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What “we” want?
Who is the “we” you speak of?
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It’s already happening anyway. Much of the research being described here is trying to prevent the grapes becoming tainted in the first place rather than treating tainted juice. This was a big focus of discussion at the ASEV annual meeting this year. We want to have methods to both prevent and treat smoke taint. I really don’t see why this is a problem.
Winemaking is a manipulation and almost no wineries disclose all of the things they do during the winemaking process. I understand that with smoke taint people are nervous about it emerging later in the wine’s life, but the aim of research right now is to remove both the immediately unpleasant characters and the sugar-bound compounds that cause later emergence.
I think Brettanomyces is a good comparison. It’s a taint that can show up immediately or after time, and get worse over time. Some people filter, some people use chitosan fining, some people use Velcorin at the bottling line. All of these “manipulations” are safe and result in cleaner wines that present the character of the fruit and the place rather than just one spoilage yeast. I don’t really ever hear anyone complain that wineries are manipulating their wines in this way, unless they’re advocating for the natural wine purist’s approach of letting anything happen to your wine good or bad.
Also one quick note - this article says that the bill under consideration by congress would provide $32 billion for research, which made me chuckle. It’s $32 million…
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What ‘we’ want is for growers and wineries to not be so decimated by a natural disaster that it bankrupts them. Even if things can be salvaged to the level of bulk juice, important bills an be paid to keep the lights on for another vintage.
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Ben,
The difference is that wine consumers do not understand what winemakers sometimes do to provide them with wines that are free of some of these ‘issues’. And the difference is that winemakers, in general, do not disclose the types of ‘tricks’ that they use.
How common is it for winemakers to use copper sulfate to remove H2S? And how often to you hear winemakers talk about or disclose that they use it.
I am in agreement with everyone you said - and it’ll be interesting to read other comments here. Pulling back the curtain is not something winemakers like to do - unless it assists them in how they are perceived or for marketing purposes . . .
Cheers
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We’re back to the same point again Larry. You’re a winemaker, and so presumably part of a larger community that perhaps discusses these issues within that trade. What do you know?
David,
I explained what I know above - as did Ben. I think that our industry is struggling to do further research on smoke taint and that this is a project that should be funded.
As far as techniques that Ben mentioned, they are indeed used quite often - whether it be micro-filtration the use of velcorin, the use of copper sulfate, etc. There are more ‘products’ and ‘techniques’ now than ever to assure that ‘faulty’ wines are an exception rather than the rule (should winemakers choose to use these techniques, and that’s a different story)
Hope that answers your question
Cheers
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Ultimately a lot of these discussions are largely self-serving. People want to buy wines from small, family-owned businesses, but they also want to walk away from tough years - not just smoke taint, but cool vintages, or perhaps more wet vintages. That’s not wholly compatible with the small, family-owned businesses in many cases, as they cannot always deal with the cash flow variability of a highly picky group of customers who walk away when times get tough, or walk away if they don’t like what the small winery needs to do to survive.
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That is a fantastic point - and one that certainly is a challenge for smaller wineries. That said, these same smaller wineries will do what it takes to ensure that their existing customers get the best wines that they can, regardless of the factors mentioned. We as an industry have already figured out how to deal with hot or wet years - dealing with smoke taint seems to be an ongoing issue that we’ll have to figure out as an industry as well.
Cheers
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Every winemaker, especially the small ones, have probably at some point had to do a RO filtration to remove VA. High VA ferments are just part of the game, some years. Bigger wineries can blend a high VA lot away, or discard it, but smaller wines can’t always afford to do that, so will have to find a solution to save it.
I also hear of wineries RO-use as an alcohol removal tool. This allows them to harvest very late with very ripe and full flavors, then remove alcohol down to a more palatable level. Voila - now the customers/critics thinks their “intense fruit” is some sort of terroir magic, when you could have done the exact same thing with Fresno fruit picked at 32 brix and loaded it up with acid.
As for reluctance to speak about it, you can understand why they’re not eager to tell about these things - because it has zero upside. “I knew they really manipulated this wine a lot, but it really helped the flavors out!” is not normally the reaction. 
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Really! Oregon, Piedmont, Champagne, Loire - I RUN to cool vintages. They are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. And I would think that a wet vintage is preferable to a drought vintage if you prefer lower alcohol wines. But this is unrelated to the OP topic.
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The average consumer may not feel the same. Historically, consumers have been lead to believe these are ‘lesser’ vintages and there were in the past - before modern science allowed us to even out the playing field of vintage variations . . .
Cheers
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Just as the “average” consumer may not give a damn about how their wine is manipulated as long as it tastes good. How many average consumers even bother to follow vintage characteristics as they grab a bottle off the grocery store shelf? Other than us geeks on a desperation run…
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You and me both - not exactly typical Berserkers.
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Let’s not even talk about those wines that are RO’d, with the permeate not put back in! Concentration!!! There are quite a few in Napa, and some really “great” unctious producers who pull that trick - and are highly lauded by the folks on here… RO for smoke removal is painful, if necessary. It’s by no means a silver bullet, and this research is decades old (we were using RO and charcoal filtering in the 2008 fires) - there are much better solutions and products. The only problem is that most of the compounds associated with smoke taint are tightly linked to a sugar at some point, and can be released over time. Smoke is a tough one, but how do you take a compound in both its free and bound forms and remove it from the wine matrix without destroying it? You don’t.
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These techniques don’t really scare me away as a consumer. I think the proof is in the pudding – if the wine is great, I’m not particularly picky about how it was made, for the most part.
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Longplay winery in Oregon was selling Pinot from the 2020 vintage. We tasted it at the winery last year and it was fine. Is was being sold at half price and the owner said to drink it within a year. We bought 2 bottles and did what he said. It was perfectly fine and a steal at $20.
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I have a colleague who tried RO in 2020 (along with other approaches) and he invited the winemaking community to evaluate (Willamette Valley). In this instance it didn’t help at all (nor did the other approaches in my evaluation). Then I’ve tasted a couple that had no issues at all (very small minority). Tough issue to figure out…
Edit: forgot about colleague #2 — large tank style winery— who also tried RO at great expense, but no luck
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If it can help make smoke-tainted bulk/cheap wine sellable, it seems fine to me, especially since almost all such wine is consumed very young.
Obviously, a high quality producer trying to sell premium wines at full price by using this in an attempt to mask smoke taint, that would end badly. I’m guessing we aren’t talking about that here.
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