Guess I’ll put this in the ITB section rather than wine talk.
My buddy had a contract with Mumm for some AV sparkling Pinot. They were scheduled to pick tomorrow. Yesterday they contacted the grower says the fruit tested for smoke taint. There hasn’t been a single day in the Anderson Valley with smoke. Just another shitty way for a winery to weasel out of buying grapes. Oh sure the grower could sue but these things never really work out.
Did they provide the lab report?
My buddy says they did the test in house
In-house analyses are generally not sufficient for contract rejections. Did the contract not specify the need for third-party analysis? What was the contract rejection threshold? Does the grower have a baseline number for non-smoke years for their vineyard? This seems very odd to me
Update: my grower buddy took a sample to a lab…sorry don’t know which one, and the sample came back ZERO smoke. Suddenly the winery wants to come back and inspect fields and talk stuff over. Did they think he’d just accept there test and roll over?
that’s what they were certainly hoping, thought they had an easy out
And the grapes are still just hanging on vine 10 days later?
Update: the winery took 24 tons, which I believe was the agreed on amount.
I feel had my buddy not have done his own test for smoke taint, the winery would have not bought the fruit.