Complex, fruity with a hint of wet ashtray: How extreme weather is spoiling our wine
Smoke from wildfires has tainted the flavor of some of the Pacific Coast's finest wines. Frost has claimed much of this year's crop of grapes in France. Extreme weather has arrived.
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One of the guiding principles of my life is that you can’t go wrong with a French wine that begins with the letter “M.” Margaux, Meursault, Montrachet. I still recall as if it were yesterday the sommelier in a dark restaurant in Paris about 40 years decanting by candlelight a 1961 Margaux and the exhilaration of the first taste. I can’t remember yesterday but that’s a different problem.
Many of my favorite memories are of great lunches at the late lamented La Cote Basque, and the Dover sole with a chilled bottle of Puligny Montrachet to wash it down. I mention this as someone who has been a journalist and/or corporate shill all my life and has had the opportunity to research the topic extensively on other people’s money.
In short, I like good wine, even cheap good wine. That’s why I was saddened to read this morning about extreme weather events in France and the Pacific Coast that have ruined much of this year’s crop of grapes.
In France, between the evening of April 5 and the morning of April 8, a rare cold snap plunged temperatures to sub-zero levels, piling frost across 80 percent of vineyards in France's primary wine-growing areas. It was the worst episode of its kind on record. Many winemakers tried to keep air temperatures up by lighting candles and straw or placing portable heaters in their vineyards, but in most cases, it was not enough to protect their budding vines. The damage was compounded by unusually high temperatures—nearly 80 degrees in mid-March—which had caused plants to blossom early.
The devastation comes at a time when the French wine industry is still reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic and its travel restrictions as well as the misguided and arbitrary tariffs on the industry placed by our former twice-impeached one-term president.
Eric Pastorino, the president of the Côtes de Provence appellation,told Le Figaro:
“I heard someone say it was like the loss of a family member. It may seem puerile, but that is close to what I feel. Perhaps only winegrowers can understand this sentiment, but we have found ourselves out in the vines in the morning with tears in our eyes.”
Meanwhile, America’s Pacific Coast wine industry is facing an extreme weather crisis of its own. Smoke from ever-more-frequent and destructive wildfires has contaminated much of the 2020 grape crop with an unpleasant ashy flavor in some of the West Coast’s top wine regions. A team of researchers from Oregon State, UCDavis, and Washington State is currently conducting a needs assessment to develop strategies on how to prevent exposure or limit its effects.
In recent years, the grape and wine industry in the western United States has experienced repeated smoke exposures from wildfires. These have resulted in wines with characteristic off aromas and flavors that have come to be known as smoke taint. There are examples of smoke tainted wines from at least five of the past ten vintages from California, Oregon or Washington State; all three states produced affected wines in 2017 and 2018. Generally, the impact of smoke exposure is regional, affecting vineyards near the fires, but atmospheric conditions can result in smoke impacting distant grape production areas. Both types of smoke exposure have resulted in smoke impacted wines. While much discussion and some research has occurred, researchers are inundated with requests from grape growers and winemakers who wish to prevent this problem. Unfortunately, more questions than answers remain.
Finding those answers won’t be easy. Although the wine regions involved must have been affected by smoke and fire for many years, the industry only started paying serious attention to smoke taint after major wildfires in Mendocino County in 2008 made it clear there was a problem. So, there are no standards as to how much smoke is too much smoke.
ETS Laboratories, one of the leading wine analysis firms, has been so inundated with samples from nervous growers that it can’t keep up with the pace despite having invested over a million dollars in new equipment in recent months.
The analysis is compounded by the fact that some of the markers for smoke taint occur naturally in grape varieties, so their presence does not indicate damage. Syrah, for example, contains such high natural levels of guaiacolis, an agent that can be produced by wood smoke, that testing for it is pointless.
Skeptics will say the earth has been warming and cooling forever so this is just another temporary phase. California has always been a firetrap. Relax about the grapes, already. The skeptics are wrong. The science (see some of the links below) says they are dead wrong. One particularly chilling study shows that the observed frequency of autumn days with extreme (95th percentile) fire weather, which is demonstrably associated with extreme autumn wildfires, has more than doubled in California since the early 1980s.
Oregon, Washington state, and California together produce about 90 percent of all U.S. wine, which is a $70 billion industry. Billions more in revenue are produced by farmers in the same regions who grow everything from apples to zucchini.
This is not just a story about how I like wines I can’t afford; it’s about how climate-change-driven extreme weather is slowly destroying lives and industries and ultimately undoing us all unless we get serious about earth’s rising temperature. In the eight years we’ve lived across the river from Charleston, SC I’ve had one tree on the roof and another that missed by a couple of feet. Watching the squirrels frolic in the trees in the backyard this morning and wondering which one of their playgrounds might come tumbling down this hurricane season, which begins on June 1.
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Dig Deeper
French winegrowers hit by rare frost brace for bleak harvest (France24)
'It's a tragedy.' French winemakers face devastation after worst weather in 30 years (CNN Business)
Winemakers Face Up to Smoke Taint Reality (Wine-Searcher)
Climate change is increasing the likelihood of extreme autumn wildfire conditions across California (Environmental Research Letters)
Impact of Smoke Exposure on Wine (Oregon State)
Climate change is increasing the likelihood of extreme autumn wildfire conditions across California (Climate Signals)