Burning Questions
Can Wine Country weather the changing climate reality?
“I WAS TALKING to a friend of mine in Los Angeles,” said Stu Smith, of Smith-Madrone Winery located atop Napa’s Spring Mountain, “and he said ‘We can’t see the sun.’” The somber remark hangs in the air, heavy like smoke. When asked how he himself is doing, Stu responded: “Fine. 2020: fine. It’s a very low bar.”
Any optimism people felt about the advent of a new decade was quickly snuffed out as 2020 gained momentum. Even before the untimely death of Kobe Bryant, the basketball superstar’s daughter and several others in the helicopter with them, rumblings about a lethal virus were spreading around the globe. Soon, the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, was rapidly being transmitted throughout the United States. People began avoiding physical contact with one another—the term “social distancing” came to be en vogue. Mask mandates went into effect, businesses closed their doors, many people were hospitalized and died.
Then came the killing of Breonna Taylor in March, then George Floyd in May, both African Americans killed by police officers, setting off waves of protests across the nation—protests that were met with heavy-handed response that often included curfews, chemical weapons and the mass-incarceration of protesters. The nation seemed on the edge of a precipice.
It was in that precarious and politically charged space that the late summer fires on the West Coast ignited. Just as wine grape harvest began in September, atypical lightning strikes found dry timber, setting off a series of destructive fires that ranged from So Cal all the way up to Washington State, destroying property and threatening peoples’ lives and livelihoods.
Fires have been a regular part of doing business in the California wine industry for several years now, with 2019 offering a brief respite for some, but the level of destruction and the amount of smoke caused by this year’s scores of unique fires which collectively have ravaged millions of acres is unprecedented in recent memory, and threatens the future of American viticulture.
“I’m 72,” sighed Stu. “I have never seen the entire West Coast burn like this. Nobody has.”
The fires are affecting everyone, everywhere, but the wine industry may be the hardest hit as it seems that few will escape the effects in one way or another. There are those, such as Catherine and Alexander Eisele of the Volker Eisele Family Estate, who lost vineyards—and nearly their historic winery—to the fires in the Vacas on the eastern side of the Napa Valley. “We lost the entire crop—so not only the 2020 vintage, but all grape sales for this year’s harvest,” said Catherine. “To lose an entire year of income for the business is devastating.” When asked how people could help, she responded simply: “Drink our wine.”
Other producers as well have been candid that help is needed in these difficult times. “My family and colleagues appreciate the outpouring of support we have been receiving. The 2020 fires and smoke taint will be an issue, and we will all need support into the coming years,” said Stephen Corley of Napa’s Monticello Vineyards, which this year celebrated their 50th anniversary in the industry. For the Eiseles, the Smiths, the Corleys and countless others, the best support that most people can provide is simply to consume their products.
Some producers were fortunate to be able to cut massive firebreaks to protect their vineyards and wineries from the fires that have become an annual threat to the industry. On Howell Mountain, near Angwin, Randy Dunn dozed firebreaks hundreds of feet wide to protect his vineyards, his home and his neighbors.
“During the fire that was nearby, the Hennessey Fire, my son and I stayed around,” recalled Randy. “Angwin was evacuated. Because of my knowledge of the Wildlake Preserve that the Napa Valley Land Trust owns, I became the director of five volunteer dozer operators. My daughter, Kristina, put out a social media plea for fire line efforts and we got five machines with operators. They cut over 2.6 miles of firebreak that might have protected Angwin. Fortunately, a similar volunteer effort to our northeast kept the flames from the base of Howell Mountain.” He paused. “We are indebted to those guys.”
“The local effort to fight these fires was amazing,” said Stu Smith in admiration of what he had witnessed. “Locals got together this year with bulldozers and cut their own fire lines, both in Napa and Sonoma Counties. There were nine dozers on Pritchard Hill cutting firebreaks day and night, and they saved the whole area.” He added: “If not for these kinds of operations, Angwin could have been lost; and after Angwin, St. Helena.”
But even those grape farmers and vintners who lost nothing physical to the fires, those who were fortunate not to be in the path of the fire or whose preventative efforts were successful, are deeply concerned about another issue, something commonly known as “smoke taint.” Jean Hoefliger is a consulting winemaker and a partner at Alpha Omega, and the winemaker and owner of AXR and The Debate.
“Fire, when it burns wood, creates volatile phenyls that are in the air and that are absorbed by the plants, the vine, through its leaves and berries… and these smoky aromas are bound with sugar in the plant and then it shows in the wine and then the wine is tainted,” he explained. “I’m very concerned…. When you go through fermentation these compounds are released, and you can smell ashtray, rubber, things like that. In 2020 I’ll probably make only 20% of the reds that I usually do.”
Jean is not the only one worried. Michael Keenan, whose family winery is on Spring Mountain not far from Smith- Madrone, says he’s concerned, as well. “What makes these decisions so difficult is that we can’t get grape samples or micro ferment samples back from the lab in time to have ‘science’ help us in these decisions because the lab in St. Helena is so backed up.” He added, “The crop looked so good this year it would break my heart if we had to dump a lot of it out, let alone the financial ramifications.”
On the other side of the Valley, Randy Dunn is having similar thoughts. “We have had more smoke exposure than ever before in the Napa Valley area,” he said. “I think that it is too early to predict the outcome of the wines. We just started picking Cab a few days ago.” To Randy, who makes one wine—that Cabernet—a lost vintage could be devastating. “Some producers who custom crush at rented facilities have chosen not to make wine this year,” he added. The long-term effects on the Valley will be far-reaching.
Some producers appear more optimistic, or are seeking ways to adapt. “The Méthode Champenoise process uses whole-cluster pressing; there is very little skin contact, and therefore less transmission of the taint character to the wine,” said Margie Healy of Korbel, the famous sparkling wine producer in Sonoma. Stu Smith had similar thoughts: “We’re going to press lightly, try to be delicate, not smash the skins too much to limit the contact.”
In the end, however, the science behind smoke taint is a young one, and what will and will not work is anybody’s guess. “The overarching issue with smoke taint is that we just don’t know,” he said.
Also in Sonoma, winemaker Tom Meadowcroft is no stranger to smoke and fire, though he views the additional challenges as something a winemaker can respond to. “I have dealt with smoke issues in 2011, 2017, 2018 and 2019. What I have learned is that you never know until you ferment the wines and get them through malolactic fermentation, as well. Some wines are below our threshold of being able to notice any undesirable characteristics. Others do have issues. We have more techniques and filtration tools today that can remediate the wine and remove the offending aromas and taste. It costs money and the process takes effort from a winemaker to see into the character of the wine he or she makes. We craft our wines every year to express the nature of what has been given to us in the grapes. This year has presented to us many challenges, and I see this as one more to test our mettle, and to focus our minds even more on what we can do in our creative winemaking process.”
While the fires have undeniably done immense damage up and down the state, for those fortunate not to have lost their crops there may still be the opportunity for the 2020 vintage to prove an excellent one—in time.
“Overall, 2020 has been a glorious growing season and the fruit is becoming wonderfully ripe and we are confident that our wines from 2020 are going to be as beautiful as they were in 2017, 2018 and 2019, which were all smoke years too,” said Steve Pride, whose eponymous winery famously straddles the county lines between Napa and Sonoma.
Farther up the West Coast, smoke and fire are also at the forefront of everyone’s mind. “We have rains coming in tonight. With some of the vineyards that were within a mile of the Chehalem fire there may be some smoke to deal with, but that is hard to say. For the most part I think most, if not all, vineyards came out in good shape,” reported Cody Wright of Purple Hands Winery in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. He then quipped: “Chalking it up to the dumpster fire of a year, 2020.”
What is harvested, how and when, is changing due to the fires, be it in California, Oregon or Washington. “We have adjusted our farming schedule to accommodate the historic forest fires,” said Mary Ann McNally of Fairsing Vineyard. “We Oregon winegrowers are a resilient, hardworking group, and we are adapting and collaborating with this vintage.”
“We are, for over a week now, in a smoke fog that looks like an old fashioned San Francisco morning: pea soup,” sighed Robert Griffin, a Washington State winemaker who trained at UC Davis alongside some of California’s winemaking royalty. “One emerging ‘truth’ is that distance from the fire greatly diminishes the danger of flavor taint. Our smoke has traveled hundreds of miles. [It’s] cold comfort, but comfort anyway,” he said, adding “We harvested a Merlot vineyard yesterday. No smoke effect yet, but… early days.”
Jason Gorski of nearby DeLille Cellars in Woodinville agrees. “The air quality is awful, but the smoke has traveled a very, very long distance, allowing dilution.” Jason, like others, believes that his approach to winemaking will be the difference maker. “Every time there is a potential for this concern, I point out that we (1) hand harvest, (2) double sort to minimize MOG (material other than grapes) and (3) obsess about what we do—regardless of the conditions. During times such as these, we put in additional levels of quality control, and increased effort.”
And yet, no matter what they do, no matter how successful they are, winemakers harbor concerns about the future of the industry. “Of course it’s hard to make a profit if you can’t sell your grapes or make wine from them,” said Steve Ledson of Ledson Winery in Kenwood, with palpable concern. “This has impacted the wine industry for the last four years. It makes any businessman think: ‘Do I want to keep investing in the wine industry and getting slapped in the face year after year?’”
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” said John Buehler of St. Helena’s Buehler Vineyards with a shake of his head. “We’ll continue to be vulnerable to fires and floods and, lest I forget, earthquakes. It’s the price we pay for ‘living in paradise.’ We just need to be better prepared to mitigate the dangers they present.” He paused for a moment, then added: “I’m so over 2020.”
“I’ve always been optimistic about the future and will continue to be until proven otherwise,” replied Michael Keenan of Keenan Winery located on Spring Mountain. “I think you have to be, in this business; there have always been so many things that could go wrong at any point in the growing, making and selling matrix. Owning a small, family-run, multi-generational estate winery is not for the faint of heart.”
One of Michael’s concerns, however, is that people may write off the 2020 vintage without even trying it. “I guess the one thing I want to share is the wish for consumers to not be so swayed by the media when a certain vintage is declared a ‘train wreck.’ People should always keep in mind that the press usually has a bias to the extreme of any story, and every vintage has winners and losers.”
Mark Mazzoni of Zialena Winery in Sonoma shares his colleague’s concerns about people judging the 2020 vintage by its label. “I encourage people to taste and try the wines from the last two vintages. Most wineries have tasting rooms and do so for a reason. We are happy to pour wines for people to make up their own minds and preferences. I just ask that they try.”
Who comes out the other side of these fires intact is a matter of grave concern as well. “Only 60% of Napa Valley has crop insurance, which means 40% does not,” said Stu Smith, grimly. “Sonoma is 68% insured. Lake County is 88% insured. The real problem is for the small mom-and-pop growers without insurance; but even crop insurance won’t make you whole by a long shot. You get a percentage of the average price of grapes in your area.” But no amount of insurance can cover the loss of an entire vintage.
Bo Barrett and Matt Crafton, the CEO and winemaker at Chateau Montelena, respectively, issued a joint statement in September, writing “Yesterday, we made the exceedingly difficult decision to halt the 2020 harvest, ahead of the first red grapes of the season.” Later in the letter, the two men stated “Unfortunately, it became clear to us that under no circumstances would our Zinfandel or Cabernet Sauvignon meet [our] standards. That’s right, those wines will not be made this year.”
The wineries are not the only ones suffering tremendous losses in the industry. Tom Meadowcroft takes the long view, a generous and almost humanitarian approach, when thinking about the “mom-and-pop growers” who Stu Smith also expressed concerns about: “We have an obligation in our communities to help each other in times of need. In many parts of California Wine Country, winemakers are refusing to take wine grapes for fear of smoke taint and that they will make bad wines. The growers are suffering tremendously from this economic loss. The farm labor is suffering because they don’t harvest grapes, and they lose wages. Winemakers, winery owners and growers must all come together urgently to work on solutions to support each other. This is part of creating a sustainable community. This is part of what we do for one another.” Tom then added, “I am honoring all my grape contracts. My growers are there for me year after year. I want this for all in my community, and I hope that this message gets shared widely to remind us all of the right thing to do.”
Is the future of the wine industry doomed? Or is it possible to prevent fires from devastating viticulturalists year in and year out? Many grape growers and winemakers believe that it is. “We have 120 years of mismanagement of our forests,” said Stu Smith. “That’s a place where we can immediately make a difference by going in, thinning forests and managing them well. Doing prescriptive burns. That just has to be done, or California will deal with this year after year after year.”
Elsewhere in Napa, Christian Gastón Palmaz of Palmaz Vineyards is equally optimistic about the potential to make meaningful changes in the immediate future. “New policy is being created that allows land owners and the municipalities to maintain better care of the wooded and upland habitats that surround the Napa Valley. Fuel reductions and better management of dead vegetation material won’t stop fires from happening but will greatly reduce their severity. Also, improved weather prediction technology and advance warning of dangerous conditions allows for better preparation.”
Over in Sonoma, Steve Ledson appears to be on the same page. “It is imperative that we do controlled burns in the wintertime, when fires don’t take off out of control due to heat, wind and excessive fuel,” he said. “We can control the amount of fires [burning] at any one time to reduce the smoke.”
But if controlled burns are the solution in the short term, the long-term solution may have to be something entirely different. “Farmers are always concerned about what Mother Nature holds for future years,” said Barry Waitte, owner of Tamber Bey in Napa. “The trends of excessive heat, fires and smoke are concerning.” Those trends, of course, may not be reversible at all. “When you look specifically at our future of growing grapes in California and the western United States, and how this impacts the rest of the United States—and I do believe it does—any solution to climate change is a long-term issue,” said Stu Smith, shortly before we hung up the phone.
As the West Coast burns, forcing people from their homes and destroying vineyards, orchards, structures and more, the fact that people still argue about climate change seems almost laughable—if indeed anything can be laughed at in the midst of such horrors, if anything can somehow still be funny in the year 2020. Those who live in Wine Country, whose lives and livelihoods are threatened, are experiencing firsthand the realities of our changing world, and the need to take decisive action to prevent future fires, both in the short term and the long term as well.
If future years are to be better than 2020, there is little doubt that immediate steps must be taken. Steve Pride, reflecting on his own experiences, may have put it best: “When I was sitting outside at 4:30 in the morning on Sunday, August 16, watching the dry lightning storm in 60 mph winds at the crest of the Mayacamas Mountains, a combination that we have never had before, over our 30 years of operating this winery, it brought home to me personally, perhaps more than at any other time, that our climate has become altered.”
Editor’s Note: As we were going to print, the Glass Fire in Napa and Sonoma counties was still just 50% contained, having wreaked additional havoc on our beloved home. Iconic wineries, entire inventories of past vintages, 2020 wines just pressed, storied resort properties that had once hosted weddings, special birthdays, anniversaries and other celebrations, schools, homes, ranch and farm buildings, and much more, all lost. Our hearts ache for all who have been affected.
