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THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2020
West Coast wineries grapple with tainted grapes
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
Fine white ash fell like snow on Zenith
Vineyard in the Willamette Valley as the
Beachie Creek fi re roared 30 miles away,
one of several large blazes shrouding the
region in a thick blanket of smoke.
For over a week in September, smoke-
laden skies lingered around the Eola-Amity
Hills west of Salem, where Zenith Vineyard
grows about 87 acres of wine grapes. Tim
Ramey, who owns the vineyard and a small
winery with his wife, Kari, was just getting
ready to begin harvest when the wildfi res
erupted.
“That week was supposed to be extremely
hot,” Ramey said. “We were looking at the
forecast, saying harvest will be early and
easy.”
Instead, the fi res were met by a tempera-
ture inversion that trapped the smoke near
the ground and created some of the worst air
quality in the world at the time. Apart from
the public health concerns, the Rameys and
vineyards across the valley suddenly faced
questions about the quality of their grapes.
Wildfi re smoke is a growing concern for
wine grape growers and winemakers along
the West Coast. Science has already shown
that compounds in smoke can be absorbed
by grapes and released into fi nished wine,
causing an unpleasant burnt or cigar-like
fl avor.
More than 5 million acres burned in 2020
across Oregon, Washington state and Cal-
ifornia, much of it in or near prime wine
country.
Zenith Vineyard contracts to sell most of
its grapes, including pinot noir, chardonnay
and pinot gris, to wineries in Oregon and
California. This year, about 45 tons of fruit
was rejected over concerns of “smoke taint,”
leaving Ramey scrambling to fi nd other
buyers.
“The vast majority of my customers, by
number, honored their contracts and did the
right thing,” Ramey said. “The problem was,
there were a few who didn’t.”
Ramey’s story is common enough that the
wine industry is investing heavily in research
to gain a better understanding of how — and
to what extent — smoke may affect grapes
based on a variety of factors such as a vine-
yard’s proximity to fi re, duration of smoke
exposure and the type of fuels burned.
At stake is a wine grape crop worth $4.5
billion across the Northwest and California.
Volatile compounds
While many questions about smoke-
tainted wines are still unanswered, research-
ers have developed a baseline understanding
of the problem.
Burning wood contains several organic
compounds known as volatile phenols that
can be absorbed directly into the skin of wine
grapes. The compounds then bind to sugars,
creating glycosides, which themselves do
not have any smoky aroma.
However, when the skins are broken and
fermented during the winemaking process,
those glycosides break apart and release the
volatile phenols back into the fi nished prod-
uct. The resulting wines have been described
as tasting like a campfi re or ashtray.
John Aguirre, president of the Califor-
nia Association of Winegrape Growers, said
high-end wineries such as those in the Napa
and Sonoma valleys are understandably
reluctant to make wine from grapes exposed
to smoke that they might not be able to sell.
Aguirre estimates the 2020 wildfi re sea-
son resulted in up to $500 million in crop
losses statewide from canceled or reduced
grape contracts.
California wine grapes are worth $4 bil-
lion annually at the farm gate. Oregon and
Washington state are much smaller by com-
parison, about $597 million combined.
“Obviously, we can’t sustain these types
of losses going forward and continue doing
what we do,” Aguirre said.
In mid-September , a coalition of farm-
ing and wine industry groups sent a letter to
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a Dem-
ocrat, and House Minority Leader Kevin
McCarthy, a Republican, asking for immedi-
ate disaster relief from the 2020 fi res to help
in the short term.
“As wildfi res continue, increasing num-
bers of buyers are rejecting grapes due to
concerns about smoke exposure,” the groups
wrote. “Without a market, these grape grow-
ers are forced to abandon their fruit in the
vineyard. In other instances, buyers have
agreed to purchase grapes at a discount but
could later face unanticipated costs to test
and treat wine made from smoke-exposed
fruit.”
Testing backlog
Jeff Bitter, president of Allied Grape
Growers, a farmers’ co-op based in Fresno,
California, said the uncertainty due to smoke
is absolutely causing a strain in the relation-
ship between grape growers and wineries.
Co-op members likely lost between $10
million and $15 million in sales this year,
Bitter said.
Part of the problem was a massive back-
log in laboratory testing of grape samples for
the presence of volatile phenols.
As harvest approaches, Bitter said grow-
ers need to make quick decisions to deliver
grapes straight to the winery, or fi nd other
buyers and markets.
With smoke so widespread along the
West Coast, the few laboratories available to
test grapes were quickly overwhelmed, with
results not available for perhaps a month or
longer. That left wineries in a predicament,
Bitter said. They were forced to gamble on
the quality of grapes or simply walk away
Noah Berger/AP Photo
Smoke rises over a vineyard in Calistoga, California, during a wildfi re in September. Smoke from wildfi res is a concern for grape growers and
winemakers in Oregon, Washington state and California.
from contracts.
“We saw every extreme,” Bitter said.
“There were all kinds of arrangements
made to acknowledge the reality that test-
ing couldn’t happen fast enough at harvest
time.”
Gordon Burns, with ETS Laboratories
in St. Helena, California, said their work-
load during the 2020 fi re season was consid-
erable, though the laboratory is now caught
up and back to operating with normal turn-
around times.
To help pick up the slack, Oregon State
University, Washington State University and
the University of California, Davis mobi-
lized to add testing capacity at their research
laboratories.
Elizabeth Tomasino, an associate profes-
sor of enology at Oregon State and mem-
ber of the Oregon Wine Research Institute,
said she and her team have run nearly 700
samples since Sept. 18. It takes special-
ized equipment to do the analysis, called a
gas chromatogram mass spectrometer. The
machine essentially uses gas to separate the
smoke compounds.
“It was a diffi cult pivot to make, but at
the same time it was sort of an emergency
situation,” Tomasino said. “OSU has a very
strong extension aspect.”
Quality standards
The other signifi cant hurdle, according to
Bitter, is that just because grapes may have
been exposed to smoke doesn’t necessarily
mean they are tainted.
“There is just a lack of understanding,
and a lack of the ability of the industry to
standardize what defi nes quality and what
defi nes a problem in the context of smoke
exposure,” Bitter said. “It becomes a negoti-
ation point. The problem with that is nobody
really knows what they’re talking about.”
Take, for example, the situation at Zenith
Vineyard, where 45 tons of wine grapes were
left stranded. Another nearby winery, Willa-
mette Valley Vineyards, stepped up to buy 20
tons of pinot noir grapes from the vineyard.
Jim Bernau, founder and CEO of Willa-
mette Valley Vineyards, said the company
spent more than $1 million taking in fruit
from 22 growers who had their grape con-
tracts canceled or reduced. The winery did
42 micro-fermentations to test the wines for
quality. Of those, Bernau said they found
only three batches that would be problematic.
The pinot noir from Zenith Vineyard, in
particular, was absolutely stunning, Bernau
said.
“The people who canceled those con-
tracts made a serious mistake,” he said.
Sam Tannahill, co-founder of A to Z
Wineworks and REX HILL winery in New-
berg, typically produces about 375,000 cases
of wine per year, purchasing grapes from as
far southwest as Ashland and as far northeast
as Umatilla.
Despite some vineyards being within just
500 yards of wildfi res, Tannahill said the
winery decided to honor all its contracts this
year. In retrospect, he said the wine quality
they are seeing has been great.
“The fruit was beautifully ripe. The skins
were thick,” Tannahill said. “We have this
foundation of really good wine, with huge
fruit character, with big rich tannins, with
lovely aromatics. That tends to mitigate any
kind of smoke effect that we’re seeing.”
Research underway
With so many variables, researchers are
working to come up with predictive mod-
els to help winemakers and growers better
understand whether they face a high risk of
smoke taint.
At Oregon State , Tomasino has started tri-
als exposing wine grapes in the laboratory to
smoke from burning a special type of barley
straw, and then measuring for smoke com-
pounds in the samples.
Tomasino said growers need to know
whether the presence of these smoky aro-
matic compounds in wine can be correlated
to things like grape variety, the type of mate-
rials burned, proximity to fi re, duration
and intensity of smoke and timing of grape
development.
“The nice thing is that everything people
are asking for, it is achievable,” Tomasino
said. “The science exists. It’s just going to
take some time and money.”
To that end, Tomasino is partnering with
Tom Collins, a wine chemistry researcher
at Washington State University, and Anita
Olberholster, at the University of Califor-
nia, Davis , in applying for a $6 million U.S.
Department of Agriculture specialty crop
grant, divided between the three institutions,
that will allow them to collaborate and ramp
up research projects. Collins, long involved
in the wine industry in California, began
studying smoke exposure in wine grapes at
Washington State in 2016. He developed a
system of modular hoop houses covering
rows at a research vineyard north of Prosser,
Washington, where he fi lters in smoke from
test burns and measures the results against
several control samples.
This year also gave him the chance to test
grape samples, primarily cabernet, from fi ve
commercial vineyards exposed to smoke
that enveloped much of Washington state in
September.
It will take some time before they can
draw any fi rm conclusions, Collins said,
though fi ndings do indicate that fi re proxim-
ity, fuels and duration do, in fact, play a role.
“It’s a complex set of circumstances,” he
said. “It will take some time to sort through
this, and determine what is the risk associ-
ated with any kind of exposure.”
Mitigation techniques
In addition to the USDA grant and indus-
try support, U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Ore-
gon Democrat and the top Democrat on the
Senate Appropriations subcommittee on
agriculture, gained support for $3.5 million
toward smoke taint research in the latest fed-
eral agriculture spending bill.
That would build on the $2 million
awarded during the last appropriations cycle.
Meanwhile, winemakers have developed
some techniques to mitigate the effects of
smoke damage.
Tannahill, with A to Z Wineworks, said
white wines are typically easier to manage in
winemaking, since they are fermented with-
out the grape skins that hold glycosides. For
those, he said, the grapes should be pressed
gently, which may reduce yield but leaves
more smoke with the wet skins coming off
the press.
As for reds, he said adding toasted oak
to the fermenters can help absorb more of
the compounds, or making the wine as rich
and fruity as possible to offset any possible
off-taste.
“I think there’s defi nitely ways to work
around it,” Tannahill said. “It would be nice
if we never had to deal with it, but that’s not
the real world.”
Adam Campbell, a fi fth-generation farmer
and winemaker, owns Elk Cove Vineyards
in Gaston. He said Oregon winemakers were
rewarded for smart, careful adjustments to
how they make wine in 2020, but should be
careful not to oversteer the ship.
“My parents made wines in 1980 after
Mount St. Helens erupted and a half-inch of
ash fell on our vineyards,” Campbell said.
“Those wines were awesome, so I think we
got this.”
One thing for certain, said Aguirre of the
California Association of Winegrape Grow-
ers, is that wildfi res will continue, making
research a top priority.
“It’s very urgent,” he said. “If this is a new
reality, then it is extraordinarily disruptive.”
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