How Winemakers are Handling the Wildfires of 2020
It was a lovely weekend in September 2020. I was enjoying a much needed patio hopping session with my friend, having grown exhausted with food and drink prepared by myself thanks to the pandemic. The day started out at Flying Fish on Burnside with a feast of fish & chips, fish tacos, and poke, all paired with a bottle of Riesling. We then headed to Stammtisch because apparently, the Riseling got us in the mood for some German snacks and libations. Since Montelupo Italian Market was across the street, we figured why not round this day out with a third type of cuisine. It was here, at Montelupo Italian Market, where the shit hit the fan, or rather, all the leaves and dirt in the air whipped through the street which had becomes Montelupo’s outdoor dining area and landed in my pasta. The barriers blocking off the road fell over with poltergeist like freneticism. Table umbrellas flapped and wobbled like they were about to Mary Poppins right out of there. It was ominus and I felt like I was about to be in that tsunami scene from Deep Impact (if you want context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjYGBdKLg2A). The effects of the wildfires in the Cascade and Coastal mountain ranges had arrived in Portland.
It was a long three weeks of black boogers, hacking coughs that stung like you ate a jalapeno wrong way, and having everything in our homes and on our bodies smell like smoke. According to Multnomah County’s website, the smoke resulted in the worst air quality recorded in Multnomah County since the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality began monitoring in 1985. It. was. bad. The fires, obvious evidence of the effects of climate change caused widespread damages to entire towns, forest, and the focus of this post, vineyards.
This Spring, I opted for a “staycation” and spent a week winetasting throughout the Willamette Valley. It was a great week weather wise, but also a time when wineries are releasing their white and rosé 2020 vintages. ALSO BUD BURST BABY! The vines were mostly naked but towards the end of the week, I saw little green blips making their debut into the Oregon sunshine. One of my first stops was at Chehalem Winery were I was able to tour the winery and property. Chehalem was were I first got a sense just how the fire had effected the 2020 vintages. When shown where the Pinot Noir barrels lived, my host remarked that the area was usually so packed it would be hard to get around. It was very spacious.
A little context here for those unfamiliar with red wine production. Red wine gets its color, flavor, structure and tannin from the skins during the maceration process. Harvest usually occurs in September and October in the Willamette Valley, but this all depends on weather, a hotter summer might result in an earlier harvest. In 2020 the wildfires rolled in right at harvest time. Smoke settles on grape skins and the Valley is Pinot Noir country, so you can see how the timing here could not have been worse. As my week of wine tasting played out, I realized that people had to get creative to deal with the smoke. Here are ways they did:
Dumped it. Some wineries had such bad smoke taint that the grapes were unusable. That means that some wineries you are used to seeing a Pinot Noir from wont have a 2020 vintage of this varietal. I don’t have a figure or names of particular wineries, but I can imagine those in this boat who ONLY grow Pinot Noir were extremely devastated. If you do know of a winery who had to dump their whole harvest, see if you can buy some 2019 or other vintages to help them out!
Making a red wine white wine style. This means NO maceration on the skins. Winemakers tried to get the skins off the Pinot Noir as quickly as possible. You’re probably thinking, that is Rosé HALLIE! Well technically no, a rosé still has a maceration period to extract those classic pink hues, but it is often not as long as a red wine maceration. However using a red grape to make a white wine still wont result in a completely classic “white” color. Because the grape is red, there is still the slightest hint of color that will be extracted, more of a pale salmon yet still diaphanous. A great example I had of this was at Alloro Vineyard in Sherwood, Oregon. Their “Bianco Di Nero” was made this way. In Italy, Pinot Noir is called Pinot Nero (black) ((yes I know you would think it would be rosso for red but Italy makes its own rules)) so the wine essentially translates to White of Black. Check out the Wine Review section for my tasting notes on this wine.
Very limited production. Of course some places were still able to make Pinot Noir and their other red varietals. But as in the case of Chehalem, wont be making as much of it as they have in past vintages. It is unclear if this will result in higher prices of Pinot as a result of the limited quantity, but winemakers in the Willamette Valley usually save their best barrels for a “Reserve” or “Reserva” version of the wine anyway which usually means higher prices (think $45 and up). Guess we will just have to see when the 2020 reds hit the market. For now they are still sleeping all snug and cozy in their barrels ready to show just how resilient they are in the face of climate change.
