Smoke Continued from Page 7
“I will domicrofermentations if there’s an issue, and that will prove—good or bad—if I should proceed,” Boer said. “I’m not going to takeamarginalmicrofermen- tation result and decide, well, that might stillworkout. It’snot going toworkout; it’s a bad idea.” Treatment options comewith their own set of drawbacks. “Unfortunatelyat thispoint, all the treat- ment options do impact the overall qual- ity as well, because they lack specificity,” Oberholster said. “It’s not like it will only remove thevolatilephenols; itwill remove some other aroma compounds. It will re- move some other positive compounds frommouthfeel. It’s that balance of how much do you treat?” While there’s a long road ahead, re- searchers said progress is beingmade. “We’re not quite there yet, but somany people are working on it,” Tomasino said. “It’s totally achievablewithwhat we know of science.” Oberholster is optimistic that answers are forthcoming. “I do hope that in five years from now, we have turned this around,” she said. “I hope, infiveyears fromnow,wehavebase- line, we have threshold, andwe’re getting to thepointwherewe say, this iswhat your mitigationoptions are, and this iswhen it’s a good idea.” (Kevin Hecteman i s an ass i stant editor of Ag Alert. He may be contacted at khecteman@cfbf.com.)
“Do a small-scale ferment and taste yourwines,” Tomasino recommended. “If you can’t have numbers, that’s what you need to do to figure out if you’re going to have a problem.” Tomasinousesacolorizedscale—green, yellowor red—for smokeexposureandthe likelihood of problems, with redmeaning issues are likely, if not certain, andmitiga- tionmeasuresmust be taken. “If you’re in that redzone for it, you’ll be able to pick it up in a small-scale ferment, tastingwise,” Tomasino said. “It releases that fast for it, for that red zone.” Numbers are still important, Tomasino said, because insurance in many cases requires them, but a properly conducted blind tasting can help in themeantime. “You can make some decisions, help- ful decisions, for what you should do,” Tomasino said. Oberholster said grape growers should talk to their wineries and grape buyers, as well as their insurance agencies, be- fore harvesttime to determine the deci- sion-making process in case of potential smoke issues. “That’s not something you want to fig- ure out in themidst of what I would call a disaster,” she said. Onehitch is thatwine fromsuchabatch
Veraison, the point at which winegrapes turn color before harvest, has long been considered the point at which grapes are most vulnerable to smoke issues, but this may be changing.
might taste fine at first, only for issues to showup later. “It’s a very, very complex issue, because everything else in the wine impacts how the smoke expresses,” Oberholster said. “And because wine composition changes with aging, that expression changes with aging. This is why we do think definitely that’s part of the reason why some wines seem fine, and then it evolves over time.” If changes are going to happen, they probably will occur by the nine-month mark, she noted. When looking back,MendocinoCounty winegrapegrowerMikeBoersaidheshould haveopenedacrop-insuranceclaimassoon
as he knewhe was in trouble. A blaze that was part of theMendocino Complex fires erupted near one of his vineyards in 2018, leading a grape buyer to deliver a rejection notice for two varietals a month later. He ended up doing amicrofermentation and makingbulkwine insteadof filingaclaim. S i n c e t h e n , h e ’s a d d e d s ome new safeguards. “I bought up to 75% on my crop insur- ance this year,”Boer said; thepercentage is the level atwhichhewouldbe reimbursed for grapes lost to smoke exposure. In addition, he said, “I don’t recom- mend this for everybody else, but I am making wine myself now. I am my own winemaker, and I’m doing my own test.” That ishiswayofholdinghisgrapes tohigh standards, he noted.
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8 Ag Alert February 23, 2022
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