![]() “The wines are tasting wonderful,” says Hodgins. The biggest challenge wineries in these regions will likely face is getting their wines out to consumers with tasting rooms shuttered and distribution networks upended due to ongoing pandemic-related restrictions. The hardest thing for me this harvest was having conversations with 40 growers about the possibility of smoke taint ruining their entire crops, and how we would move forward if that happened.” ![]() “We were concerned because there was smoke in Paso Robles for a few days,” he says. ![]() Passalacqua, who works with old vine Zinfandel vineyards predominantly in the Paso Robles appellation, was pleased with the results of the 2020 harvest. Rita Hills, among other regions-arid conditions are more normal, and coastal breezes left most grapes unharmed by fire. “The only thing you can explain to people is that smoke doesn’t damage all grapes in the same way.”įurther south, in California’s vast Central Coast appellation-which contains Santa Barbara, Paso Robles, the Sta. “Anderson Valley is in a good spot,” says Weyrich. Safe from smoky air, the combination of hydric stress and heat spikes in Anderson Valley led to grapes with both high acidity and high sugar-ideal for vintage-dated and long-aging sparkling wines. “Because the wind here is normally coming from the west, it pulls clean air in and pushes the smoke away.” “Wind patterns matter,” says Roederer Estate winemaker Arnaud Weyrich. In this subzone of Mendocino County-one well-versed with the devastation of fire in previous vintages-the wooded, hilltop vineyards remained unscathed. “ Our winery is in Sonoma, over 100 miles from our vineyards in Anderson Valley, which is one of the coolest and northernmost winegrowing regions in California.” Arnaud Weyrich, winemaker for Roederer Estate. “I think people often forget how big California is,” says Ryan Hodgins, the winemaker at FEL Wines, whose vineyards are spread across Anderson Valley. While it may have seemed like the entire state was smoky or ablaze in the late summer and fall, some of California’s top wine regions were spared from the effects of wildfires. Overall, he is very impressed with the vintage quality. Gallo Winery, who oversees winemaking across California’s Central and North Coasts. “The good news is that the percentage of grapes affected by smoke taint across California is very low,” says Scott Kozel, the vice president of coastal winemaking for E. “People Often Forget How Big California Is” It seems 2020 wasn’t the complete disaster many first believed. Higher yields would have meant a later harvest and likely more smoke taint for us.” Our quality overall was really good, and because yields were down we picked earlier than normal. “But when people ask me about the vintage I always say, it could have been way worse. ![]() “We saw yields down about 20 to 30 percent overall,” says Turley Wine Cellars winemaker Tegan Passalacqua, who farms Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon across the state. Not only did this translate to concentrated, high-quality fruit, but it led many vintners to harvest early, escaping the devastation of the fires. Most of California’s premier growing regions, including Napa Valley, Sonoma, Mendocino County, and the Central Coast, experienced low rainfall in early 2020, setting the regions up for a low-yielding season. In fact, according to many producers, 2020 was an exceptional vintage.įrom Santa Barbara to Anderson Valley, good news is rising from the ashes in areas that avoided smoke damage and in sites where harvests were completed before the blazes.
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