As climate change brings longer, more destructive fire seasons, the wine industry scrambles to protect vineyards from the dreaded taint of smoke.
The Glass Fire burns near the Jericho Canyon Vineyard and Winery about a mile out of downtown Calistoga, California, on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2020. Credit: Jane Tyska/Digital First Media/East Bay Times via Getty Images
By Lisa Gross, Inside Climate News
In August 2013, Ron and Cheryl Harms were eagerly anticipating the third harvest from their boutique vineyard in the Sierra Foothills when the massive, fast-moving Rim Fire zigzagged perilously close to their property.
The couple’s four-acre Yosemite Cellars vineyard sits on a rocky hillside surrounded by forest about 20 miles west of Yosemite National Park. From their perch high above the valley, the Harms watched helplessly as planes released flame retardant around the gathering firestorm and thick clouds of smoke settled on their ripening grapes.
“Once we convinced ourselves that we were probably going to be okay, personally, and that our property was going to be okay, it was fascinating to just see where the fire was going and how it was being fought,” said Ron Harms.
Fascinating yet terrifying, said Cheryl Harms, fighting back tears. “I have PTSD from it,” she said.
The Rim Fire, at the time California’s third-largest wildfire, torched more than a quarter of a million acres of Sierra forestland, including nearly 80,000 acres in Yosemite. The inferno spared the Harms’ home and vineyard. But it left the couple grappling with a grape affliction that has emerged as the West Coast wine industry’s latest scourge: smoke taint.
“Our grapes were very smoky,” said Cheryl Harms. When they had juice from their grapes analyzed, she said, “it was smokier than anything they’d ever tested.”
And there was little they could do to remove the taint.
Wildfires can cause extensive damage throughout the agricultural industry, destroying crops and killing livestock. But grapes appear to be the only commodity affected by smoke taint.
Winemakers intentionally add subtle smoky notes to increase the complexity of wines by aging them in toasted oak barrels. But wildfire smoke can make wines undrinkable. Smoke-tainted wines have unpleasant aromas often described as disinfectant or burnt rubber and taste “like licking an ashtray,” experts say.
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