KENNEWICK– Hundreds of wine market owners and professionals joined a Tuesday workshop on wildfire smoke’s impact on white wine, searching for responses to what is becoming an almost annual problem.The session was part science lesson and part damage control session. Sadly, the solutions to wildfire smoke’s results are still being studied, and preliminary results show the procedures to eliminate”ashtray aftertaste”from wine are challenging nor low-cost.” You can taste it on your palate, you can smell it in your nose. What do you do?”asked McKinley Dixon, assistant winemaker at 4 Feathers Wine Providers, throughout Tuesday afternoon’s seminar on the floor of the Toyota Center in Kennewick.Dixon, Tom Collins of Washington State University’s viticulture and enology program
, and others in the industry went over the problem at WineVit 2022, a yearly event of the state’s white wine industry hosted by the Washington Winegrowers Association.Charlie Lybecker, a winemaker and co-owner of Cairdeas Winery near Lake Chelan, moderated the smoke result seminar and noted how wildfires have affected his service for the past seven years.” In 2015, we had the largest wildfires in Washington state history in our backyard,” Lybecker said.”A few of the worst smoke-impacted red wines I have actually ever attempted were gewurztraminers.”With climate change, current Western dry spells and an almost-annual wildfire season in late summer season and early fall, wine makers “require to move past the stick-your-head-in-the-sand technique … and utilize the tools we have,” Lybecker added.The”smoke taint” in red wine was first gone over in 2013, after wildfire smoke impacted some Washington vineyards and wineries in 2012, Collins said. The smoke taint/taste in red wine
was discovered to be triggered by increased levels of two compounds: guaiacol and 4-methylguaiacol. In the previous years, Collins and his colleagues at WSU have actually worked to install smoke sensor networks in business vineyards throughout Central and southern Washington, evaluated the effectiveness of”barrier sprays
“used to grapevines to keep smoke compounds out, and studied the use of enzymes and reverse osmosis to deal with wine after it has been fermented. Panel members, from left, McKinley Dixon, Tom Collins, Sadie Drury and Charlie Lybecker respond to concerns from the audience throughout a Tuesday, Feb. 8, seminar on smoke result on wines at the 2022 WineVit annual conference in Kennewick, Wash. JOEL DONOFRIO/ Yakima Herald-Republic Network to keep an eye on smoke The very first sensor network was developed in 2020, with monitors positioned in eight vineyards to track PM1s, particulate matter smaller than one micron, which
, followed by a strong week of wildfire smoke quickly afterward, eventually led to greater guaiacol and 4-methylguaiacol levels in some Washington wines produced that fall.For 2021, Collins’group doubled the quantity of screens, producing a sensing unit network in an east-west
corridor from Walla to Yakima, and a north-south corridor from Lake Chelan to the Oregon state line.”This year(2022 ), we will have 28 to 30 display websites installed by May,” he included, keeping in mind that they will be put in various topography to much better evaluate the amount of smoke impacting hillside vineyards.Barrier spray and treatments In 2015 likewise saw a barrier spray trial, although Collins found that grapes and any stems or leaves gathered must be completely washed prior to the wine making procedure, or else the smoke substances will end up in the white wine.” We think these materials are doing what we desire them to, we simply have to get them off the vines,”Collins said.Dixon, who tried numerous different strategies to”deal with”
white wine that had smoke taint, discovered a process called differential filtering “has a huge, significant result on reducing all of these measurable compounds.”Although differential filtration is pricey, it can be part of a wider procedure of breaking down smoke-tainted red wine, then building it back up through blending, Dixon said.Sadie Drury, who manages eight vineyards, including 7
Hills Vineyard near Walla Walla, discussed the financial options for vineyards and wineries when they have smoke-tainted grapes and wines.Crop insurance is one option, although it needs vineyard owners to comprehend fast screening procedure
in case their grapes are turned down by wineries. Growers also could provide wineries a discount rate on smoke-affected grapes, Drury stated.