When Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
Yesterday, I found out that we were unable to purchase fruit from a very well known vineyard in Oakville (Napa). That’s unfortunate, because I was very excited about these grapes—it’s the kind of fruit that makes you daydream of friends begging for just one bottle of that fantastic wine you made yourself.
As some of you may know, pricing on Napa Cabernet shot up this year to more than $5,000/ton. We paid $2,800/ton for very good fruit last year. The same fruit, from the same growers this year has nearly doubled. It’s like some kind of modern tulip mania.
Buying started much earlier than usual this year. In fact, it started so early that no one really knew if we were going to have big, average or small crops. Later in the season, we realized that most crops were going to be average size and that the pricing was more a result of hype than actual demand.
For myself, I made commitments early at the higher price levels in order to maintain some of the fruit sources we had last year. When I made these commitments, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was betting big when the smart money was sitting it out.
Then, we had the frosts of 2008 and many lost their entire production for the year. In hindsight, it seems the steps we took to get our vineyard sources figured out early was a smart move. Supply for some varietals got pretty tight in a matter of just a few chilly spring nights—end of story, right? Not quite. Enter the California wildfires.
It’s expected that some fruit this year will contain smoke compounds from the wildfires—Oakville dust meets oak smoke. I don’t mean on the skins. I mean in the fruit itself, and that’s very difficult to remove. It would take REAL interventionist wine making, such as reverse osmosis. Now, that doubly expensive Cabernet will also have an additional component gratis: Eau de Wildfire.
As usual, our WinePod winemaker, John Kelly, has focused his powerful intellect on this complex subject, bringing some real insight and focus to it. Click here to read his analysis of the potential technical issues involved with smoke-tainted fruit.
We did get our hands on some incredible Pinot and Syrah from The Annadel Estate Vineyard, and we’re really looking forward to creating something great with that. We also have a lot of fantastic 2007 fruit, frozen in time just waiting for a winemaker somewhere to awaken it and complete its journey to the glass.
To learn more about the grapes we source for the WinePod personal winery, click here.
September 25th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
[...] Many factors have influenced the growing season in 2008, including a late frost in the spring, summer heat and of course, those California wildfires. To read Greg’s perspective on the ups and downs of selecting the best vineyards and to learn how the wildfires will or will not affect California’s grapes this year, click here. [...]