Wines I'm Making: 2020 Cabernet Finally Racked—Smoke Taint Gone?

For many reasons that I need not enumerate, 2020 was a challenging year. On the wine front, wildfires that left our little vineyard covered in ash and shrouded for several days in dense smoke, were the primary challenge. Many local commercial vineyards chose to abandon their grapes on the vine when testing suggested wine made from them would be tainted.

I don't understand the chemistry exactly, but it appears that grapes absorb smoke through their skins (and more easily the closer the smoke exposure is to harvest). That exposure can lead to the presence in the grapes (and any wine made from them) of volatile phenols that we perceive as off flavors and scents (I understand the main culprits are free guaiacol and 4-methylguaiacol). 

I went ahead and harvested our grapes and made wine from them. The Sangiovese, as usual, I made into rosé, thinking that the short time rosé wines spend on the skins during the winemaking process would reduce any smoke effects. The resulting wine is a bit more pungent than usual, but quite drinkable. The Cabernet, on the other hand, smelled funky from the outset and sampling the young wine suggested it was beyond hope. As a result, I neglected it. I couldn't quite bring myself to dump it out, although I had resolved to do just that. Time went on. It sat in its containers, on the lees, until last week without racking. Normally it would have been racked into clean containers, treated lightly with sulfites, and I would have added oak staves sometime around December or January, after malolactic fermentation finished. 

I smelled and tasted it last week for the first time in a couple of months, still intending to dump it. Surprisingly, it smells and tastes quite normal now. The taint appears to be gone. Anecdotal evidence is all over the place. I've heard stories about this happening (the taint disappearing) but also stories about taint suddenly appearing in a wine that at first seemed unaffected. Who knows? Anyway, I decided to rack it, sulfite it, add oak staves, and let it go to completion. I'll check it again at the next racking. If it seems stable, I'll bottle it sometime in the autumn and we'll see how it holds up. Eleven gallons of Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc are now resting in the garage. 

Wines I'm Making: Grapes Dusted with Sulfur

In the past week, I've dusted our little vineyard with sulfur as a preventative against mildew later in the season. I waited too long, as usual. The first application is best done when the shoots are about six inches long, but many were already two to three times that length. I think the plants will be fine though, as they're getting much more light and air than in the recent past, as my neighbor has removed a number of small trees behind the vineyard that were creating shade. Also, I've switched to dusting with powdered sulfur rather than suspending the powder in water and spraying the vines, which seems to cover better and to be more effective. It's also much easier to do. 

I'm hoping that wildfires won't be an issue this year, but the winter of 2020-2021 was one of the driest on record. While that is good for suppressing mildew, it doesn't bode well for fires in the area. 

In the entryway to the house, 12 gallons of Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc from 2020 still sits, neglected, in large glass containers. I had given up on it. It had an off smell and taste caused by the smoke and the ash that dusted the vines at the end of the season. After doing some research, I decided the only way to save it might be to have it distilled into brandy, but the companies I called said the smallest batch they do is 200 gallons. I had given up on it but had been able to bring myself to dump it out. And so it has been sitting and still it sits. But, yesterday, I tasted it it for the first time in a couple of months (it should have been racked and sulfited already many weeks ago), and, strangely, the taint seems to be gone..... Perhaps it will be worth taking to completion after all?