I opened this bottle and I take a couple of sips, and something seems off, almost like a burnt or smoky flavor. My wife says it's "fine". Says it's a little funky but thinks I'm way off.
I know there were some major wildfires in California in 2020. Is it possible that the grapes somehow absorbed smoke?
by ProfessionalGur5451
17 Comments
Very much a thing. Look up smoke taint
Tons of places didn’t release 2020 wines due to smoke taint. Others only released a little bit based on what they thought was untainted. There’s a lot of debate on what comprises smoke taint and whether lots of wines were/weren’t tainted. It’s not impossible yours is
Is it woodsy, like campfire smoke? Or more like burned rubber?
A lot of 2020s had smoke taint. It’s sometimes difficult to detect prior to at least fermentation and often a fair amount of barrel aging. And while there are things you can do to try mitigate it, they come at a price and you’ll sometimes discover after going through all that, that they didn’t even work. It sucks.
Or it could be reduction.
Ironstone, very nice place to visit.
2020 was extremely smoky in the Sacramento region. Lodi is just a stones throw south.
2020 was a fire year. Most wineries either didn’t release a vintage, or only a limited amount of cases were sent out. Smoke taint can appear years after bottling, even if the winemaker was super vigilant during the whole vinification process.
Do not trust any west coast red/orange 2020s blind.
Some places were more affected than others. Some people picked early and minimized the effect. Some people used high-intervention techniques to strip the wine within an inch of its life. I don’t care what anyone claims about their own product, if I can’t get a free sample on my palate to confirm, I’m moving on to a different vintage or wine, thanks.
There are even a sorry amount of 2020 whites with smoke taint out there.
It’s really hard to undersell what a catastrophic event it was.
All that said, if you personally like the smokiness and are willing to spend money on it, god bless you. Every cent the producers can recoup from 2020 is a good thing. Just won’t be me, sorry.
Mmmm, smoke taint 🤤
Petite from “California”
Probably got bulk wine for dirt cheap from any winery who thought it was compromised for a brand that doesn’t give a shit.
What was the price if you don’t mind me asking
You’re not crazy, that’s almost guaranteed what is going on. Smoke taint ruined many great wines in this vintage (and others).
I’m subscribed to Blair out of Santa Barbara, they sent out a lengthy email after the fires and described how they fought to try to hang on to as much of the harvest as possible and took the risk of producing wine from it, but that it was too smoke tainted to be worth selling / opulent meet their standards.
I break down the two major perspectives on smoke taint as either Smokey or Ashey. Smoke (think charred barrels or bbq) can be fine (or bearable) with certain fuller bodied wines like cab franc. If the wine is “ashey” there is no saving it. The ash from the fire (like licking a campfire the next morning) is now in the juice and the experience has been nuked.
Yes. Many wineries did not release wine that year because it tastes like fire.
I had some cheap wine (Barefoot cabernet, I think?) last year that was so smoky it was almost undrinkable. Normally I’m able to put away wine glass-after-glass, but that stuff tasted like the smell outside a BBQ restaurant, and I was only able to stomach 3 glasses at a time before it just became too much. I’ve never had this wine specifically, but smokiness is absolutely a thing, especially if the wine has vanilla notes
You can taste the smoke from fires in the area at wineries near me during this year. Wouldn’t doubt it at all.
I had a 2018 something or other from a ways farther north in California that had smoke taint. It smelled like Wright’s Liquid Smoke, and not in a good way.
You know that saying about the gods and Targaryen children? That applies to 2020 West Coast valley wines.