‘It smelled like burnt plastic’: Wildfires ruin billions of dollars of wine each year. Here’s how vineyards are adapting

Red or white, still or sparkling. Dry or sweet, tannic or fruity. Tastes in wine are as different as grape variety. But one thing most wine drinkers, from the novice to the certified sommelier, can agree on: wine shouldn’t taste like wildfire.



Unfortunately, that’s exactly how a batch of newly-fermented grape juice tasted to Maggie Kruse, winemaker at Jordan Winery. The Alexander Valley, California winery buys grapes from vineyards across Sonoma County for their Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. When wildfires struck nearby Mendocino County in 2008, smoke drifted across the border just when the grapes were expanding. “It smelled almost like bacon and burnt plastic,” she says, “and it’s really not worth making any wine out of.” That was Kruse’s first, but sadly not her last, experience with the phenomenon of smoke taint in wine.



Caused by chemical compounds called thiophenols and volatile phenols creeping into grapes as they ripen, smoke taint can devastate an entire vintage of wine. It’s almost impossible to predict, and therefore prevent, and incredibly tricky to remove once it binds to the pulp and skin of grapes. The 2020 wildfires that raged across California and Oregon cost the American wine industry an estimated $3.7 billion in losses. In California, the Associated Press reported that between 165,000 and 325,000 tons of California wine grapes were left on the vines due to potential smoke taint. Today, winemakers and researchers are working together to find creative solutions for a climate catastrophe.



[Photo: George Rose/Getty Images]



The 2020 wildfires were especially devastating because they came so early in the growing season, well before September, and nearly all wine varietal grapes were still ripening on the vine. In a 2021 report on the economic impact of the wine industry on the Oregon economy, the Oregon Wine Board (OWB) estimated that “the consolidated effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and wildfires in 2020 reduced the industry’s economic impact by an estimated 20.5%” from the previous year’s estimate.



While the statistics look grim, says OWB’s Sally Murdoch, “the year has taught us a lot about resilience.” Lessons learned from one season of catastrophe can be applied moving forward.



Test fermenting and reverse osmosis



Test fermenting is one way to avoid large-scale waste. At Jordan Winery, Kruse has learned to perform “microferments”: small batches from each vineyard that she works with, fermented for three to five days in simple five-gallon buckets. “Unfortunately,” she says, “we’ve been dealing with fires for so long that I’m quite familiar with what the smell is like so I can smell it even in the juice before it’s even fermenting. By day two or three or fermentation it’s really quite intense.”



Reverse osmosis, a process which pushes the wine through a very fine filter, is being used by some winemakers to pull out the thiophenols. But it’s a mixed bag: many winemakers believe that it takes away many of the fruit flavors and tannins that make each wine unique. It’s also possible for smoke taint to creep back into wine even after bottling, ruining a winemaker’s reputation. Grapes might test negative for the chemical compounds that cause smoke taint, but then years later, wine made from those same grapes will test positive. It leaves many winemakers understandably anxious about vintages from wildfire years.



It takes a smart palate and plenty of experience with the chimeric effects of smoke taint to determine whether to risk a batch. Says Kruse, “you really have to be very careful and know what you’re smelling and tasting and looking for” before rejecting or choosing a batch.



More Rosé, Blanc de Noir, and Brandy



Another solution is to change up the wine. The notoriously finicky Pinot Noir grape, widely cultivated in Oregon, can soak up smoke taint because its thin skin allows the smoke to permeate into the body of the grape. Turning red into rosé by removing the skins helps salvage at least some wine from the grapes. Grapes for Pinot Noir rosé are harvested earlier than the rest of the Pinot Noir grapes, so if a fire threatens within a few weeks of harvest time, some winemakers will pull their grapes in early and avoid risking a whole harvest.



Robert Morus, president and winemaker at Phelps Creek Vineyard and Winery in Hood River, Oregon, has seen his share of wildfires. The 2017 Eagle Creek fire came within a mile of his vines. So when the devastation of 2020 rolled in, he had a few tricks up his sleeve. In a non-fire year, Phelps Creek makes between 2,000 and 3,000 cases of Pinot Noir. In 2020, he left much of his Pinot Noir to rot on the vine because, he says, “I knew I wasn’t gonna go into the market and try to sell my wine across the country and be identified as the smoky Pinot guy.”



In both 2017 and 2020, Morus chose the grapes he thought were salvageable. Morus removed the skins—in which much of the smoke taint is concentrated—and made a Blanc de Noir, a white wine made from dark grapes. He then took this wine to a local distiller to make into brandy. That brandy is now aging for at least six years on Phelps’s property, alongside vintages from non-fire year wines. “I don’t know if I’ll live to see all the barrels released,” says Morus, “But my kids or my grandkids are going to inherit some barrels of really fine stuff.”



Battling a future of smoke taint



With an eye toward climate change and expecting further weather upheavals, many winemakers are looking ahead. Researchers at colleges in California, Australia, and other winemaking regions are hard at work developing early warning systems and refining ways to remove smoke taint. Says Kruse, “We’ve learned so much since the ‘17 fires, we have so many great practices in place. Even winemakers and vineyard and ranch managers have the opportunity to go and train with CalFire to learn about what we can do.”



In January 2024, Oregon State announced a promising new remediation trick. The college is developing a spray-on coating of clay to absorb the worst of the smoke. Given enough warning, this spray could stop the smoke taint before it starts, and the clay can then be washed off so that the grapes can continue ripening.



‘An essence of campfires’



And if all else fails, some winemakers are leaning in. Several wineries in Oregon have banded together to create unique, chillable red wines that do retain quite a bit of smokiness, to mark a unique year in wine history. After Oregon’s Eagle Creek Fire in 2017, Phelps Creek released the limited-edition Calamity Pinot Noir to raise funds for the U.S. Forest Service. “We can get very geeky in the wine business and talk about how we get this essence of raspberry and a hint of blueberry in the wine, and people’s eyes just roll up,” says Morus. “But when you say, ‘there’s an essence of campfires,’ they go, ‘I can taste it!’” In this instance at least, Morus is happy to be known as “the smoky Pinot guy.”