Despite the fires, the 2022 vintage of Bordeaux wines will not taste of smoke
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Bordeaux wines from vineyards close to the fires that raged in Gironde this summer could they taste like smoke? Two recent examples, that of the vineyards of the Napa Valley, faced with serious fires in 2017 and 2020, and that of the Massif des Maures (Var), which partially burned in August 2021, prompted Bordeaux professionals to ask themselves the question. Some Californian wines produced from grapes harvested near the fires had thus “a bitter ashtray taste at the end of the mouth”, reports Nicolas Quillé, technical director for Crimson Wine Group which has six cellars in California, Oregon and Washington, and oenologist in the United States for twenty-five years.
The situation in Bordeaux was discussed at a conference organized on Tuesday August 30 by the Union of Oenologists of France at the Institute of Vine and Wine Sciences (ISVV), near Bordeaux. The objective of the event, according to Didier Fages, national president of the Union of Oenologists of France: “Take stock of the situation and show that there are solutions. »
According to several experts, the calendar and the direction of the winds made it possible to avoid the catastrophe. Bordeaux wines should not be affected by a potential smoky taste, nor by the health risks linked to the toxic fumes released by the fires, and by the retarding products used by the Dash – water bomber planes – to put out the fires. “The first results did not show anything abnormal”, assures Didier Fages.
Immature grapes and therefore saved from the drama
Toxic fumes can be “treacherous because odorless” during the first olfactory tests and can “to reveal itself in the fermentation of wine”, warned Pierre-Louis Teissedre, first vice-president of the Union of Oenologists of France, assuring immediately that the fires which ravaged in Gironde more than 28,000 hectares of forests sometimes close to vineyards, fortunately did not not acted on the grapes, the molecules resulting from the combustion of wood not having had time to touch the grapes which were not yet mature. “If the grapes don’t have enough sugar, these molecules don’t come in. » But, according to the specialist, “these results would not be the same if the fires were taking place now”while the early harvest is in full swing.
“These results would not be the same if the fires were happening now, during the early harvest” – Pierre-Louis Teissedre, oenologist
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