California’s 2020 grape harvest was its smallest in years, and in Napa Valley’s mountain vineyards the Glass Fire left wineries burned and grapes unpicked. Across much of the rest of the state, though, growers reported concentrated, high-quality fruit, which means that for buyers of 2020 wines the key question will be where the grapes were grown.
The year brought record heat over the Labor Day weekend in early September, a string of wildfires, and tasting rooms closed by the pandemic. California’s wine industry has come through earthquakes, fires and Prohibition before, and winemakers are cautious but hopeful about the quality of the vintage.
The Glass Fire
The Glass Fire broke out at 3:48 am on 27 September 2020 near Glass Mountain Road in Deer Park, Napa County, from an unknown cause. It began as a brush fire of around 20 acres, merged with two smaller fires, and by the following day had spread across some 11,000 acres and into Sonoma County. It burned for 23 days before it was contained.
The Spring Mountain and Howell Mountain AVAs were among the worst affected. Napa Valley Vintners reported that fewer than 20 of the valley’s winemaking facilities were damaged, and at least 80% of Napa wineries went on to make wine from the 2020 harvest, though in smaller volumes.
Fires further south
Earlier in the season, the CZU Lightning Complex fires reached homes and cellars in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and fires near Salinas and Carmel Valley surrounded Monterey’s vineyards. Many Monterey growers left red grapes unpicked, a heavy loss for a county known for its Pinot Noir, while white grapes fared better. Paso Robles and Edna Valley in San Luis Obispo County were also affected, to a lesser degree.
What smoke does to wine
Smoke taint shows up in finished wine as ashy, sometimes medicinal flavours, often compared to a stale ashtray. For many winemakers it was the great unknown of the vintage, and 2020 taught them a good deal about how smoke behaves. Fresh, dense smoke carries volatile phenols that can pass through grape skins into the fruit. Older smoke drifting in from distant fires mostly brings hazy skies and dull weather, and is far less likely to taint the grapes. As wildfires become more frequent with climate change, that difference will matter more.
A smaller harvest
The USDA’s grape crush report showed California’s 2020 harvest down 13.9% on the previous year, following bumper crops in 2018 and 2019. Winemakers had expected lower yields even before the fires.
Santa Barbara County escaped both fire and smoke, and winemakers from the north went south in search of grapes, which helped push up Pinot Noir prices for growers there. A smaller crop may also ease the downward pressure on grape prices that followed the large harvests of recent years, though that offers little comfort to growers who lost most of their fruit.
What it means for buyers
Good weather early in the season set up a promising, low-yielding vintage, and Napa Valley, Sonoma, Mendocino County and the Central Coast all reported concentrated, high-quality fruit, especially where grapes were picked before the fires arrived. California is a large and varied wine state, and much of it was untouched by fire. When choosing a 2020, it’s worth checking where the grapes were grown, how close the vineyard was to the fires, and when the fruit was picked.
Archive note: First published in April 2021, before the 2020 wines reached the market. Figures are as reported at the time of writing. First published Newsbreak app in California.
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