Too soon to tell if smoke will taint province’s grape harvest

B.C. winemakers are confident the wildfire smoke that lingered over their vineyards this summer did not taint the grapes, but they won’t know for sure until the winemaking process is complete.

“I’d be surprised if there was smoke taint, at least in the Okanagan,” said viticulturist and winemaker Val Tait, who manages Bench 1775. “But it can be random and unpredictable, so we don’t really know yet.”

Smoke taint happens when a volatile molecule found in smoke sticks to a grape’s waxy coating as the fruit begins to ripen. It’s undetectable when eating the grape, but becomes soluble in the alcohol formed during fermentation.

While a subtly smoky wine may sound appealing, the result is usually ashy and unpleasant.

In 2003, when the Kelowna wildfires burned through some vineyards, several nearby wineries were forced to dump their wine because of smoke taint.

Last year, Tait discarded one block of grapes after a small fire started adjacent to her vineyards. A neighbour about four kilometres away also had smoke taint in the same variety.

“In my experience, it happens when you can see the fire, and there’s heavy, acrid smoke. We didn’t have that this year,” she said.

Troy Osborne doesn’t have to wait until harvest to know his grapes were unaffected by the smoke. The viticulture director for Aterra Wines Canada, which includes brands such as Jackson-Triggs, sent juice to a lab in Kelowna to test for the compound that causes smoke taint. His grapes came back clear.

“That’s really good news,” he said. “Especially since the overall fruit quality is so high this year.”

Osborne said this year’s cool spring helped create grapes with a “phenomenal” flavour. “I’ve been in the valley 25 years, and I’m really excited about this vintage.”

While smoke taint may not be a major concern, the summer wildfires did affect the B.C. wine industry.

Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association vice-president Ellen Walker-Matthews said retail traffic at wineries was down about 20 per cent this summer.

“We’ve heard anecdotally that visitors were down, but the economic impact surveys are still being done,” she said. “Some places saw numbers rebound in August as people got used to the idea of smoke. The Lower Mainland and Alberta were experiencing smoke too.”

It has been a beautiful fall in the province’s wine regions, and winery tours have been busy, said B.C. Wine Institute spokesperson Laura Kittmer.