Mendocino, one of the largest wine-producing counties in California, has recently earned the conjunctive wine label, requiring producers in American Viticultural Areas—an appellation of origin used on wine labels with specific geographic or climatic features that distinguish it from the surrounding regions— located within a county’s borders to designate the greater region on their producers’ wine labels, a practice that requires wine labels to include both the region and sub-region of origin.
After a two-year process, the bill for conjunctive labeling was signed by Governor Newsom and the law will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2023, requiring the county’s eleven American Viticultural Areas to label their wine with the words Mendocino or Mendocino County.
Conjunctive labeling is intended to boost consumer exposure to wines produced within a larger geographic region, in addition to the sub-region or AVA in which they were produced.
“Conjunctive labeling will continue to increase the recognition of Mendocino County wine and grapes, build consumer awareness and recognition, enhance our branding and help promote what we already know — Mendocino County is a premier region for world class wine,” says Bernadette Byrne, executive director of Mendocino WineGrowers, Inc.
Although the final word on this year’s grape crop will not be officially known until the Grape Crush Report of February, 2021, it is, according to Byrne, light.
“The projections are 10-40 percent off as far as yield is concerned. The tonnage is definitely lighter up and down the entire coast of California. It’s Mother Nature.”
Rain in springtime when the vines are in flower can impact fertilization; shatter—rain during bloom can affect the set; and vines are cyclical—a huge crop can be followed by a leaner one.
“There’s not one particular incident that can be attributed to a lighter crop but we did have a huge year in ‘18 and a pretty significant one in ’19.”
The low grape yield was predicted this year prior to the smoke from fires became an issue and does not take into account the grapes that were rejected, that will not be picked because of testing positive for smoke exposure.
According to an article by Cyril Penn on Oct. 15 in Wine Business.com, “Every vineyard and every varietal that was hanging after August 17 from Mendocino all the way down to San Luis Obispo has a smoke taint number. Some areas are much less affected and the taint numbers are extremely low and completely manageable in the winemaking process.
“Buyers confirmed having rejected grapes grown in Monterey, Mendocino, Lake County, Paso Robles, Napa, Sonoma, and Oregon.”
With the science of smoke exposure still in its nascent stage in California, the real impact on grape quality is as yet unknown.
“There’s no standard threshold of what the industry says is taint. Its perceptual, winemaker by winemaker. Contracts were rejected with grape quality deemed unacceptable either through lab testing or through perception of smoke exposure,” says Byrne.
Fresh smoke is what impacts the grapes; Mendocino primarily experienced smoke traveling from long distances over the course of days—not fresh smoke—and this year was unusual in that every part of the county had some amount of smoke exposure including the coast and Anderson Valley.
Due to labs being overwhelmed and an inadequate amount of testing facilities providing International Organization for Standardization accreditation, a common practice for large wineries has been to make a determination with a micro-fermentation sampling, considered to be one of the best tools currently available to predict smoke exposure markers.
During the micro-fermentation process—one that involves crushing 40-50 clusters of grapes in a 5-gallon container, additions, adjustments, stirring, punching and pressing—compounds are changed and smokiness can be perceived from a sensory evaluation, more keenly than prior to fermentation.
“The smoke compounds are metabolized and become more prominent once the raw grapes become wine.
“I believe all wineries are doing some analysis for a determination which is really important for the grape growers who have to prove some level of smoke exposure to receive crop insurance.”
Speaking with some large inland winemakers and those in Anderson Valley, Byrne says she is hearing positive things—that they are not seeing a huge amount of smoke damage as they evaluate grapes coming in.
“A ball park figure for grapes rejected because of smoke damage runs between 10-15 per cent—from vineyard to vineyard and varietal to varietal.
“Mendocino County grape growers fared well in these fires compared to other regions in California.”
Since smoke permeates the skins of the grapes and cannot be washed off, earlier-harvested whites—fermented without skins—are less affected than reds that are fermented with skins on.
Then there are certain varietals such as Syrah, unexposed to smoke, that can naturally contain low levels of glycosylated guaiacol, a compound associated with smoke exposure.
On the positive side, this year’s overall quality looks good and with 99.9 per cent of the county’s grapes already harvested, it is one of the earliest harvests on record.
“I can recall going into Thanksgiving week where growers were still waiting for their grapes to get ripe or picking them before frost could cause damage.”
On another bright note, with two successive years of high yields and COVID temporarily putting the kibosh on wine sales, the market has returned to an equilibrium and stock has been cleaned up, leaving a clean slate for inventories to move much more rapidly this year and next.
The Link LonkOctober 23, 2020 at 01:41AM
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Industry update: Grape crop expected to be light in 2020 - Ukiah Daily Journal
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