Fears expressed recently by wine
specialists in Australia have prompted us to ask here on the Ideal Wine Company
Blog this week; what does ‘smoke taint’ do to a luxury vintage?
How easy is it to ruin the Quality of Wine?
You don’t build a reputation as a
supplier of premium wines for prices consumers can actually afford, like the
Ideal Wine Company, without coming to one realisation. Wine is a complex
tipple.
You wouldn’t believe how easy it
is to ruin the quality of a fine wine whilst you’re making it. If you make one
mistake, you can render it practically undrinkable. Yet this isn’t a problem
for the wine maker with experience. Their real problem with the viticulture
process is that it’s too subject to a number of factors that they simply can’t
control.
Wine That Tastes Like an Ashtray
Just ask wine growers in
Australia. At the moment they’re finding that their reputation as an
up-and-coming player on the global wine stage is coming under threat due to the
recent forest fires that have raged recently through South-Eastern Australia.
The fires haven’t touched a single
lucrative vine. According to Reuters
wine growers in the region have fear that the grapes near the fires could fall
victim to ‘smoke taint.’ When smoke infects the grape on the vine, said grape
produces wine that tastes like an ashtray.
A Symptom of Climate Change
Smoke taint has the ability to
ruin an entire vintage. Therefore, the forest fires that have swallowed up
swathes of Australia’s landscape over the past decade have made the issue of
smoke taint one that has gripped the imagination of wine growers all over the
country in recent years.
The Australian wine industry first noticed the problem
when the severe forest fires that raged through the state of Victoria in 2003,
irreparably damaging $6.05 million worth of wine in the process.
Australian
Wine Research Institute smoke taint specialist Mark Krstic explained the issue in more depth to the
online publication. Krstic argued that "it's a nightmare of a
problem," before suggesting that "smoke taint is one of the symptoms of climate
change for the wine industry and it's only getting worse."
Smoke Taint Can Ruin a Luxury Vintage
He’s
suggesting that climate change is sparking these forest fires. As climate
change gets worse, smoke taint will become more of an issue for the wine
growers of Australia.
As
we’ve seen, smoke taint can ruin a luxury bottle of wine. The expert’s comments
suggest that the Australian wine industry has some tough challenges to face on
the road ahead, as smoke taint becomes more of a threat to vines throughout
every wine growing region in the land down under.
