2014 Harvest Starts Early, Looks Good
They’re off and running in the California wine country, where the 2014 wine grape harvest started even earlier than the early 2013 harvest. In the last days of July vintners from the North Coast to the Central Valley to Southern California began picking grapes that ripened anywhere from a few days to more than a week earlier last year.
Sparkling wine grapes like Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir were among the first to be harvested, with vintners enthusing about their quality, concentration and lower sugars. The 2014 harvest is projected to be smaller than last year’s record-busting yield though still above average.
A long hot summer with even temperatures and rain coming at just the right moments gets a lot of the credit, vintners say, with vineyards so far mostly unaffected by California’s continuing drought. The drought has forced some wineries to truck in water or utilize reclaimed wastewater to irrigate their vines; high-tech irrigation equipment has also made wineries more efficient in their water use. Even so, winemakers worry that their good luck won’t hold forever and are praying for winter rains to restore some of the state’s depleted groundwater.
For now, though, vintners’ have more immediate concerns. Like what to do if their vineyards all ripen at the same time and the potential logjam in wineries finishing bottling the 2013 vintage as the 2014 vintage is coming in. Still, as problems go, things could be a whole lot worse.
California State University Fresno Ups Its Enology Ante
Students at Fresno State’s Department of Viticulture and Enology will be getting a bigger taste of how things work in the real world with a multifaceted program that covers the entire range of grape growing and harvesting, from fine wines to the everyday table wines most American consumers drink.
Among the program’s elements are a 3.5-acre vineyard that will allow students to track the development of wine grapes from planting to harvesting over a four-year period, and another vineyard planted with 150 grape varieties and rootstocks, from wine to table to raisin. Also in the works is a new greenhouse to give students more experience in vine-propagation techniques.
Large-scale growing and harvesting practices common to the San Joaquin Valley will also be studied. One vineyard block will be devoted to the different trellis and irrigation systems for commercial grape varieties, while another—already planted—will be devoted to research and education in vineyard mechanization, with an eye towards maintaining high quality and high yields.
This last block spans some 19 acres planted with French Colombard, chosen for its prolific production. This year will see its first harvest, with the grapes used in the campus winery and offered to local vintners. More than $100,000 worth of donated equipment will be utilized, both here and in field trials intended to demonstrate that mechanized techniques can also be applied to fine wine grapes.
China Saying No to Faux Bordeaux
With its growing wealth and millions of recently minted wine connoisseurs, China has become the fifth-largest wine consuming nation in the world, according to an International Wine and Spirit Research study.
It’s the world’s biggest consumer of Bordeaux, especially high-end Bordeaux like Chateau Lafite. And, says a senior Chinese government official, it is also the source of much of the world’s counterfeit Bordeaux, at least some of which is likely to be made on boats anchored off the Chinese coast in international waters. In fact, fakery is so rampant that an estimated half of all the Lafite consumed in China is not Lafite at all, but rather low-end wine in recycled bottles or in bottles with forged labels.
So now the Chinese government is cracking down. Heading up the effort is the country’s head of the Academy of Inspection and Quarantine, Xinshi Li, who recently introduced a new program to combat the production of fake wines and food products. Called PEOP (Protected Eco-origin Product), the program will stamp wine and food products with a government-issued label guaranteeing their authenticity and traceability to their source. The program works by imprinting labels with visible and hidden codes, some of which will allow consumers to do their own checking via their cellphones.
A high-tech Western effort to combat wine fraud was also recently unveiled. The CapSeal system aims to prevent fraudsters from refilling “prestige” bottles with cheap plonk by use of a computer chip connected to an antenna in the neck of the bottle, just above the cork. Scanning the chip with a Near Field Communication smartphone or device will reveal whether the bottle has been tampered with and the cork removed. The patent-pending system also works with existing corks and bottle caps, which should be a relief to cost- (and security-) conscious wine producers.
California May OK Wine Tasting for Students, at Farmer’s Markets
It wouldn’t make much sense to prohibit a young culinary student from tasting his or her latest creation but in California, at least, students pursuing degrees in winemaking and brewing can learn everything about their chosen profession. . . except how their wine or beer tastes.
That all may soon change, however, if the California state senate okays a bill already approved by the state assembly that will allow students from age 18 to 20 who are enrolled in college viticulture and brewing courses at several state universities and community colleges to taste wine or beer as part of their studies. As long as they spit.
AB 1989—aka, the “sip and spit” bill—will place California in the company of a dozen other states that have already passed similar legislation, a seeming no-brainer given the wine industry’s importance to the state economy and reputation. The bill is equally important to underage enology students too, who are shut out of many courses—not to mention the most effective way to recognize many elements of wine—until they turn 21.
Wine producers also may get a bit of a break from another bill before the California state senate. AB 2488 would allow wineries that grow 100 percent of their grapes that go into their wines or hard ciders to offer tastings at farmer’s markets. Currently, vintners can sell their wares at the ever-popular markets but are prohibited from giving potential customers a taste, thus discouraging consumers leery of buying a wine without the chance to sample it beforehand.
While some vintners and wine-friendly organizations find AB 2488 too restrictive, a group of latter-day Carrie Nations called Alcohol Justice seems to be sharpening its hatchets, fervently opposing both that and the “sip and spit” bill.
These folks must be a lot of fun at parties.
West Coast Grapes Get a Fast Start
A mild winter, severe drought and a relatively balmy start to spring have gotten the 2014 growing season off to a fast start.
According to Wines & Vines magazine, bud break in Napa, Sonoma, Lake and Mendocino counties has occurred anywhere from several days to three weeks earlier than normal. Some growers are pruning vines to delay bud break, hoping to reduce the need to use valuable water for frost protection and save it for irrigation in what’s projected to be a long, dry growing season.
Though it’s still too early to predict the quality and quantity of the 2014 vintage, the magazine reported that most vintners contacted are optimistic about the caliber of fruit even if they do expect a smaller crop than the previous two years. In Oregon, the story is much the same, with bud break happening a week to 10 days early, leaving vintners nervous about the potential damage to vines in the event of spring frost.
The weather, especially the on West Coast’s ongoing drought, will be a major subject of the Wine Industry Symposium’s 19th annual Vineyard Economics Seminar, to be held in mid-May in the Napa Valley. Among the speakers addressing California’s water shortage will be Department of Food and Agriculture secretary Karen Ross, while other programs will deal with the application of new vineyard technology to save both water and money.
Some relief may be on the water front later this year with the return of El Nino, higher-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, which often bring increased rain and storms to the West Coast. So far, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center gives a 52 percent chance of El Nino occurring in late summer or fall, though how much rain it actually generates depends on its strength. Historically, a strong El Nino brings higher-than-average rainfall to California, though meteorologists aren’t venturing any intensity predictions just yet.
Bulk Wine Trends for 2014
What can you expect to see in the wine industry in 2014? A couple of wine writers have scattered some tea leaves, peered into them and are venturing a few guesses.
Wine Searcher’s Tyler Colman lists several. Among the more interesting:
· Pushed by rising prices for estate wines and wines from “prestigious” areas, wine lovers and sommeliers will look ever harder for quality wines from more obscure regions. Sparkling wine producers in the Loire Valley and Northern Italy may be beneficiaries, as will still winemakers in New York state, Greece, Spain and central Europe.
· Wineries will become even more technology and social media conscious, using Twitter, Facebook and other social media to promote their products and stay in touch with their customers. Much of that effort will be directed at customers through their smartphones.
· The world will be drinking more wine, especially in the U.S. Craft beers and mixological cocktails may dilute wine’s influence, but the demand for fine wine remains strong despite the current economic climate.
Writing in the Washington Post, Dave McIntyre sees:
· The continuing growth of a “drink local” ethos. With quality wines now made in states throughout the country, not just California, restaurants and retailers can offer consumers a taste of the grape grown and vinified in their own backyard.
· Good deals will continue to come from Spain and Portugal, and wines from Eastern European countries will become more prevalent as their quality improves. Also look for more wines from less-familiar regions of Argentina and Chile, as well as Brazil.
· Chardonnay will captivate cork dorks all over again. The overly oaky, tropical fruity, alcoholic excesses of the past have been replaced by a commitment to restraint and varietal character, and producers both here and abroad believe their vineyards are ready to produce some truly exceptional wines.