This year has posed an interesting harvest on a few notes. Here’s some of what as an industry and as consumers, we should learn from it.
The Labor Shortage is Real: Every year, I end up with a few emails from winemakers asking for some extra help picking grapes. This year, it was taken to an extreme. One Saturday morning I had 5 requests for help harvesting grapes. It seems that a combination of low unemployment and a federal government with a negative view of immigration, has kept away even many of those legal, seasonal workers that the wine industry largely depends upon.
Pinot Noir Truisms May Be Turned On Their Head: After talking to winemakers in both Oregon and Sonoma County, there may be a few truisms in regard to Pinot Noir that are turned on their head. Oregon’s harvest ran up to three weeks earlier than last year, whereas Sonoma vintners found themselves begging for extra heat to get the BRIX up. The end result may be that these wine regions, often considered polar opposites to one and other, more closely related in style than ever before. The good news for those Sonoma vintners waiting for those grapes to come in, in some cases into October? There hasn’t been any rain, not a drop, so the really hard questions about when to pick, have been able to be avoided.
Varietals Matter More Than Ever: Despite that late harvest in Sonoma, I heard from a winemaker there that focuses on Pinot Noir that she’d be done picking very early in October. Meanwhile, on the Central Coast I heard from a winemaker that as of that date, he wouldn’t have picked a single grape yet. Not even his Rose would be in. It’s pretty remarkable if you think about it, especially because we assume that wide swatches of the Central Coast are significantly warmer than is Sonoma County, especially on the coast. But, in this vintage perhaps more so than any other, varietals matter more than ever before. Rhone varietals like those on the Central Coast, take longer and longer to ripen, especially when heat is at a premium.
Is the 2018 vintage one that is going to turn the wine industry on its head? No. But, it should help us to start considering what the industry looks like in an era with rampant climate change. Regions may have dramatic differences from one year to the next and that’s without even considering what an abundance or long term, lack of rain would look like for the industry.
