“What do you think happened to this wine?”
I turned my attention to the bright cerise liquid in the last of our five glasses. It was lighter than the other two reds on the table. I took a sip, my amateur tongue probing for tasting notes that might reveal what climate trauma these grapes endured. Someone else beat me to it: “Smoke.”
After it was pointed out, I sensed it immediately: a bouquet of barbecue, a soupçon of combustion.
This was the 2020 Cloudline Pinot Noir from Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Oregon’s 2020 wildfire season was one of the most destructive in the state’s history, burning well over a million acres and killing 11 people. Nearly every wine-producing region in the state was impacted by either fire or smoke drift.
Jessica S. McKenzie 