Okay. It's true. Those fires that broke out around the California vines this summer? All of that smoke did indeed have an effect on this years wines. So far I've tasted three batches, two of pinot and one of cabernet, not quite finished with their fermentations.
All three had a definite fumatory quality. Bacon, a matter of fact. Here's the deal. It was nice! But then, I'm the kind of girl who adores sticking my nose in the fire. I love the smell and the taste. The trouble here, I believe, is calling it taint. Taint would be like when my downstairs neighbors apartment was on fire and the smell that lingered on. Taint would be my friend--a fierce smoker who's apartment smells so in the winter with the windows are closed, that my nostrils wake up screaming as the little hairs are coated with taint. That is taint. This? A very pleasant taste and smell of smoke. As a matter of fact the wines with the influence are so much more agreeable than wines dumped into toasted oak barrels. But, do people go around talking about barrel taint? (If only they would.)
My vote; think of how fun it would be to smell these wines blind in a few years and say, "Definitely 2008, the year of the fires near the grapevines."
