(BN) After Awful Year, a Small But Mighty Wine Vintage Is Expected

[AKR]

After Awful Year, a Small But Mighty Wine Vintage Is Expected
2021-09-30 14:09:15.251 GMT


By Elin McCoy
(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- Sister winemakers Meike and
Dörte Näkel of Meyer-Näkel winery barely escaped with their
lives in the mid-July floods that swept through Germany’s tiny
Ahr Valley, home to silky textured pinot noirs known locally as
spätburgunders.
Trapped in their flooded winery, they swam under floating
barrels and kicked out a window. Then they were washed
downstream and found refuge in a tree, where they shivered for
seven hours until they were rescued. More than 180 people died
in the flood, and dozens of wine estates were damaged or
destroyed. Some vineyards were completely washed away.
Climate change made itself felt with a vengeance in
Europe’s wine regions this year. France was the poster child for
a vintage of disasters. Severe frosts in April froze vines from
Champagne to Provence. Things went from bad to nightmarish when
the unseasonably cold weather was followed by relentless summer
rain, hailstorms, and floods. Wildfires tore through parts of
Provence in August. The French Ministry of Agriculture and Food
projected overall yields at 24% to 30% lower than average, the
smallest wine harvest in 45 years.
But remember: Quality can still be good or even
outstanding. Some growers are saying the surviving grapes look
“amazing.” And harvest isn’t over yet.
On the other side of the world, in California, winemakers
are happier. The grapes have exceptional flavor and
concentration, they say, due in part to ongoing drought. After
last year’s wildfires destroyed 30 wineries and tinged grapes
with smoke taint in Napa, that’s great news.
In other words, harvest 2021 is complicated. Here’s the
outlook, by region.
France
Bordeaux
The land of grand châteaux is seeing a mixed fall. The biggest
culprit is mildew, a destructive vine fungus encouraged by warm,
wet conditions. Some owners say the outbreak is the worst
they’ve seen in 40 years, with grape yields down 10% to 60%.
Emmanuel Cruse of Château d’Issan counts himself lucky; he lost
only 3% in the estate’s top vineyard.
But a cooler-than-average growing season, with slow, steady
ripening, has many optimistic. “Surprisingly, everything looks
very positive, with incredible ripeness in the reds,” the
vineyard manager for first-growth Château Haut-Brion wrote in an
email.
And despite the low quantity, prices for wines may not
spike, as there are plenty of top vintages (2018, 2019, and
2020) in the pipeline to fulfill demand.
Burgundy
Paul Wasserman of exporter Becky Wasserman & Co. outlines the
problems here: “frost, hail, mildew, fear of rot, and very slow
ripening.” Plus, there were problems finding trained pickers.
Harvest for reds started almost a month later than in 2020.
Frost took the biggest toll on chardonnay. New York-based
importer Harmon Skurnik says one up-and-coming young grower in
the Côte Chalonnaise will harvest only 5% of a normal crop.
Veronique Drouhin-Boss of Domaine Joseph Drouhin says quantity
is very low in Chablis and the Côte de Beaune, where overall
losses are reaching 50%. It may end up as the smallest vintage
ever, though the pinot in the Côte de Nuits was more fortunate.
But quality looks superb for whites and reds, which will be
lighter and lower in alcohol than recent vintages. Jean-Marc
Moron, head of Domaine des Hospices de Nuits-Saint-Georges, says
cool conditions mean reds will “be tender-textured, with red
fruit aroma and less on the ripe and spicy side.”
Champagne
The regional trade organization Comité Champagne set Sept. 6 as
the harvest start date, later than last year. Weather and mildew
echoed Burgundy’s experience, so Sebastien Le Golvet, chef de
cave of grower Champagne Henri Giraud, says sorting grapes
carefully will be key. Louis Roederer lost 25% of the crop to
the 12-day frost and 25% to outbreaks of mildew, which chef de
cave Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon calls “the worst since 1958.” He
adds, “Chardonnay is the luckier grape!” Which means excellent
blanc de blancs. Top pinot noir is also successful, so Cristal,
a blend of both, won’t suffer.
Loire Valley
As if frosts weren’t enough, egg-size hailstones destroyed
vineyards in a three-minute storm in June. Langlois Chateau
reports quality is good for chenin blanc and cabernet franc, but
there’s a real lack of grapes. In Sancerre the loss amounts to
50% to 70% at some vineyards, so expect a shortage and higher
prices. Yet in Savennières, winemaker Thibaud Boudignon says,
this vintage could be his best, with wines that are minerally
and fresh.
Rhône Valley
In the northern Rhône, the harvesting of reds started about
Sept. 25, a month later than in 2020. Laurent Combier of Domaine
Combier calls 2021 “a true vintage of the vigneron,” meaning
that it took expensive work in the vineyards to produce good
grapes. He says the wines will hark back to vintages in the
1990s that had less alcohol. Stéphane Ogier, whose eponymous
domaine is in Côte-Rôtie, expects “some good surprises for
delicious whites” that are vibrant and fruity.
Provence
Yes, there was frost. Add to that a wildfire that raged for a
week right before harvest in the Var, a rosé region that
includes St-Tropez. It affected 73 wineries, such as Domaine
Mirabeau, whose owner posted a photo on Instagram of burned
vines and shriveled grapes. Other areas are fine. Château Minuty
co-owner François Matton says his fermenting rosés already have
intense aromas of white peach and grapefruit, balance, and
freshness, and they have more grapes than expected.
Italy
By Sept. 15 harvest was in full swing, and it will continue
well into October. Overall national production will be down 9%
from 2020, according to forecasts from the associations of
Italian wineries and oenologists and the government institute
for agriculture, Ismea.
Tuscany’s coastal Bolgheri area looks to be one of the
year’s big successes. A cool spring and hot, dry summer created
a classic vintage, says Axel Heinz, winemaker at super Tuscan
estate Ornellaia. Priscilla Incisa della Rocchetta of Sassicaia
calls it “a vintage with great potential—excellent structure,
well-ripened tannins, acidity in perfect balance, and beautiful
freshness.”
It was cool and dry in the Barolo country of Piedmont,
where Giovanni Gaja of Gaja Winery is also optimistic about
quality. But Brunello di Montalcino wasn’t as lucky. Winemaker
Sebastian Nasello at Podere Le Ripi cites 50% less fruit than
usual because of frost, drought, and hail. He’s harvesting
earlier, so wines may be fresher and more acidic. And despite
media reports about heat waves in Sicily, Alessio Planeta, who
owns vineyards around the island, says red nero d’Avola and
white grillo grapes will make great wines.
Portugal
The country seems like a winner in 2021. The Symington
family, which owns more than two dozen estates in the Douro
Valley and the Alentejo, said in an email that with no heat
spikes, the grapes ripened very evenly, with harvest for red
grapes starting earlier than average. So far wines have good
color, high acidity, and balance, which points to a top vintage.
Spain
The harvest in Rioja looked quite good the last week of
August, says Victor Urrutia of CVNE, a family company with
wineries across north central Spain. By mid-September, more than
a week of rain was followed by a forecast for more and the risk
of the fungus botrytis. Although he’d started picking white
grapes, Urrutia says he can’t harvest reds until the rain stops.
Germany
Yields vary from region to region, and winemakers are
cautiously optimistic. Despite the Ahr Valley floods, the
quality of the pinot from spared vineyards looked good when
picking started in mid-September. It was a very mixed growing
season in the Moselle Valley, says top producer Egon Müller.
Because vines don’t bud as early in this cool climate, frosts
did no damage. Cold weather in August, followed by a warm sunny
September, pushed harvest later than usual, into mid-October.
Müller expects high acidity levels in the wines and a more
classical style.
Instagram: A post shared by Chateau Montelena (@... Austria
Austria expects an average harvest, finishing in early
October, with lushly fruity, harmonious wines. Cool weather in
the spring delayed bud development, so vines suffered less
damage from the April frosts than elsewhere. United States
In terms of quality, Quintessa winemaker Rebekah Wineberg
calls her haul “small but mighty.” Drought is the defining
feature in Napa and Sonoma, as it was the third-driest year in
more than a century, and the stress has meant fewer grapes: One
of Massican’s white wine vineyards yielded 80% less than normal,
according to founder Dan Petroski. But drought also causes
smaller grapes with more concentrated flavor and tannins.
“So far, harvest 2021 has been fantastic,” Chateau
Montelena winemaker Matt Crafton said in an email, “except for
the yields.” People talk about intense aromas and depth, on par
with the great 2018s. In Sonoma the chardonnay crop is light,
but the wines are full of fresh acidity. Winemaker Theresa
Heredia at Gary Farrell Winery in the Russian River Valley says
the pinot noir is intense and concentrated.