Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of articles this week on smoke impact in wine. Read the first article. Read the second article. Read the third article. 

Smoke during the growing season is becoming increasingly common in many winegrowing regions. At present, there are two big shortfalls in how the industry is dealing with it.

1. Everyone in the wine industry, especially winemakers, needs a clear understanding of how sensitive they are or aren’t to smoke impact.

Winemakers and their teams are on the frontlines of detecting smoke impact, as are other members of the industry, such as retailers, distributors, and media. Right now, there is an assumption that if a wine is smoke impacted, a professional will be able to detect it. That is not true.

There is a wide range in sensitivity to smoke impact. Smoke impact also isn’t just one thing but rather many things. Additionally, as many as 20% of people are said to be unable to detect smoke impact at any level. Training can also play an important role.

In my experience, how “good” a palate one does or doesn’t have has little bearing on a person’s ability to detect smoke impact. Rather, what’s important is innate differences and training.

For winemakers, doing bucket ferments or full ferments and looking for smoke impact is only meaningful when paired with the knowledge of how sensitive one is or isn’t to it. In fact, one could have a team of five or ten people evaluate a wine for smoke, and if they are all low sensitivity or not sufficiently trained, it’s a waste of time.

How could determining one’s sensitivity be accomplished? It could be done via a formal blind tasting with wines with varying levels of smoke impact, mixed in with wines with no impact. Ideally there would be associated smoke marker measurements for the wines to add context. The wines are then revealed and discussed. This would best be set up by an academic institution or regional body. (Some have already done this.) This could also be done in a more ad hoc manner, but there’s a lot of risk there.

Bottom line, wine professionals need to know definitively where they sit in the range of sensitivity. Where they think they sit doesn’t cut it. I can tell you from experience, most professionals think they are more sensitive than they are.

2. We need a better understanding of consumer sensitivity to and sentiment about smoke impact.

Winemakers not knowing how sensitive they are or aren’t to smoke impact is a significant problem. However, an even bigger issue is that we have don’t have sufficient understanding of what consumer sensitivity or sentiment about smoke impact looks like.

Why is this so important? If a wine is smoke impacted, but only 1% of consumers are going to find it objectionable, is it really an issue? A wine could be smoke impacted and still be commercially viable, depending on consumer perception and the intent of the wine.

Researchers who study smoke impact look at three levels. There’s the detection threshold where the person detects smoke but doesn’t know what it is. “What’s that?” someone might say. The recognition threshold is where the person says, “That’s smoke.” Finally, the rejection threshold is “That’s smoke, and I don’t like it.”

These three thresholds vary by individual. They also vary by variety. Wine composition also plays an important role in how overt the smoke is or isn’t. This is a complex subject. (Dr. Elizabeth Tomasino at Oregon State University has done some excellent research on the perception of smoke impact.)

I would argue that the most important factor is not necessarily a wine’s actual level of smoke impact. It’s the perceived level of smoke impact by its target audience and whether they find it a problem or not.

At present, the industry is not only putting out smoke impacted wines and not knowing it because winemakers don’t know how sensitive they are or aren’t. Wineries are also dumping or bulking out potentially commercially viable smoke impacted wines that perhaps they shouldn’t.

If we could better evaluate the risk profile of a wine relative to how wine drinkers will perceive it, we can make much more educated decisions. Without that, we’re making somewhat arbitrary decisions about smoke impacted wines.

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