2020 Vintage Summary
Turiya focuses on ‘the essence of each grape and the land from which it came’. As the winemaker, I like to keep a journal of each growing season as a reference for what to expect from the vineyard that year and in years to come. As we are all quite aware, 2020 has historically been one of the worst years ever known to man simply due to forces of nature and the vineyards unfortunately were not an exception.
The vineyards started out the season pretty good here on the Central Coast with a lot of ground water from the heavy rains we got in the Spring and as we rolled into summer the weather remained steady and cool with average temperatures of 75-80° and no major heat spikes. All seemed promising. Then strangely, the weather changed in late August and we got a series of thunderstorms carrying with them lightning. The lightning started many fires north of the Central Coast but as the weather grew into heat spikes over 100°, many more fires started throughout California, Oregon and Washington. As for a fire season, this was off the charts for what we have experienced before. The smoke soon spread, visible from space, and created its own weather pattern spreading the heat, expanding molecules in our atmosphere and the heat spikes kept coming day after day. Luckily in Santa Barbara County and most of the Paso Robles region weren’t greatly affected by the smoke but they were affected by heat.
Grapevines, being the beautiful living things that they are, move nutrients through the vines daily as the grapes are growing, think of the vine itself like an umbilical chord, feeding the baby grapes. But when the mother vine gets too hot, she needs to conserve her energy and so she stores the nutrients in her trunk and the babies stop getting their food - essentially, they stop growing during those hot days. This threshold is around 90°. Now, this causes a few more issues - it can create some volatile components to the grapes overall flavor. I mean, it’s fruit sitting out in the sun for days right? A little volatility might be ‘interesting’ I the finished wine, but too much is a bad thing.
The key to a good growing season is that a balanced vine creates a balanced wine. This year was unbalanced, especially in beloved Napa Valley and slightly out of balance down here on the Central Coast. The smoke from the fires create something called 'smoke taint’ that is essentially like adding ash to the wine. It tastes like burnt rubber and forest fire. Not very appealing complexities to a wine.
In addition to the vineyard being affected in Norther California, many historic sites burned to the ground like the gorgeous Meadowood restaurant where I was lucky enough to have one of the most memorable meals of my life once. Now many classic wine country delights are gone, some forever and some temporarily.
As Rob McMillan, from Silicon Valley Bank states: "It’s been a long year of sequential “who-would-have-thought” firsts. Restaurants closed, and wineries got pulled into that vortex. Societal unrest permeated the country. Reopening to lower capacities and outdoor tastings seemed like progress, then the second wave of COVID started to hit most of the regions. That was enough for several years of crisis, but fires then made outdoor tastings meaningless for weeks in many cases and smoke damaged grapes in more AVA’s than any other time in history. The final nail for a dozen Napa wineries a second regional fire that burnt them to the ground. The year will go down as the worst business conditions for wineries since Prohibition”.
Although this journal entry may seem like a downer (and I apologize for that), there is a silver lining for Turiya Wines - well, maybe a couple. One, I wasn’t sure there would even be a 2020 vintage due to the challenge of economics after Covid took from me the traditionally busy summer of traveling to wine events and having to close down for tastings but thanks to YOU, I managed to get through with enough change in my pocket to get a few tons of grapes. Secondly, I sought out some new vineyard sites that had minimal heat variations and no nearby fires . I am particularly excited about a small 5 acre vineyard called Colibri Robles. It is a vineyard in Paso Robles that is on a west-facing hillside on the east side. The lower part of the vineyard where the Petit Sirah grows is about 10° cooler than the top of the vineyard and on days when Paso was over 100° this vineyards’s microclimate kept the grapes growing. Harvested on lucky number 13 of October, just as my very first vintage was in 2008, I felt really good about this fruit. In the cellar it’s reflecting some killer aromatics of baked blueberry pie and molasses, going beyond my expectations for the vintage. So yes, there will be good that comes out of this year after all! Good wine! This wine will be released in about five years time but if you’d like to try the magic that this vineyard has already produced visit www.colibriroblesvineyard.com.
Cabernet Sauvignon is on the left, mystery grape on the right.
In addition to the Petite Sirah, I also produced Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and a mystery grape. The mystery grape came in with the Cabernet and as I was sorting the grapes I noticed that one of the bins contained berries of a bigger size. I tasted the berries and they didn't taste like Cabernet. I squeezed open a berry to find green, fleshy pulp and 4-5 seeds. Cabernet doesn't have bright green pulp and only contains 2 seeds per berry. Do you have a guess what this grape is? I called the vineyard to let them know and ask what the grape is. They (under new ownership), didn’t know.
I separated the mystery grape and processed it in it's own fermenter watching it slowly pick up color as the days went on. This wine is now in kegs (there wasn't a lot) and I will have it at the winery and would be happy to have you come taste it and try to guess what the varietal is.
As of now, harvest season has wrapped up and all the wines are buttoned down in their barrels. The cool weather is here and I am excited as the upcoming holiday season with the warm glowy lights, family gatherings, home cooked meals and shared wine moves in. I hope you are enjoying the remainder of 2020. Let’s go out with a bang!
I’d like to highlight the 2012 Dark and Dreamy as the perfect paring for your holiday gatherings. There are only a few cases of this left before it moves into the library so there is a limit of three bottles per person. Stock up on this and all of your favorite wines and enjoy free shipping on all orders over $100 now through the end of the year.
Time for a bubble bath, a candle and some good wine…
Cheers,
Angela