Was 2020 A Good Vintage In California?
2020 Harvest is still ongoing, so it may be premature to speak of the quality of the vintage. But the truth is that we can say already that it has mostly been a bummer of a vintage. Does that mean all the 2020 wines will suck, though? Absolutely not.
How is that possible?
Vintage rating systems - you know, those scores given (based on a 100 point scale) to a wine region by various popular wine media companies - are for the most part utter B.S.
It's generally foolish to speak generally about anything.
Yes, the 2020 vintage across California was plagued by, well, a global plague to begin with. This affected the availability vineyard workers and the ability to have them do necessary work at the right time. It also affected a paradigm shift in the way wine is marketed and sold, and a massive reallocation of resources. Some wineries found themselves entering the harvest season with very different financial outlooks than ever before.
On top of the COVID pandemic, 2020 had some crazy weather. A roller coaster of spring temperatures and multiple record-breaking heat waves in August added up to vines and grapes that didn't quite know if they were coming or going... to hell.
Oh, and don't forget the fires. I flew from Los Angeles to Santa Rosa in late August (wearing a mask, of course) and could see only smoke below me the entire flight. Most of those fires are sill burning as of this writing. The grapes in some areas have been in a slow-smoker for over a month and might be better used for barbeque than wine at this point.
So, yeah, the 2020 vintage had some "challenges" as wine salespeople like to say.
But then I look at how the Centralas harvest went, and I couldn't be happier. We picked at 6 different times, and got beautiful, balanced grapes each time. We picked on the earlier side - before the crazy heat spike over the end of August - for half of our grapes, and had great acid and lower sugar for our fresh rosés and Pinot Noir. Then picked again after the crazy heat spike and found that while sugars had increased a bit, the acid had somehow not changed much.
This couldn't have been better for what we wanted for our wines. We're vinifying the grape picks separately to see the difference, but it's likely we'll blend the various picks of the same grapes together to get wines with energy, depth, and great balance. For us, the young wines already hold a promise of greatness that is very exciting.
Of course it helps that we are harvesting from mainly a beautiful, extremely well cared for, organic vineyard in the Santa Rita Hills. I don't think it has anything to do with the Santa Rita Hills, however. I've seen grapes from other vineyards in the SRH AVA, and they have been quite ugly in comparison.
Again, this shows that it's impossible to generalize even about a vintage for a single AVA.
When you pick, and from what vineyards you pick, has a huge influence on the wine made from the vintage.
Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't wish 2020 on us again. And you may experience more raisin and stewed fruit (and smoke) flavors in a lot of California wine from 2020. But for some producers this may be their best vintage yet.
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