Can We Actually Taste Wildfire Season in California Wines?

In this week's episode Marcius and award-winning winemaker and entrepreneur Christine (Chris) Hanna discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the wine industry, including declining sales, changing consumer preferences, wildfire risk, and innovations in winemaking and marketing. 

Let us know what you think at podontherise@gmail.com

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to the wine industry challenges

00:46 Marine layer and its effect on grape acidity

00:55 Impact of weed legalization on wine sales

01:24 Wildfires versus weed as factors in industry decline

02:02 Data sources for wine industry sales

03:56 Younger generations and their drinking habits

05:36 Decline of millennial wine consumers

06:27 Additives and ingredients in wine

08:38 The importance of wine labeling and transparency

10:20 Main ingredients in winemaking

12:37 Direct-to-consumer sales and industry shifts

13:51 Operational changes in vineyards and replanting

16:16 Climate challenges for Napa Cabernet Sauvignon

18:51 Wildfire smoke and its impact on grapes

20:36 Mitigating risks and adapting to climate change

Episode credit: Tod Elkins, Editing

Keywords: wine industry, wine sales decline, consumer preferences, climate change, Millenials, GenZ, winemaking, wine labeling, direct-to-consumer, Napa Valley, Sonoma County, Alexander Valley, wildfire risk, smoke taint, weed, water scarcity, Sauvignon Blanc, Nero D’Avola

On the Rise is a production of Extempo Media, copyright 2026. 

Show Credits:
Vishrudh Sriramprasad, Producer
Claire Davis, Theme Music (Long Gone, Get It Right) | @clairedavismusic

Kheya Patel, Art | https://kheyapatel.com/

Contact: podontherise@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Our problem as an industry is the millennials. You know, this is a huge group who have traditionally been solid, you know, wine drinkers. And that's the group that we're just not seeing. We're seeing those folks skew a little more towards spirits and beer. And what have we done as an industry to scare them off?

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Hello, my friends. Welcome to the On the Rise podcast. I'm your host, Marcus Extavor. We love your likes and subscribes on YouTube. Find us on Apple Podcasts, find us on Spotify, find us wherever you get your audio podcast, and find us on Substack. Today we're talking about wine. This is a great episode to share with that wine lover in your life, or that person who really is the best person to order wine if you go out to dinner.

unknown 0:49

Maybe not you.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

It's certainly not me. Well, why are we talking about wine? First, I want to tell you about one of my favorite party games. It's the coffee, cheese, wine, and chocolate game. Maybe you know it. It goes like this: four items. You share this with a new person you've met or at a party, or your friends, family, your loved ones. Coffee, wine, cheese, chocolate. And it's kind of a personality test. Not really, but like a fake personality test. The question is which of these would you give up first? Which of these would you give up last? Number one is the thing that you absolutely can't live without out of those four things. So, like for me, that's chocolate. Easy chocolate. And then number four is the thing that maybe you love it, but if you had to choose, you would give that one up. For me, that's coffee. Actually, that's not hard. That's easy. I don't really drink coffee yet. I think I would go chocolate number one, wine number two, cheese, and then coffee. Sorry, coffee drinkers. I love that game. But it's not just a party game, it's kind of interesting. If you think about it, those four things are pretty deep parts of human culture, and they're ancient. Cheese, people have been doing that forever, all over the world. Wine, same thing. Chocolate. I actually don't know the deep history of chocolate, but I know it's at least centuries old, probably older. And coffee, same thing. The Ethiopians claim to have invented coffee thousands of years ago. So they are deeply connected to many human societies, and they're very old. They're not just part of our societies, they're actually deep in culture. That's why the game's fun, because people have opinions. Today we're gonna zoom in on wine. Why? Well, I live in Sonoma County, California, and my neighbors literally are winemakers everywhere. The parents of kids at my kids' school are in the wine business. People I run into at coffee shops are in the wine industry in some way. It's a big agricultural and wine area. You've probably heard of Napa, California. Sonoma, California is right next door. Maybe slightly less well known, I'm not sure. Full of tourists, but right now it's the season. So it's popping. And it's just part of the community. But also, it's agriculture, it's business, it's independent business, it's entrepreneurs, and the big headline in wine right now is that wine sales are declining. Everyone in the industry knows this and talks about it all the time. It turns out, when you dig into the data, we, consumers, are just drinking less wine and paying a little bit more per bottle. So in the industry, what they talk about is wow, demand is really starting to drop. Revenue hasn't really dropped because prices are rising. And so things are looking okay for now from a revenue perspective. But a lot of winemakers are very concerned and are already having to make very difficult choices about what to do with these pressures on the industry. So there's changes in habits, there's changes in consumption, there's all kinds of things that are going into why people are drinking less wine and why it's getting more expensive. Today's guest that you heard off top is Chris Hanna. Chris Hanna is a businesswoman, an entrepreneur, and the founder and owner of Hannah Wineries. Hannah Wineries is a family-owned and run and independent winery and wine producer based in the Alexander Valley of Northern California. It's in Sonoma County. If you know the region and you visit it, you probably know their area well. If you don't at all, just think two hours drive north of San Francisco. Right in the middle of wildfire country, by the way, and that is relevant. So the wine industry is facing a lot of pressures, and Chris Hanna is somebody that's got 250 acres planted. She's won awards. Her wines are very well known for some of the big bold reds that she talks about, but also Sauvignon Blanc. They are one of the most famous Sauvignon Blanc makers, certainly of California, and that's really one of their deep, deep strengths. She also has a really interesting story as a first-generation person in the United States and developing a family business and learning everything from scratch and now growing it into a fabulously successful and productive business that is able to really maintain its family-oriented feel. I really wanted to get Chris's view as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, and as a farmer about what kind of pressures she's facing and how they actually manifest. Where does she feel caught? Where are the risks? And we talked about a lot of the outside pressures that have maybe have nothing to do with behavior, but may affect sales and price and the feel of wine. Things like wildfire, water scarcity, smoke taint, which is not something I knew was even a thing, but it turns out if it's smoky because of a wildfire near the grapes, the grapes can absorb smoke, dot dot dot dot, the wine has a different flavor. I'm actually recording this immediately after talking with Chris. I travel to Toronto where I am now to visit some family, and it happens that today is a very hazy day because of wildfire smoke. So just ironic. I'm thinking about what it would mean for wine to taste ashy or smoky. Wine is a hyperlocal thing. The environmental conditions, the soil, the light, the heat, the precipitation, everything about the conditions make the wine what it is. So this is a very local story about Sonoma County, about Alexander Valley, wineries, and how they're adapting to the changes and the pressures they're facing. But it's also a very global story. Here's why. Wine is grown in almost every continent on Earth. It's ancient. It's one of our oldest practices as many different cultures, and it's not just old, it's celebrated in many cultures. Even if you don't drink wine, don't drink alcohol, don't like wine, I think you recognize wine is kind of a human thing and it's been with us for a long time. And even though the conditions for winemaking are very specific and local and unique to each place, the kind of concerns we're talking about today are pretty general. Winemakers in Europe, winemakers in South Africa, from Australia, in Asia, in Canada, in Chile, everywhere. They're all facing similar versions of some of the pressures today. So it's really hyper-local about Sonoma County, California, but I think also kind of a global story, too. What does it all mean? How does this kind of climate risk show up in her business? That's what we wanted to get into with Chris Hanna. So we talk about all that kind of stuff. Drought, heat, wildfire, water, smoke, changing patterns among young people. Is it weed? Is it other things? Is it health? Is it what's causing these changes in wine? Here's my conversation with Chris Hanna. Chris Hanna, we're here at your property.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Here we are on a typical uh summer season day with what many would call fog, but we call marine layer.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

Marine layer? Okay. Actually, I didn't know you called it marine layer up here. I thought that was only a Southern California thing.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

No, no, here too. Um and the great thing about marine layer from a wine growing standpoint is that it helps keep the acids high in the in the grapes and slows down the ripening process. So we get this really long, slow ripening process and therefore more flavor in the grapes and more natural acidity, which makes for better wine.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

Okay, something I didn't know. They say that sales in the wine industry are in the decline. Is it the wildfires or the weed?

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Um I think it's definitely the weed. For sure. You know, weed is legal, mainstream, comes in lots of different forms. So you don't have to smoke it anymore. You can, you know, gummies are a thing, you know, particularly with people my generation, they're like, oh, we don't smoke anymore, but you know, gummies and they're fun. And um, so I think weed definitely um well wildfires not so much. I think wildfires are more of an issue for wineries and their risk levels and you know and costs and you know, all of that. It's not keeping people away. It might have after, you know, one or two of the fires, people freaked out because the news loves to blow up these stories, right? But that's not a long-term kind of existential problem. Um weed could be a long-term ex existential problem.

SPEAKER_02 8:40

Okay, so we could call that shifting habits or preferences among younger people about what they do for recreational stuff. You really think that's a big part of it? Or do you think what are what else do you think contributes to the decline of wine sales around here? And is that even real? Tell me about that from your perspective as a well, it's definitely real.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

I mean, we're, you know, all the data shows, you know, multi-year declines of of really all alcohol, um, including craft beers and and surprisingly hard alcohol. That the declines for hard alcohol are not as steep as for as for wine. And uh so it's really scary for the wine industry.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

I'm curious where you get data from this. Like, do you have industry groups that supply you with data? Do you have your own analysts, Antonio?

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Yeah, there are there are industry groups, you know, there's the wine institute, there are um various regional groups that that aggregate data, and then you know, those of us who distribute nationally and distribute into you know chain retail get scan data, Nielsen scan data just like any other product. And that's really reliable data, right? I mean, you know how many people walk into Kroger's and scan a bottle of Hannah Sovia block, you know, I mean there's no gray area. There's no, oh, it feels like this, or we think we're in decline, or we think it's about 15 to 20 percent. I mean, that the Nielsen data is really um solid for the industry.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

Okay, so you've got really robust sales data. But let me ask you, I was I told you before we started filming, but I read this data point, I think it was in the Press Democrat, which is a local newspaper around here, claiming that uh alcohol consumption among younger people is not down as much as people might expect. Like there's sort of a broader sense that, you know, maybe people in their 20s, there's sort of a thing where like maybe drinking isn't cool anymore and it's sort of on the decline, plus COVID, plus people, you know, the society kind of atomizing, people not gathering, blah, blah, blah. Maybe younger people are just drinking less. And this was the first time I'd read something saying, well, actually, maybe it's more focused on some categories, maybe wine, maybe other aspects. But tell me how that vibes with what you've heard and seen.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

So, yes, for Gen Z, you know, and my youngest is 20, almost 24, so he falls in that category. They're they're they're absolutely drinking beer, they're absolutely drinking hard alcohol, um, not really drinking wine yet. And and that that is true of every age group. You know, it's the rare 23-year-old who walks into a restaurant and buys an expensive bottle of wine, or or walks into a wine store and says, I'm interested in a mixed case of, you know, of oaked, you know, Bordeaux varieties. This doesn't, this doesn't happen, right? So I actually have a lot of um hope for Gen Z. You know, these are kids that grew up in farmers' markets and you know interested in where food comes from. So of course they're gonna eventually be interested in wine as they develop their careers and have more disposable income and are and are entertaining, you know, people for their jobs, etc. Our problem is as an industry is the millennials. You know, this is a huge group who have traditionally been solid, you know, wine drinkers.

SPEAKER_02 11:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

And that's the group that we're just not seeing. We're seeing those folks skew a little more towards spirits and beer. And you know, what have we done as an industry to scare them, scare them off?

SPEAKER_02 12:14

So you're seeing data that tells you that millennials in particular are tapering off. So they got into it in the way you would describe, maybe as life changes and your habits change, but now you really see evidence that they're tailing off?

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Yeah. What are your or you know, tailing off strong, maybe, you know, waning. Waning.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

So, you know, there are some weird sort of health movement, sober, sober curious things happening out there. Somehow wine is bad for you and it has it's not clean and you know up.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Okay, so that let's separate these out. I think there's I just, you know, I moved up here from LA, which is I think the capital of the wellness industry, as far as I can tell. Everybody's on some kind of cleanse, everybody wants to tell you about it. Exactly. While they're smoking a cigarette, they want to tell you about their cleanse and what diet they're on or whatever. Right. But okay, so there's not drinking alcohol. And, you know, I I told you I'd see a lot of clips of medical people online saying things like, well, alcohol is poisonous and the amount. That's something I didn't hear growing up, and I hear it now.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

But I think you mentioned something different, which is maybe it's not clean. Does that have to do with additives or ingredients? Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Yeah, definitely. Um, you know, there there's a notion that there's sugar in alcohol, um, which is so interesting because the whole point of alcohol is it ferments out the you know, the sugar and and turns it into alcohol. So um there's a notion that there's sugar in alcohol, and to be fair, you know, we are allowed as an industry to add some concentrated grape juice in very, very small amounts. And that can sort of that can make the palate a little juicier. Right. It doesn't taste sweet.

SPEAKER_02 13:56

This is something that's part of the win-making process, is that right? You may choose to do it.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

You may choose to do it.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

I understand.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

And then there are a variety of other additives that are allowed in the wine industry, you know, things like things that might smell or taste like oak that aren't oak barrels. Like think of it as an extract, you know, how there's vanilla extract.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

We're allowed to use a small amount of extract. But I don't think most people know that.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Yeah. I think though that there's this notion that alcohol is poisonous and that alcohol has sugar, or uh wine has sugar.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

I remember before we started filming, you were telling me about labels on wine, and you pointed out, which I hadn't really noticed, that there isn't an ingredient list. I can imagine that when I think about my own friends or people that I've known, getting into artisanal things, I mean this was a joke during COVID, but sourdough, people moved to sourdough, making your own wine or going to a make your own wine place was popular when I was a kid. Artisanal gardening, make your own, do your own. The maker movement, a lot of stuff. I think that's popular. Yeah. And I think one of the reasons it's popular is it's niche, it's bespoke, and you maybe have a little more transparency. You get to know, you know, what's going into my food, or like a farm to table restaurant, or uh come make come watch us make the thing, the food, the substance, whatever we're doing. Do you think labeling on wine would help address this issue, or is it not something people think about because, like me, most people don't even know there may or may not be some other additives like concentrated grape juice in wine? What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 15:29

My position on it is we absolutely should have labeling on wine. To me, it is bizarre that we know.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

So you want a complete ingredient list?

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Absolutely, why not? Every other product. You walk into a store, every other product has an ingredient list. And so it, you know, we in the wine industry we like to sort of make the distinction between wine and hard alcohol by saying, you know, wine is wine is part of the food landscape, right? We enjoy wine with food, it's a social thing, it goes with, you know, uh wine doesn't have the image of let's put it in a paper bag and you know swig the bottle. Gotcha. Right? And so following that logic, then we should absolutely be transparent about the ingredient list just as every food product is. Right. So I'm for it. Now, I'm not every person in the industry. You know, I think there are a lot of what's the argument against? The argument against is there are a lot of scary, you know, some people put a lot of scary sounding additives in the wine. And um, you know, those things are in tiny minute quantities, but they're still there. So, you know, there is certainly a a group that's interested in minimally processed food, and is that gonna turn consumers off to wine?

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Right. I want to ask you about the business realities of being a winemaker and a grower now, but before we leave this topic, just briefly for the audience, roughly what are the main constituents for anyone that's not totally familiar already with the winemaking process?

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Grapes and yeast.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

That's it?

SPEAKER_00 17:09

I mean, that's basically what it takes to make a wine.

SPEAKER_02 17:12

Uh-huh. Do you count water as an ingredient? I don't mean that as an arcane.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

But but we do, we do we do add water.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Um like spit the spirits industry, you know, whiskey people will go nuts about this the water came from this spring and blah, blah, blah. That means something. Does that matter for wine making? No, not so much.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

We're really just using water to top up evaporated tanks and you know, and barrels. It's it's pretty minimal. We obviously don't want to dilute our our products. So really grapes and yeast. Now, can you add a tiny bit of other things? Sure, but those are the main, those are the main ingredients. It's a pretty simple process.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

All right. So we talked about changing attitudes, changing perceptions, changing generations, seeing some dip in wine sales. It's it's been ongoing. Uh I think things are changing as well in the wine industry. I mean, as a novice, things that I can observe are more and more celebrities and other people are getting into wine. I was about to give it a bottle of wine with Snoop Dogg's face on it. I mean, the wine wasn't, well, sorry, Snoop. The wine wasn't great, but I loved it because I'm a friend of his, so I thought that was cute. Um, also things like direct to consumer. Just comment on some of those things and other areas that you think might be growth or opportunity areas for the industry as things shift.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Well, direct to consumer has been a big push in the last, you know, couple of decades where you know, wineries sort of woke up to the fact that, you know, the wholesale world is difficult. Sending your wine out into the world is difficult. There are lots of gatekeepers, there are huge multinational companies that own wineries now, and they have the ear and the pocketbook of the of the wholesalers, so they're going to pay attention to those brands first, and the smaller brands kind of, you know, get a smaller and smaller share of the attention. So the push was, okay, well, drive direct to consumer, drive your own sales, direct to consumer, cut out the middleman, speak directly to your customers, and you'll do that through, you know, visitors coming to tasting rooms, through your wine club, through social media, email marketing campaigns, et cetera, et cetera.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

Does does it reduce operating costs? Is the idea that you may reduce operating costs to gain market share or customer relationships, or is that not the right way to think about it?

SPEAKER_00 19:25

That's not a wrong way to think about it, but we think about it in terms of margin. So we give up so much margin when we sell to a wholesaler.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

I see.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

And we get to keep that margin and have a more high-touch experience with the consumer in a very crowded landscape where people really don't know a lot. You know, it's like the game of telephone. By the time somebody buys a bottle of Hannah Sauvignon Blanc at Publix in Florida, does the wine steward, well-meaning wine steward at the store who gets bombarded with a million stories about wineries, is is that person going to remember the story?

SPEAKER_02 19:59

I understand.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Whereas we get to tell that at the end of the day. You could tell that story maybe you know, rich way every day when people show up here.

SPEAKER_02 20:06

So now talk to me about being a business owner and operator amidst these changes. What as you see uh sales change, uh maybe even volumes decline a little bit, what operational changes has that meant for your business? Do you change how you plant, do you change how you harvest? Are you rotating crops around? If we are sitting around your executive table, what kind of conversations are you having in this context?

SPEAKER_00 20:30

Yeah. You know, since we're in a bit of a scary time in the industry, um, you know, some of us are deciding, uh are getting really clear about what varieties we're gonna focus on and what things we're gonna start to reduce or let go. Okay. Um and, you know, those are hard conversations because you still have wine in the, you can't make that decision on a dime. You still have wine in the cellar, you still have blocks planted. Yeah. Um, but uh, I think for us, you know, the the one silver lining in this market is that wine drinkers are showing a clear preference and the data is showing that they're still drinking lighter white wines.

unknown 21:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Well, our you know, number one by far uh variety that we wholesale is Sauvignon Blanc. So, okay, so we know the Sauvignon, we're gonna we're gonna hang on to that. Right. And when if there are opportunities to scale that, awesome, we're there, we're poised to do that. You know, what do we do about you know, less interest in you know, the bigger, richer red wines? We still have a direct to consumer base and a wholesale base that loves those wines, but you know, I'm not gonna see you know a huge increase in consumption on those. So what do we do? Do we think about replanting blocks? We've also found some real interest in um unusual varieties. You know, we've planted some um some Sicilian varieties because. they're more drought tolerant. And as we've seen, you know, climate change and seen weather patterns change, we're making some making some switches in that regard. So we're doing some, we're taking blocks of Cabernet, for example, that you know, in the and we would have needed to take out in the next three to five years and doing that now.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

Okay. So switching varieties, blocks, we're sitting here at your Alexander Valley property. I'm looking out at some of the blocks that are planted. It seems like a big deal to change out a block. I mean to be graphic about it. I mean that means plants get ripped up and replanted. Correct. Probably they take several years to mature or to come into fruit bearing that you can make wine out of. By the way, I like those full reds. That tends to be what I gravitate to.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

You said something interesting to me earlier that I want to pick up on. We're in here in Sonoma County in the Alexander Valley. Coming from afar I knew Napa a little bit more. Maybe like a lot of people do they've got name recognition. But they've gone heavy on Cabernet Sauvignon and if I understood correctly it's getting more difficult to grow maybe because of climate conditions, maybe fire risk, maybe smoke, I'm not sure. What does this mean for the future of Napa? Is Napa screwed? Are they doing the same thing you're doing? What does it mean for Napa to be so invested in Cabernet Sauvignon, which now may be getting harder and harder to grow and produce with?

SPEAKER_00 23:27

It's such an interesting question because I have long admired how they really coalesced behind a single variety and and they just went for it, you know, and they they they marched forward and and said Napa Valley is Cabernet, Cabernet is Napa Valley. So needed in a world where wine is confusing and there are all these different varieties and all these different regions and all that consumers could say could just take a deep breath and say okay I get it.

SPEAKER_02 23:55

And tell me if this is wrong but I think that globally when we think about regions and varieties Napa and Cabernet Sauvignon are sort of one of these really well known pairs. Is that fair to say?

SPEAKER_00 24:05

Oh absolutely everyone in wine knows this around the world and bra and bravo to them because that is not easy to do.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

They've got that brand they've got that but you know now you've got declining consumption you've got you know some people less interested in those bigger sort of more oak driven wines and so what do they do? What I think will happen is that the A producers and there's so many of them in Napa will be just fine.

SPEAKER_02 24:35

I think the the the smaller producers that aren't A producer means volume, means prestige, margin, okay, prestige.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

The prestige producers will be just fine. I I but I think other folks are going to need to um adapt and think about other varieties. And then even the prestige producers are for sure changing their farming practices to deal with more sun exposure. You know Cabernet's kind of a waterhog, you know what can we do to mitigate um and of course you know fire risk it's the last thing that comes off the vine during the season.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Help me unpack that last one. So you talked about water you talked about exposure to heat. I don't think we've talked about smoke yet but it's harvested later in the season it's last off the vine I don't understand how that's relevant. Can you dispel it?

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Yeah yeah sure um really two set two unrelated things. One it's the last off the vine which means you're pouring water on it. You know it takes so much water it's on the vine longer it's especially late the later in the growing season the more you've got to pour water on it. And you know we get these really hot you know September October days and um and so we don't want sh you don't want the grapes to shrivel up so we're we're pouring water on. So there there's a water consumption issue with Cabernet.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

Okay because it's on the vine longer and it gets deeper into the season which happens to be the hot season. Yes. All this adds up to more water.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Exactly. I'm with you so there's water you know wildfires now are an annual occurrence in the West Coast. Yes they are and smoke travels. So even if we don't have a fire in our immediate proximity it will travel and that smoke taints the taints the grapes it permeates the skins of the grapes and can taint the grapes and create what we call smoke taint and it has adverse effects on the on the wine some of which we can solve and some of which we can't depending on the severity. So if you're plant if you've planted Sauvignon Blanc and it comes off September 1st and most of our wildfires tend to happen in September and October you're like phew okay Sauvignon Blanc's good right Pinot Noir's good because it usually comes off you know the the the middle of September I mean we harvest Cabernet the last blocks come off you know towards the end of October. So you know there's just much more risk for for smoke taint uh with that variety.

SPEAKER_02 27:09

I went to a wildfire preparedness you know seminar a week ago we're we are now entering the beginning of fire season which lasts all the way through to October around here right now folks mean on my neighbors say okay if you survive October and November probably well you need a rain event and usually we get a rain event in you know in November to tamp things down.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

So you know so scary and yet having said that you know there's no easy answer because you know Cabernet still is it's a fascinating grape to grow. It makes elegant age worthy gorgeous wine.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

It's delicious.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

I mean nobody wants to abandon Cabernet nobody but I think we just need to broaden our maybe better said I think we need to mitigate our risk.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

Okay you just got done explaining smoke taint what that means and what some of the the tough position that Napa Valley's in with the focus on Cabernet and it's getting more difficult to grow on the other hand people love it. It is great maybe you're not going to abandon it entirely. Yeah. I can't help but make the connection between things like heat and wildfire and smoke taint. I guess they're all our fire events and we know that climate risk is driving those events or it's it's making them more likely it's making them more severe climate change doesn't cause a fire but it like it makes it more likely it makes it more likely to be severe a lot of people around here are thinking about that. How does that show up as operational risk in your business? So you've talked about you know how does it bubble through do you do you think about it as an operating cost to respond to these things? Is smoke taint a minor annoyance that you have to try to dodge or is it something that actually makes you change your practices? Does it lead to different planting? Does it lead to different varieties or you does it mean different properties become more valuable in different regions?

SPEAKER_00 28:54

First of all, smoke taint is real enough that it actually shows up in grape contracts now. There's a smoke taint clause what that what does that mean? In a grape contract a buyer usually a winery is buy is buying from a grower who may just be a vineyard owner or may also be a winery and the contract's pretty basic and you know number of tons and grape variety price per ton you know when it's going to be delivered etc payment terms etc etc now there is um almost virtually all wineries put uh a smoke taint clause in there that stipulates that if the grapes are smoke tainted that the grower will you know pay for analysis and the winery has the right to reject the grapes based on based on the analysis. Okay that's a whole new thing I've been doing this for a long time that is a whole new thing.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

When did these contract clauses start to show up?

SPEAKER_00 29:50

I think after this 2018 our first one was 2017 I think it was after the 2018 fire.

SPEAKER_02 29:59

Okay just for the audience there was the Los Angeles fire I believe was the most damaging financially damaging fire in California history. The previous unfortunate record holder was the fire around here from that 2018 2017 okay exactly huge fire in this region. Okay so if I'm a casual wine drinker is smoke taint something I would taste in the wine or is it something that you know maybe a refined palate or a lab would be able to tell and it still affects the value?

SPEAKER_00 30:26

And for me if I smell and taste a smoke tainted wine it it can smell and taste like what you would think like kind of ashy but what really happens is um it smells like a band-aid like there's this chemical smell and because I do this for a living I can pick it up in a nanosecond but winemakers are not going to put a smoke tainted wine in the bottle because it gets worse over time. The flavor changes the taste changes yeah and maybe the smell too yeah so you know there's a lot of work being done in the industry to mitigate smoke tainted grapes and there are certain things that you can do to to try to remove it. But what what grape buyers are saying is we don't even want it we're not even going to deal with that. We we want to give ourselves an out that if the fruit is smoke tainted that's it. So that leaves the grower having paid for all of the farming paid to pick it you know holding the bag.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

Interesting what about heat does that make its way into contracts or is that more like that's an environmental condition that you as a grower have to manage and it maybe what does it affect your harvest time or the maturation of the grapes? How does that come into the calculation?

SPEAKER_00 31:47

Yes it also can um you know heat can create sunburn if you don't have enough canopy um burning of the fruit burning of the fruit okay and you know that's a cause for in most contracts that's a cause for rejection. Okay. Um and sunburned fruit leeches color so from a winery standpoint it's kind of a disaster um but heat is a real issue we have we've played around with shade cloth we have misters have you ever been to one of those restaurants in LA or in another hot region where they turn on the misters in the outside patio I've seen this well we have misters in in our blocks that um get a lot of sun exposure especially western sun exposure and um that actually they automatically go on at a certain temperature and that drops the ambient temperature by several degrees. Wow yeah um so we're thinking about this stuff all the time and and then we've totally changed the way we farm um in terms of canopy management so you know a grapevine has all these leaves right we used to back in the day we used to pull all the leaves on the morning side to try to get morning sun to the grapes to help them ripen. I get it and the UV exposure is just too much even in the morning now so we leave the we just leave that canopy did you say the UV exposure?

SPEAKER_02 33:18

Yeah. Okay. So that's separate from heat that's another thing that can affect the fruit yeah sorry for this delicate question. Do you think the overall opportunity to grow wine in this region in the Alexander Valley as you are as you are now where we're sitting is it on the rise or is it getting more and more difficult? If I were starting out as a young winemaker and want to fall in your footsteps, would I say absolutely Alexander Valley or would I say you know you really have to be aware of this, this, and this and there might be another region that's better suited. What's your view on that?

SPEAKER_00 33:50

I think to be realistic if you want to grow certain varieties in Alexander Valley you should probably think twice. I just don't think Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay are gonna work in Alexander Valley. Cabernet still works it's a thick skinned grape it's you know it's fine you've got to you've got to work with water issues and you know all of that. But but it is just frankly getting warmer and what we've seen is you know areas in Mendocino County for example where they had difficulty ripening anything but lighter white wines you know they're making beautiful Pinot Noir now. You know and some people are saying the Russian River Valley Pinot Noirs in some areas are are getting too ripe. So um so I think I think the other side of that the I think the other side of the question that you're asking is has climate change created opportunities in other areas of California? And the answer to that is a resounding yes. And I will say you know for those of us who are embedded here you know in Alexander Valley and in Russian River Valley, you know farmers are adaptive I mean this is what we do right and so we're gonna figure out other stuff to plant. You know down in the Central Valley for example they're pulling out all these grape vines and they're farmers they're they're putting in pistachios they're putting in you know they they don't you know we're we're stubborn around here we want to grow wine grapes and that's what we believe in and that's what we do. You know they're they're much less precious about it.

SPEAKER_02 35:29

That's so interesting. If you have the experience of driving around the the five in California or even some of the back roads occasionally you'll see this is you know my uneducated eyes just piles of dead crops that have been pulled out of the soil usually what used to be obviously a planted farm. Sometimes it's sometimes it looks like grapevine sometimes it looks like apple trees, almonds, what have you and as I'm driving by and I give it three seconds of thought I was thinking what is actually happening here? Is this the end of the life cycle of these plants and they're going to be replanted or is somebody changing what they grow or is this farm over and it's changing hands? Could be people switching crops.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

Exactly and then um you know just because a vineyard is fallow you know or a property is fallow for a while isn't a bad thing. You know it gives us an opportunity to amend the soil and allow some natural habitat to you know to happen which is you know all good for the next crop that that goes in.

SPEAKER_02 36:25

You told me a little bit about changing some of the plants that you grow, some of the crops, the varieties and when I was here the other day you showed me a variety that came from another place. So two part question one I'd love for you to tell me about some of the crops that you're bringing in where they come from why they're doing well here how you what that journey is like but a broader question is what are other folks in other wine producing regions in other places how are they dealing with this? I'm sure the idea of smoke and heat and fire and just other operational risks changing demographics changing tastes that's probably affecting other people in other ways but specifically when it comes to these climate oriented risks heat smoke fire maybe water use what are other folks doing is everyone just trying to figure this out together tell us about the varieties you're trying what opportunities are and then thinking a little more broadly.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Yeah we we went out looking for drought tolerant varieties that would do well in heat in hot conditions and um got excited about Sicilian varieties and planted some Narodavla which is a really beautiful red wine rich um not particularly tannic comes off the vine a little bit earlier in the growing season and I've just been delighted to see it you know grow because it has these huge parasol sized leaves that provide the natural shading for the grapes. And I'm just so tickled by that because compared to a Cabernet grape it's like you know a tenth the size of the graph I saw them I mean they're like the size of my hand right huge. Yeah exactly so um so it's so interesting that you know it would make sense that those those grapes survive in Sicily because because they have that natural shading. So we're playing around with that there's a white variety called grillow that you know has kind of the same properties um very drought tolerant and uh and so we've we've planted those at our ranches. In terms of you know other regions it's trickier in Europe for them because they have a much more complex set of you know laws that determine what they can plant where you know we're swashbuckling Americans here we can plant whatever the heck we want and it's on us to figure out whether it's going to be good or good or not right in the European wine tradition they say you know in Bordeaux you plant these Bordeaux varieties period. And so I think those growers and wineries are a little more you know hamstrung. They have to be more adaptive with their farming practices and less creative with other varieties.

SPEAKER_02 39:07

That does it for part one of my conversation with Chris Hannah now as usual there is a part two so if you love this one I think you'll appreciate the next one. Maybe that wine lover in your life might like it too. In part two we get into a little bit more about her personal journey. We don't leave the operational stuff so don't worry. We she explains to us how her insurance costs, get this, have increased by seven times because of wildfire risk and other factors in the last several years, which is a nutso number she also talks about changing farming practices, specific things she's doing with soil, tilling, other things that she's doing actually on the ground in the dirt. And for me maybe the m most fun part was just hearing her story. It's a family story, it's an immigration story it's a business story it's an entrepreneur story. She wasn't born to be a winemaker but she found herself in it and it's really interesting to find her path all the way through to increasing the output of her winery by 50x since she took it over. She didn't say that because she's from audit but I'm gonna say that. It's pretty remarkable so stay tuned for part two coming up next week. If you love this one you'll love that one too. Thank you everybody for tuning in as usual we love hearing from you and we'd love to hear your email you can always find us reach us at podonthrise at gmail.com podontherise at gmail.com thanks everybody for tuning in and for sharing this and for liking and sending us your feedback. Thanks also to our producer VIF thanks to Chris Hannah for doing this with us. Thanks especially for letting us sit down and film at her location uh just north of Gillsburg, California in the Anderson Valley. And here as usual is the music of Claire Davis take us