By Michael Alberty | For The Oregonian/OregonLive

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The Taylor Creek fire, near Grants Pass, Oregon. (Oregon Department of Forestry)

Dozens of vineyard owners in Southern Oregon's Rogue Valley region opened their mail on Sept. 22 to discover a notice from California-based Copper Cane LLC canceling their contracts for this year's grapes. Now, these vineyard owners are left holding millions of dollars worth of fruit and wondering what to do next.

Copper Cane says smoke damage from recent wildfires made the grapes unusable. Copper Cane’s owner, Joseph “Joe” Wagner, said, “We’re still pending more analysis, but the initial results and the sensory analysis came back positive for smoke taint. We have now sent rejection notices to all our growers in the Rogue Valley.”

Copper Cane’s grape growers are bewildered and angry. The cancellations came with little to no advance warning at the worst possible time: just as the fruit was ready to pick.

Wagner uses the Rogue Valley fruit to make Oregon wines under Copper Cane’s

Elouan

label,

which is currently the target of deceptive-marketing accusations by Oregon winegrowers

. “Forty percent of our pinot noir and 90 percent of our chardonnay come from the Rogue Valley, and it’s going to be a big blow to our brand. Rogue Valley is the cornerstone of our production up there.”

Smoke taint occurs when burning wood releases certain compounds, such as an oil called guaiacol, that settle on grapes and penetrate the skins. At high enough levels, these compounds interact with grape sugars to give the wine aromas and flavors reminiscent of hot road tar and wet ashtrays.

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Oregon Wine Board

High levels of these compounds can be disastrous for a winemaker, but low levels can be inconsequential. Rogue Valley vineyard owners disagree with Copper Cane’s conclusions and are now asking how much smoke taint is too much?

Herb Quady, the owner of Quady North Winery and Applegate Vineyard Management in Jacksonville, works with one of Copper Cane's suppliers and knows many of the others. "We sampled extensively for smoke taint markers and found that results varied, but that in almost all cases the results didn't pose a concern. People feel blindsided and confused by this cancellation. This is huge and unprecedented."

John Pratt owns Celestina Vineyard in Medford, and he’s concerned the message Copper Cane is sending will damage the region. “They are implying our 2018 vintage is a disaster, and it’s not. The numbers I saw for our vineyard were insignificant. Unlike last year, this year we didn’t have much smoke low to the ground. It was at higher altitudes and had more impact on our solar radiation than the grapes. It slowed our harvest down because of that, but I prefer to pick later anyway.”

"Besides," Pratt asked, "if the guaiacol levels are so significant, why is A to Z Winery taking in all their Rogue Valley fruit this year?"

Sam Tannahill, a co-founder of Francis Tannahill and A to Z Wineworks in Newberg, has a ready answer. "Our analyses from all over the Rogue Valley showed little pockets of smoke taint popping up here and there, but the numbers were super low, and we thought it could easily be dealt with at the winery. We didn't see any test results anywhere near the 'freak out' level."

Even if he did find significant smoke taint in the Rogue Valley, Tannahill said he wouldn’t leave the vineyard owners high and dry. “We consider them our partners, not merely our suppliers. We’d figure out some way to make it work for everyone. That’s just the way we do business.”

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Copper Cane’s Rogue Valley suppliers are calculating their next move. Approximately 15 vineyard owners met Friday in Medford to share information. Contracts for the vineyard owners in attendance amount to 2,000 tons of fruit worth roughly $4 million.

There may be even more vineyard owners who have canceled contracts. Michael Moore owns Quail Run Vineyards in Talent, and he was at Friday's meeting. Moore thinks other vineyard owners received cancellation notices but didn't attend the meeting. "Looking at how many vineyards Copper Cane says they tested, this is just the tip of the iceberg."

Topics at the meeting ranged from legal strategies to crop insurance. Pratt said crop insurance, which many of these vineyard owners don’t have, is problematical. “We haven’t seen Copper Cane’s test results yet, and you need those results to file for crop insurance. Moreover, even if you have crop insurance, you will be lucky to get 50 percent of what your grapes are worth.”

“We’re trying to educate our growers about smoke taint and help them along the way as far as crop insurance goes or anything of that nature, Wagner said. “But It’s been a difficult thing to communicate.”

For now, there is a band of grape growers in the Rogue Valley who are looking for answers as to how they are going to salvage this year’s harvest.

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Michael Alberty writes about wine for The Oregonian/OregonLive. He can be reached at malberty0@gmail.com. To read more of his coverage, go to oregonlive.com/wine.

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