Wine Aficionados Roll Out the Barrel : California ’87 Harvest Rated Superb by Vintners at Tasting

The 1987 harvest of California wines was rated superb last week at the 13th California Vintners’ Barrel Tasting dinner at the Stanford Court Hotel, but all the talk in the hallways was about the potential disaster the industry was facing: drought.

During the two intermissions in the lengthy dinner, at which 29 wines were poured, wine makers and grape growers congregated in a side room to sip sparkling water, and one of them said: “I wish I had a few million bottles of this for the vineyard.”

The second consecutive year of little rain in the northern counties had growers and wine makers worried. The 1987 harvest was at least 10% down from the year before, partially because of the drought conditions, and through the first three months of 1988 little rain had fallen.

However, earlier this week, rain hit the wine regions and eased the fears many had expressed over the lack of precipitation.

A drought in a wine-producing region can hurt dry-farmed vineyards by reducing the size of the crop and producing erratic flavors in grapes. And at a time when premium wine grapes are in great demand, such a situation could create havoc in the fine wine growing regions.

Some compared the situation to 1976 and 1977, when a drought ravaged California’s northern counties and produced spotty wines.

Perfectly Balanced

The 1987 wines, however, were hailed as being perfectly balanced, with wonderful natural acidity and great concentration of flavors. Gerald Asher, wine author and host of the dinner, said 1987 was the third straight great vintage.

“After 1983, which really wasn’t much of a vintage, we’ve actually had four good vintages in a row,” said Ed Sbragia, wine maker for Beringer Vineyards in the Napa Valley.

The barrel tasting dinner is structured so 1987 wines are compared with wines of past vintages, and among the treats were such gems of the past as 1980 Trefethen Chardonnay, 1985 Simi Sauvignon Blanc, 1976 Ridge Zinfandel, 1978 Beringer Lemmon Ranch Cabernet, and 1977 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet “Cask 23.”

One wine lover who had heard the talk of a drought lifted his ’77 Stag’s Leap wine and said, “Well, if a drought makes wine like this, bring on the drought.” However, the National Weather Service gave growers good news on Monday, predicting “rain heavy at times throughout the region, between a half inch and two inches, with continued showers off and on the rest of the week.”

Weatherman Randy Hartley said the storm could drop more than two inches by the end of the week.

“We need the moisture, and it’s coming at the right time,” said Tim Murphy, partner in Murphy Goode Vineyards in Alexander Valley. He said the drought wouldn’t have hurt growers with irrigated vineyards --”the vines don’t care whether the water comes from the sky or a pipe”--but dry-farmed properties faced a disaster without the rain.

“The Chardonnay is in bloom already, but some of the best crops I have ever set have been in rain. This should help us all,” he said, looking up at leaden skies.

He added that another problem could crop up after the storm runs through the area: “Sometimes after a storm we’ll get a cold snap coming in, and this can occur past the middle of May.” A spring frost can ruin a crop even more than a lack of rain.