The Challenge of 1999’s Wonder Harvest

Wine lovers are in for a real shock in a few months when the first of California’s 1999 white wines are turned loose from their present confinement: acid levels that could challenge those in a French Chablis, combined with outrageous flavors from one of the longest harvests on record.

Then, a year later, we’ll begin to see the first of the reds--and if winemakers are right, we have never seen anything like these, and may never again. In terms of weight, color and concentration, 1999 may turn out to be truly the vintage of the 20th century, and maybe the vintage of the next century, too.

“It’s just unreal what happened this year,” says Merry Edwards, owner and winemaker at Meredith Vineyards in Sonoma County.

“The really challenging thing was, the season was really protracted; it was very cool almost all summer, a very late harvest. And then the sugars jumped up over one weekend,” she says. “We all really had to be prepared to run out there and get things in [harvest the grapes]. Especially with earlier-ripening varieties like Pinot Noir.”

A major headache was that every winery wanted to pick at the same time, straining the picking crews. “There weren’t enough people to pick when we wanted to,” says Edwards. “And nobody had enough tank space.”

Carol Shelton, winemaker for Windsor Vineyards, says the heat wave in September forced wineries to act on a moment’s notice. “It was really hectic there for a while,” she recalls.

The unusual heat began to dry the grapes out, Shelton adds. “That not only concentrates the sugar,” she observes, “but also concentrates the acid. A lot of potassium carbonate is being sold right now!” (Potassium carbonate is a legal chemical additive that can soften the acidity in a wine.)

In addition to high acidity, winemakers faced a series of other dilemmas.

Says Edwards, “If you waited to harvest until you had the right flavors in the grapes, you got higher alcohol levels, and this could create stuck fermentations [alcohol levels so high they kill the yeast, preventing further fermentation]. And if you didn’t wait, you’d get such high acids that you’d really have to manipulate the wine.”

She says all varieties were picked with high acidity levels, forcing almost every California winemaker to look at bringing in chemists and microbiologists to solve problems with various wines.

“People don’t like talking about this because it’s not old-fashioned, like stomping the grapes,” she says. “But you need techniques like de-alcoholizing wines and removing volatile acidity.” Volatile acidity can smell like vinegar or nail polish remover.

One of the companies that specializes in removing small amounts of alcohol from wines that have too much is Vinovation of Sebastopol. Two years ago it had just five employees; today it employs 35.

Vinovation founder Clark Smith, a winemaker for 25 years, says the 1999 harvest “was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. We had grapes hanging on the vine at 21.5 brix [a measure of sugar] in September and then all of a sudden, within days, they were at 26.5 brix and more.”

As a result, says Smith, many Chardonnays will come in in the 15% alcohol range.

The growing season started late, with vines forming buds nearly a month later than normal. But then cool, dry weather created a very long growing season, pushing harvest for everything back six weeks at minimum.

“When you have that kind of hang time, good things happen,” says Smith, “but a lot of bad things can happen, too, such as stuck fermentations and volatile acidity.”

One thing is certain: The majority of winemakers are simply ecstatic with the overall quality of the wines they are now monitoring.

Craig Williams, winemaker for Joseph Phelps Vineyards in the Napa Valley, says he can’t recall ever seeing such intense flavors in his red wines.

Williams produces arguably the finest red wine in Napa, the $95-per-bottle Phelps Insignia, as well as several other Cabernet-based wines. He says his Cabernet Sauvignon grapes were so flavorful this year, “I think we could turn every grape into ’99 Insignia.”

Shelton of Windsor says some exotic wines may come out of the 1999 crop.

“I had one Zinfandel that fermented out to 16.8% alcohol, and it was sensational,” she says. “I tried lowering the alcohol, but it ruined the wine, so we’ll release it at 16.8. It was just the vintage.”