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Wildfires Spike¹ Wine with Smoky Notes

The fires that ripped across Napa and Sonoma last year damaged some two dozen wineries, and burned others completely to the ground.

去年发生在纳帕和索马诺的大火损毁了二十多家酒厂，并将其他酒厂完全焚毁。

"Yeah and also don't forget Chile burned pretty good this year, too. In fact fires there destroyed quite a few old vineyards." Wes Zandberg, an analytical² chemist at the University of British Columbia, at the Okanagan campus, right in B.C.'s wine country. "Basically this is a problem in North and South America this year."

“是的，也别忘了今年智利的熊熊大火。事实上，那里的大火摧毁了一些古老的葡萄园。 维斯·桑伯格，英国哥伦比亚大学的分析化学家，在Okanagan校区，那位于一个产葡萄酒的国家。“基本上这是今年北美和南美的所面临的一个共同问题。”

Even wineries that are unscathed by fire may suffer from smoke passing through their vineyards. Because it can leave that year's vintage with unpleasant smoky notes.

即使是没有发生火灾的酒庄，也可能会因穿过葡萄园的烟雾而遭受损失。因为烟雾可以让那一年的充满不愉快。

Zandberg and his team studied that process with an experimental plot of cabernet franc vines—five of which they exposed to wood smoke, and five they left alone.

桑伯格和他的团队研究了这一过程，实验对象是品丽珠的试验田，其中五种葡萄藤是暴露于树木烟雾中的，五种是单独留下的。

They found that when volatile³ compounds in smoke land on grapes, the fruit very quickly sucks the chemical into its skin or flesh. Then it tags sugar molecules⁴ onto the smoky compounds, which renders the smoky substances water soluble⁵, and nontoxic. But that chemical conversion⁶ leaves the compounds with no scent⁷ or taste…, which means winemakers can't detect them in grapes… until it's too late.

他们发现，当烟雾中的挥发性化合物在葡萄中出现时，这种水果很快就会把这种化学物质吸入果皮或果肉中。然后将糖分子标记在烟熏化合物上，使烟雾物质具有水溶性，无毒。但化学转化使化合物没有气味和味道…,这意味着酿酒师无法检测到在葡萄中检测到烟雾物质…直到为时已晚。

"The problem is when you take a bunch of grape juice and expose it to yeast⁸ during the fermentation process, the yeast have the required enzymes⁹ to cleave¹⁰ that sugar from the smoke-flavored compounds, so it kind of unmasks them during fermentation." Making them once again detectable¹¹ by nose and tongue.

问题是，当你在发酵过程中把一串葡萄汁暴露在酵母中，酵母有了所需的酶来从烟味化合物中分离出糖分，所以在发酵过程中，酵母就会把烟雾物质暴露出来。”让它们再次被鼻子和舌头探测到。

The findings are in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

这项研究发表在《农业与食品化学杂志》上。

The study was funded in part by a local chemical testing company, which hopes to develop a test for various smoky substances in the grapes, to predict whether so-called 'smoke taint¹²' will be a perceptible problem in the finished wine.

该研究的部分资金来自一家当地的化学测试公司，该公司希望对葡萄中的各种烟雾物质进行测试，以预测所谓的“烟雾污染”是否会成为成品葡萄酒中一个明显的问题。

Until then, Zandberg has this advice for wildfire-affected winemakers: "One obvious strategy for minimizing smoke taint in wine, is don't put it in a toasted oak barrel. That's just going to put more compounds in there that give that odor, or flavor."

在那之前， 桑伯格对受野生火灾影响的酿酒师提出了这样的建议:“在葡萄酒中减少烟污染的一个明显策略是，不要把它放在烤橡木桶里。”这将会在酒中无声的添加更多的化合物，从而使葡萄酒产生气味或味道。