The Smoke Between Vine & Wine
First things first: Red Mountain is the best. Obviously. Of course we are a little biased.
When a fire moves through any part of wine country, everyone in the industry pays attention.
On September 25, the Second Street Fire started near Benton City and quickly spread across approximately 1,151 acres, moving through grassland, agricultural areas, structures and other properties near Red Mountain. And here’s the part that’s easy to get wrong: 1,151 acres does not mean 1,151 acres of vineyards.
Most of the area’s vineyards were not physically burned, and no winery structures have been reported damaged. The exact amount of wine-grape acreage directly affected by flames has not been released. But fire doesn’t have to burn a vine to become a wine story. Smoke: the good, the bad & the complicated.
Let’s clear something up.
Smoky isn’t automatically bad. Smoke, toast, char and campfire notes can be downright delicious in wine when they’re subtle, balanced and integrated. Think of the difference between a little char on your steak and eating the whole grill. The problem is excessive or uncontrolled smoke exposure.
Smoke can contain volatile phenols that grape berries absorb. Some of those compounds can later show up in the finished wine, particularly after fermentation, potentially bringing smoky, ashy, medicinal or drying characteristics. But there is no magic rule that says: Fire is 2 miles away = bad wine.
Wine isn’t quite that simple. Thankfully.
Wind direction, smoke density, how long the vineyard was exposed, what was burning, grape variety, grape maturity and the individual vineyard’s location all matter.
One vineyard can be sitting in smoke while another a few miles away barely gets a whiff. And in wine country, a few miles can make a very big difference.
The timing makes this fire especially interesting. The Second Street Fire happened in late September.
Translation: harvest.
Some vineyards had already picked much of their fruit. Others still had grapes hanging. And that creates a rather unpleasant little harvest math problem:
Pick now?
You could bring smoke-exposed fruit into the winery.
Wait?
You could expose the grapes to more smoke—or weather, rot or overripening.
Don’t pick?
Congratulations, you’ve just left an entire crop hanging on the vine.
There isn’t a universal right answer.
Growers and winemakers can test grapes and make small batches of wine to help determine whether the fruit is likely to produce something worth making. And sometimes the answer is simply: Nope. Not worth the gamble.
That can mean a perfectly healthy-looking vineyard still takes a significant economic hit.
What if the fire happens earlier? This is where timing really matters.
A winter fire is a completely different animal. There aren’t grapes hanging on the vines, so smoke exposure isn’t a harvest decision. Depending on the severity and location, the bigger concerns become physical damage to vines, trunks, irrigation, trellising and—if the fire is severe enough—soil.
An early-summer fire brings another set of questions. The vines are actively growing. Fruit is still developing, and there’s a lot of season left.
A late-season fire, like this one, happens when the grapes are essentially standing at the finish line.
That’s why two fires in the same vineyard can have completely different consequences simply because they happened at different times of year.
And yes, the dirt matters too. We tend to think about the grapes first. But vines live in dirt. Intense heat can change the upper layers of soil, affecting organic matter, nutrients and microbial communities. The severity depends on how hot the fire burned, how long it stayed in an area and what was actually burning. That doesn’t mean every fire permanently ruins vineyard soil. Far from it.
Fire severity, irrigation, soil type, existing vineyard infrastructure and whether the flames actually reached the vineyard all matter. And an established vineyard can sometimes look remarkably normal after a nearby fire.
Which brings us to another important point: A vine surviving doesn’t necessarily mean the crop is unaffected. And a vineyard being surrounded by smoke doesn’t necessarily mean the wine will be bad.
Welcome to winemaking — where nothing is ever as simple as the headline.
We’ve been here before. Washington wine country has had a few reminders of just how complicated fire can be.
In 2016, a fire near Red Mountain came remarkably close to Skyfall Vineyard. A handful of Chardonnay vines were singed, but the vineyard largely survived.
In 2020, smoke became the bigger story. Fires across the region sent smoke into the Columbia Valley during harvest, forcing wineries to make difficult decisions about fruit that had never been touched by flames.
In 2023, the Benton Complex Fire reached the edge of Red Mountain and caused some direct vine damage, but again, the vineyards largely avoided widespread destruction.
And now, 2026 gives us another variation:
A fire during harvest, close to some of Washington’s most valuable vineyard land, with much of the actual vineyard acreage escaping the flames—but smoke exposure becoming the bigger question.
So… is this vintage doomed? Absolutely not.
A fire nearby doesn’t automatically make bad wine. Some vineyards weren’t significantly exposed. Some fruit will be tested and harvested. Some may be left behind. Some wines may eventually show a little smoky character—and honestly, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
And some grapes may turn into exactly what we hope they will: really good wine.
Because that’s the funny thing about wine. You can analyze the soil, the weather, the fire, the smoke, the grapes and the chemistry… And then you still have to wait for the wine.
So we’ll be watching this vintage closely. From our little corner of Washington wine country, we’re rooting for the growers, the vineyards and the fruit. And naturally, we’re rooting for Red Mountain.
Because Red Mountain is the best. Obviously.