Opinion: High heat won’t affect most wines in US

The wine “doom and gloom” folks are hard at work again predicting dire results in this year's wine vintage from the Western states due to drought, excessive heat and myriad other catastrophes that have befallen vineyards this year.

These are the same people who would need something to complain about if everything was perfect. The only vineyards that should be concerned are those who make high-end wines. To the rest of us, who enjoy an occasional glass of wine with dinner, it will make absolutely no difference.

What occurs from high heat is an increase in fruit sugars that translates to a higher alcohol content and a loss of some flavors. While that should mean little to most, it could be a kiss of death to some high-end wines. Wine grapes enjoy cool mornings and evenings and slowly rising heat during the rest of the day. To keep the alcohol content respectable, grapes for wine often are harvested at night when the fruit sugars of the grapes retreat back into the stems and leaves.

More often than not, the price of a wine depends on the price of the grapes. Even if the grapes are grown on a winery's own vineyards, the current price for the same variety of grapes determines the final price for the wine. In years when all goes well, the price is high and grapes from such famed California districts such as Napa and Sonoma counties can go through the roof. That, however, only holds true for those high-end wines that critics and connoisseurs debate over and usually cost more than most of us are willing to spend on a regular basis.

Coming back down to earth, the average wine consumer will not even know the difference. The grapes to make affordable wines are sourced from places other than the exotic districts of the world. More often than not, the grapes will come from vineyards and areas that lie far outside the anointed areas. Those grapes will make wines that are true to the variety, flavorful and enjoyable and best of all affordable. I am sure that the experts will consider most of these wines as unworthy and common, but I do not know of too many people who can easily afford the price of the wines that they consider worthy to serve every night at dinner time.

Wine is meant to be enjoyed and not idolized or worshiped. I have personally poured super-expensive wines down the drain and then waxed poetic about a $9 wine. I have had some enjoyable wines that would probably be avoided by the connoisseurs, wine worshipers and, of course, wine geeks because they were affordable. There was even a time when wines with screw tops were considered by the experts to be about as poor and uninteresting as a wine can get.

Please do not judge a wine by its price but rather by its enjoyment. If you like it, it’s a great wine. If you do buy a more costly wine and do not think too much of it, you have learned a lesson.

For years I closed my columns with the same line, and I would like to with this one, as well: And always remember, the best wine in the world, is the wine you like best.

Wine columnist Bennet Bodenstein can be reached at frojhe1@att.net.