“Winemaker, environmentalist and outdoor enthusiast.” That’s how Alisa Jacobson aptly describes herself on the website for her label, Turning Tide Wines.
With 26 harvests to her credit, she utilizes sustainability when she farms the two Santa Ynez Valley vineyards she owns, and is a minimalist in the cellar, letting her wines speak for themselves.
Jacobson’s other passion is the ocean, where she surfs, paddles, scuba dives and generally relishes the water and just being outdoors.
She earned a degree in viticulture and enology from the University of California, Davis, and set out to put her studies to practice.
Well before she founded Turning Tide in 2018, Jacobson was the founding winemaker and first employee for Joel Gott Wines. That was more than 19 years ago, when that label’s production was just 1,000 cases. Joel Gott’s current production is 1.5 million cases, according to Jacobson.
As that label’s winemaker, Jacobson traveled to source grapes throughout California, Oregon and Washington — three states plagues by wildfires. She is familiar with vineyards in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, in the sprawling Columbia Valley AVA in Washington, and all the sites in California, from Napa and Sonoma counties to all the sub regions of the Central Coast.
Jacobson has dealt with vineyard owners and managers stuck with grapes damaged by smoke when winemakers refuse them, and likely has turned down fruit herself in the wake of fires in Northern California.
When I met Jacobson last September and sampled her wines, we focused on Turning Tide and her years with Joel Gott Wines, for whom she still consults.
During our second interview early this year, Jacobson outlined her involvement with the West Coast Smoke Exposure Task Force. She’s a lead researcher and organizer and has continued to meet with the university professors who have devoted portions of their respective academic careers to issues with smoke taint in grapes.
In the wake of big fires that struck Northern California in 2008, members of the industry were hopeful that the devasting fires were random occurrences, she said.
In the summer of 2008, fires blackened thousands of acres along the North Coast, and many of the vineyards, mostly those along the Sonoma County coastline and Mendocino County’s Anderson Valley, suffered major damage to their fruit crop.
But the similar Northern California fires in 2017, and every year since, have shown that smoke taint is a new reality. In 2017, there were “no tools” with which to rebound from wineries’ losses in the wake of smoke taint, but now the wine industry is better prepared, Jacobson said.
In 2017, the task force applied for a grant but got denied, she said, acknowledging that “it’s a detailed process to get funded.”
In December of last year, a team comprised of university researchers received a $7.65 million grant to study smoke’s impact on grapes and wine. The West Coast Smoke Exposure Task Force plans to give viticulturists and winemakers better tools to manage or prevent damage from smoke taint, according to an article on wineindustryadvisor.com.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture Specialty Crop Research Initiative funded the four-year task force, which unites three university researchers — one each from California, Oregon and Washington. They are Dr. Tom Collins of Washington State University, Dr. Elizabeth Tomasino of Oregon State University and Anita Oberholster of the University of California, Davis.
Oberholster earned her Ph.D. in wine sciences at the University of Adelaide, Australia, in 2008, and relocated to Davis in 2011 as a Cooperative Extension specialist. Her current research focuses on continued education for the wine industry with a concentration on smoke exposure, the impact of climate on grapes and grapevine red blotch disease, according to unifiedsymposium.org.
“We are now utilizing commercial labs” to study the effects of smoke taint on grapes, and “in 2020 and 2021, started in-house trials” for vineyards suffering with damaged grapes, Jacobson said.
The three university researchers, she said, “are trying to get the information back out to the wine industry” so that growers and winemakers can put it to practice.
A step toward obtaining that information took place during last month’s Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento. After a two-year hiatus, the event — the largest industry trade show in the Western Hemisphere — attracted more than 6,000 attendees, according to a post-event news release.
“Unified offers guests a unique opportunity to listen to some of the most informed and respected voices in the industry discuss emerging trends and issues,” and, during a massive trade show, view equipment, supplies and services in the exhibit hall, said John Aguirre, president of the California Association of Winegrape Growers.
On Jan. 25 at Unified, Jacobson moderated a seminar titled “Clearing the Smoke — Best Practices for Harvest, Evaluation and Mitigation of Smoke Impact on Your Wines.”
Drs. Collins and Tomasino were two of the panelists, and among the topics discussed were how Australia (also home to devastating fires) has focused on “small-scale (grape) picks to study the effects of smoke,” and how crop insurance is a vital tool for grape growers should fires leave them holding damaged grapes they cannot sell.
“People should get a quote — crop insurance is not that much money, and it’s a pretty straightforward process” to apply, Jacobson noted.
Putting research to practice will help viticulturists and winemakers up and down the West Coast — and across the United States — to “not feel helpless” in the face of what’s likely to be a future with fire, Jacobson said.
Jacobson also helped set up a second Unified seminar on Jan. 27 that highlighted sustainability, and Oberholster was a panelist. That seminar was a roundup of “what do we do now, and things to think about” as far as sustainability, Jacobson said.
As a youngster, she raised “lambs and hogs” for local fairs, and contributes her love of the outdoors and farming to those years.
In her wines, which include a pinot noir sourced from an organic vineyard in the Willamette Valley, a chardonnay from the Sta. Rita Hills, and both red and white blends, Jacobson said she favors low or little oak and more “fruit-driven” wines.
On her Baseline Avenue property, her vineyard replaced an apple orchard, and she noted that the site has “very good soil.”
Her red blend is mourvedre and grenache from the Estelle Vineyard, nearby on Mora Avenue, and the white blend combines chenin blanc and gruner veltliner.
Together, the four Turning Tide wines translate to about 1,000 cases annually, she said, and their prices are “retail friendly,” about $20 per bottle.
— Laurie Jervis tweets at @lauriejervis and can be reached via winecountrywriter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are her own. She would happily take the wheel of a Ferrari if given the chance.