The large volume of wildfire smoke-exposed grape and wine samples processed by California’s laboratories in 2020 could help the state’s wine industry better understand and potentially combat the impact of wildfire smoke on wine and winegrapes, according to the Napa Valley Register.

Napa Valley Register reports Researchers know that wine grapes, at least under certain conditions, can absorb compounds found in wildfire smoke — a phenomenon colloquially known as “smoke taint,” but which experts have more recently begun referring to as “wildfire impact,” a term that better reflects the nuance of smoke-exposed wine grapes, according to ETS Laboratories co-founder Gordon Burns.

“Smoke is an integral part of winemaking through the treatment of barrels … So taking ‘smoke’ out of the term, and making it non-pejorative,” Burns, whose labs conduct analytical services for the wine industry, said of the change in verbiage. “And ‘taint’ sort of implies that if you have a wildfire impact, it’ll be negative every single time — of course, we know that not to be true.”