“Wildfires Will Change Taste of California Wine, Make It More Smoky.”

Burak Kazaz, Steven R. Becker Professor of Supply Chain Management and the Executive Director of The H.H. Franklin Center for Supply Chain Management in the Whitman School, was quoted in the India Times story “Wildfires Will Change Taste of California Wine, Make It More Smoky.” Kazaz, a wine industry expert, explains that the damage from this year’s wildfires will affect wines for a long time. “There are ways that winemakers can attempt to ‘mask’ the smoky taste, but it’s literally permeated everything, from the grapes themselves to the wooden crates and barrels used to store grapes and the finished wine product. Heavy smoke and a burnt flavour is hard to remove, and the effect is cumulative as the state has been hit hard by wildfires for the past few years,” says Kazaz.