(Thetakeout) - The record-breaking wildfires in California, Oregon, and British Columbia have caused an unbelievable amount of damage, with more than 10,000 homes destroyed and dozens of people killed since October 2017, per the Los Angeles Times. It’s grim stuff, grimmer by far than how those fires affect the wine industry on the West Coast—but it has had an effect, all the same. The fires could change the taste of wines made in the region, and the term used to describe those changes is “smoke taint.”

The North Bay Business Journal reports that the Lake County Wine Commission is partnering with ETS Laboratories to research and test for smoke taint, hopefully determining if, and how, wines have been affected