Time flies when you are at the mercy of Mother Nature. The last post I wrote was back at the beginning of April when we were still under the threat of frost. Happily, Mother Nature smiled and we skated through the early “grand” phase of vegetative growth without further frost issues and I blink my eyes once, twice and it’s already the middle of July?

Quickly I would like to update on a question that I posed in the earlier post back in April regarding the question of whether there would be any carry over effects from the frost damage of 2008 to this years buds and vines. Well, there were plenty of flowers and the vines do not appear to be showing any ill effects from the frosts of 2008. In fact, there were a huge number of flowers and in May some were anticipating that if we had good weather at bloom, there would be a huge crop out there.

As the vines were rapidly growing the weather in the latter half of May turned very cool. The vines began to flower as May was ending and June began. The weather remained cool as we were under a very strong onshore marine influence along the coast. Bad weather for flowering. On many flowers the caps stuck and they did not open and they did not pollinate. In some cases because of the cool weather, flowers that opened also did not pollinate becuase the pollen tubes collapsed. We simply had horrible weather for blooming, with cool, cloudy conditions and temperatures in the 60’s f.

And then to make matters worse, on June 5th it rained, with Santa Barbara Airport receiving over a half inch of rain that day, the most ever recorded on any day in June, and the highest rainfall total for June since the Airport began keeping records in 1944.

I did not anticipate the rain, no-one did. But I was lucky in that because of the cool conditions, we had not tucked the canopies into the trellises and had let them sprawl. I had made this decision to vary from our normal practices, in order to maximize the horizontal canopy area that was available to capture sunlight for photosynthesis. Rather than tucking the shoots upright into the vertical shoot positioned canopies, with the sets of trellis wires directing the shoots straight up in a wall, I allowed them sprawl out like a fan.

As a result, not only did the shoots capture more solar energy during the critical bloom period, but the humidity created by the rain completely evaporated by the next day because of the ability for sunlight and air to easily move through the open vine canopies. If the canopies had been compressed there would have potentially been some issues arising from botrytis.

This was a nerve-wracking period in which I had to keep a close eye on the weather every few hours to watch for the potential development of windy conditions in the near future. If it had gotten windy we would have seen broken and damaged shoots. I had crews ready to get out there and tuck shoots, but instead deployed them suckering and removing secondary shoots and blind canes. Again, we got lucky and no winds developed during this period of bloom.

Bad weather-good results, don’t count your chickens before they are hatched. Above I mentioned, early on before bloom we observed large numbers of flowers indicative of the potential for a large crop of fruit. After bloom, there was much less crop than had potentially appeared to exist before flowering began. But the result of the erratic and poor weather could not have had a better outcome in terms of cluster architecture.

Instead of tightly packed clusters, the vines are carrying very loose clusters that are showing “millerandage”, aka “hen and chick” characteristics, with small berries mixed in with normal sized berries. What we have now, are very many small loose clusters. Instead of the potential 4-5 ton crop that looked to be out there before bloom, it looks closer to 2 tons per acre or slightly less.

More importantly, the physical characteristics of the clusters, with the smaller berries, bodes well for 2009 wine quality. As you remember from geometry, as the size of a sphere decreases, the ratio of surface area relative to volume increases. With the smaller berries there will be a higher ratio of skin to pulp, hence more flavor, tannin and color to potentially extract in the fermenters.

Another thought to keep in mind in trying to grasp the 2009 vintage, is that we are in the third year of drought and with the little moisture available in the subsoils we are seeing very little vigor. In addition, the temperatures have been abnormally cool along the coast as a strong marine inversion has set up. Although interior valley areas have been warm, here in the Sta. Rita Hills the weather has been abnormally cool. The combination of dry soils and cool weather has resulted in wonderful low vine vigor conditions which should provide for very long hang time and keep berry and cluster size small.

A concept foremost in my  mind is that in 2009, like for many previous vintages, the hang time will be important to manage the tannin in the smaller, more intensely flavored and tannic berries. The cool weather we have been experiencing is only increasing the importance of hang time for the vintage. Tannin management may also be a key consideration in the wineries this year?

We are on the verge of veraison. I started writing here today because I have heard some reports of color beginning in some areas and wanted to explore the beginning of veraison with the readers.  But I will have to pause and come back, as I need to get cleaned up, find my wife, grab a few bottles of wine and get out the door to Buellton. My friend Morgan Clendenen of Cold Heaven Winery called that she has a huge pile of live crabs that need eating! One of the mantras of the boy scouts is to always be prepared, and like a boy scout, I am always prepared and ready to eat!

On the California Central Coast, early Pinot Noir vines began the 2009 bud break near the middle of March. Since then, depending on actual budbreak, we have been dodging and even getting slightly singed by several light frost events in late March and early April, from up and down the coast.

So far there has been little damage, a few singed leaves here and there for the most part. It’s still a little early to tell the full extent, but generally so far so good.

Since last year’s very significantly frost affected season, (the worst frost/freeze in 25 years,) Adam Lee of Siduri Winery, Brian Loring of Loring Wine Company and I have been having a worried discussion as to the effect the 2008 frosts might have on the 2009 crop. We are and have been looking at 2009’s new shoots to project potential fertility by the number of flowers on each new, growing cane as they emerge.

The flowers, tendrils and leaves that are currently growing were actually created last year during the growing season. As many of you know, cell primordia in the nodes (new buds on the previous year’s growing cane from which this year’s canes grow,) differentiate into flowers, tendrils and leaves for the subsequent year, based on heat and light during that previous year’s growing season.

Understanding this phenomena is one of the keys to growing grapes. It requires us to look all the way back to the ancient environment from which grapevines evolved.  Fortunately this is fairly easily understood with simple intuition and observation and the understanding that YES! grapevines are vines!!! They evolved in forested conditions, hence the ability to climb trees in order to reach the sunlight…

This influence is visible in viticulture because we know that in vigorous shaded canopies the buds are not very fruitful and there are few flowers. This is because in the evolution of the vine in terms of selection and fitness for the environment, it is not an advantage for the vine to waste energy and reproduce seeds in the shaded environment of the forest floor. There is very little solar energy in the forest shade. This is one of the observations that gave rise to modern vineyard canopy management techniques such as the vertical shoot positioned trellis (VSP) as well as shoot and leaf thinning.

In shaded environments the new cells that are differentiating into future canes are influenced by the shaded conditions. Instead of flowers these cells express genes that produce climbing tendrils which help the vine to climb to the top of the trees. In shaded environments the vines do not waste energy by producing fruit.

Once the vine has reached the top of the forest canopy and sunlight, the cell primordia begin to differentiate more flowers in order to produce future seeds, rather than tendrils, because of the availability of light and energy. This is a great example of basic plant evolution and selection within an environment.

The question Adam, Brian, myself and others have been contemplating is whether the effects of the 2008 frosts has carried over into the 2009 canes. This has been a nagging worry after two previous years of very small amounts of fruit on the vines.

So far we are seeing what appear to be normal amounts of flowers on the emerging canes. In most cases there appear to be two flowers on each cane, and the buds seem to be pushing evenly and uniformly.

It does not appear that there is any carryover effect from last year’s frost events so far.  That seems to make sense given that the buds that are pushing now, were developed after the early spring frosts of 2008.

However, there are still some later emerging blocks that had not been harvested last year when we were struck by a early frost in mid October. Some of these blocks that were in the midst of being harvested were struck by frost while still carrying fruit. A secondary mechanism for bud fruitfulness is how much energy the vines carry over into winter. The question here is whether these vines had sufficient carbohydrate reserves stored away for the winter. These vines did not have much of a post harvest opportunity to store carbohydrates. This could affect the size and number of flowers on the 2009 canes.

It is still to early to tell on these late harvested blocks how significant an effect the mid fall frost events had. On the positive side for 2009 fruitfulness, both the 2007 and 2008 vintages were marked by very small crops. Generally after small yields, the vines because of greater energy reserves generally, will tend to have good fruitfulness.

Unfortunately this spring, like last year, we are still in a cold phase (”La Nina” phase) of the ”El Nino-Southern Oscillation.” (This is a Pacific Ocean cycle that largely drives the weather patterns of the West Coast.) Ocean temperatures in the Pacific region are colder than normal during La Nina conditons. Subsequently, there is still a good chance of further frost in 2009.

We are not out of the woods yet…!

Last Wednesday I had the very fun opportunity to participate in a tasting event with several of my fellow pinot noir producers. This gave me the the chance to catch up with my friend Gary Franscioni from the Santa Lucia Highlands and talk weather. One of the things we talked about was the impact of last January’s heat spike on the 2009 bud break in California.

Earlier in the day along with Adam Lee, Brian Loring, Ed Kurtzman and Ryan Zepaltas, we poured at a trade event followed by a public tasting in the East bay.  Later we participated in a five course winemaker dinner (with 18 glasses of wine!) at Prima in Walnut Creek. During this marathon of food and wine we had an interesting discussion on the effect of the January warm spell on budbreak, which I would like to share here with those who follow the California vintage.

Gary also farms citrus and has to monitor the temperatures very closely throughout the winter. Gary pointed out that his temperature monitors basically showed that the heat intensity each day, (as per the daily high temperature) while getting into the low 80’s, was of very brief duration each day. Only lasting an hour to an hour and a half each afternoon.

We hit the temperature peaks which held for maybe an hour in the afternoon. But the nighttime and morning temperatures were still generally quite low. In winter the nights are longer and the days are shorter as well, with effect on heat accumulation in the soils.

The effect was that the soil mass did not have time to warm up. Since the high temperature peaks were of such brief duration, the soils were probably still losing heat or at least neutral during that warm couple of weeks period.

Combined with the fact that most vineyards have a good green cover crop insulating the soil from solar radiation, there was little absorption of heat and heat was not conducted down to the roots to stimulate the end of dormancy.

As the days lengthen and we approach the Vernal Equinox we should hear reports of budbreak over the next few days or week. We have had frost here at the end of last week and it looks like possibly more this week, along with cooler temps.

I would prefer to keep those buds tight a little longer because in addition to frost damage concerns, the later we push, the later flowering occurs. The later flowering is, generally because of longer day length and greater heat accumulation, the more fertile the flowers are.

I want to share these comments since at the recent World of Pinot Noir and on the internet wine boards, folks have been commenting that budbreak appears slightly late this year in some areas, which seems juxtaposed with the temperature spike we saw in January.

It’s a grim time of year for grape growers, especially those of us with the sixth sense. By sixth sense I don’t mean the high-pitched squeaks and chirps I make in the dark when using my echolocation skills or when I’m talking to bats and dolphins. (That’s my ninth sense.)

The sixth sense is a heightened sensitivity and awareness of plants, to the point of actually hearing them talk. After acting as a Shepherd of the vines through the growing season, this time of year is quite traumatic. It is time to separate the mewling grape clusters that have been suckling all season, from their mothers.

We tear the babies from the vines’ bosoms (or buzzums if you will,) and the clusters are herded into large bins where they await their turn with the crusher destemmer. Fortunately the adorable little guys do not know what fate awaits them during the brief journey to where they will be fed to ravenous microflora, (which we call yeast,) or else they would probably try to escape. Frequently they are kept sedated with CO2 from a few pounds of dry ice laid on top of them that keeps them both quiet and cool.

Silent at first in the picking bins, but showing increasingly pronounced signs of nervousness, agitation and separation anxiety, the grapes begin to whine and whimper. As they enter the winery the crying turns turns to full on wailing. In the winery the grapes can hear the singing, chanting and war cries of fermenting yeast, an extremely formidable and terrifying sound to say the least.

Hearing the moaning and weeping of the grape clusters whips the yeast into a frenzied hysteria, causing them to chant and sing louder, and some to roar and caterwaul hideously. Just completely terrifying for the young clusters as they realize their fate. (None of this is helped by the fact that the winery organist is playing Bach’s Toccata in D minor as loud as he can.)

Huddled together the clusters are tossed onto a cold stainless steel sorting table, where under the bright lights they are poked, prodded and closely examined. The unworthy and less than perfect physical specimens are grabbed and discarded into the Bin of No Return for composting.

As a hauntingly beautiful requiem plays in the background, (usually Pachelbel, Canon in D,) the remaining grapes are hurled into the crusher like first-born infants thrown to Baal or Moloch or some other less recent incarnation of Yahweh, (depending on your religious affiliation.) After their limbs are severed by the destemmer, their broken pulpy bodies are tossed into fermenters filled with roaring, teeth gnashing beasts.

Ok. Lets stop call them beasts and just say that yeast are temperamental. Its not that they aren’t grateful, but in general they can be an unruly bunch. At first, polite and gentle, even kind, the problem starts once they’ve been in the fermenters too long. What do you expect? If you’ve ever been swimming in alcohol for very long you know very well what I’m talking about. Even for us, somewhat further out on the evolutionary ladder, it’s not difficult to get more than a little wild and out of control under these kinds of conditions, especially without adult supervision.

The real work begins soon after the midpoint of fermentation. Once the yeast are extremely intoxicated is where the winemaker’s skills really come into play. The yeast want to come out of the fermenters. It’s easy enough to line the top of the fermenters with 12,000 volts of shocking power, though a little bit heavy handed, somewhat interventionist and definitely not very artistic. The great winemakers talk these agile, inquisitive and misunderstood creatures down, back into the must and keep them working until they are done.

Herding grapes and yeast is dangerous and requires highly specialized skills. Casualties are many, the percentages of dead are unknown. Not everyone is capable of the task. Not everyone is annointed to carry the title of Winemaker and to practice the world’s second oldest profession.

Straight up noon and it’s a beautiful, sunny 78 f. outside. Warm for the west side of the Sta. Rita Hills, but somewhere in the next hour or so, a gentle cooling breeze off of the Pacific will kick in and moderate the temperatures. Perfect weather to be sure, however as a result of the practice of controlled deficit irrigation, the vines are very thirsty.

Optimal wine quality results from controlled water deficits in the vine. This commonly used viticultural practice derives from the simple and readily understood concept that too much is too much and too little is too little. As we approach the final leg of the growing season, its time for the vines to get a drink, so that they will continue to evapotranspirate and to photosynthesize sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into wine.

Early last week I irrigated 6 acres at Cargasacchi Vineyard for the first time this growing season. The remaining 9 acres will get 3 gallons of water per vine this evening after the sun goes down and the ground has cooled.

We did not receive much rainfall last winter, somewhere around 15 inches total. (An amount very near our normal yearly average and like across much of California confined to the December through March time frame.) Most of it came very early in the season, primarily in January.  Temperatures, except for a few days in the middle of June have been relatively cool near the California coast and in the Sta. Rita Hills. Evapotranspiration (water uptaken by the roots and transpired into the air by the leaves) has been relatively low as a result of the cool weather and the typically cool, coastal climate.

For us, in large part the cooler weather is the direct result of the influence on climate  by topography that produces our macroclimate. The maritime throat of the Sta. Rita Hills region creates a channel for the cooling influence of the prevailing onshore northwest marine airflow. The maritime throat defines the Sta. Rita Hills and drives regional typicity by creating a very cool, temperate macroclimate. This is similar to many other viticultural climate and soil driven regions in California and elsewhere, where Pinot Noir is able to fully ripen each vintage and because of this advantage, (a combination of well drained soils and climate,) threatens the hegemony of the medieval growing regions.

The more temperate and relatively newer Pinot Noir producing regions also share the remarkable quality influencing factor of being harvested without the threat of rainfall overriding and hastening the picking decisions. Truly revolutionary but juxtaposed with the more extreme, hotter and brief growing season of the less temperate, historic, (arguably archaic,) regions at more northerly latitudes under continental climate conditions.

The first group of vines that I irrigated were a 4-acre block on 420A rootstock and 2 acres on 3309 rootstock planted in relatively shallow soils. These vines are on 2.5 feet of soil over a layer of calcareous shale bedrock. The soils derive upslope from weathered and eroded parent materials consisting of an uplifted Miocene period seabed. The soils are calcareous botella clay inter-bedded with a high percentage of decomposing calcareous shale fragments throughout the profile. Not very forgiving stuff, but fractured and cross ripped with a 5 foot shank before we planted, there’s a little more room for root exploration and water availability than the couple of feet of argilo calcaire (calcareous clay) on the surface.

The vines are ten years old now, in their prime and have fully explored the soil horizons available to them. The canes have filled the canopy, but devigorated by water deficit have stopped growing, the shoot tips have disappeared and the canes are lignified. (Turned to wood.)

After getting chased out of Texas last week by Hurricane Gustav I am a little reluctant to tempt Mother Nature and forecast my high expectations for the vintage. In a few more weeks, we will see what we have.

As previously mentioned elsewhere, there is a little more variability in the ripening uniformity to challenge us this year. Absent some mistake, (substituting intuitive logic into a counterintuitive pattern, or just as likely Apollo’s chariot coming a little too close to the ground,) things look good here.

There is beautiful, perfect, tiny-berried fruit out there that reminds me of what we saw in 2007 at harvest.

Following a week in Texas showing our wines (drinking wine and eating into the wee hours) I just walked into the house after hoofing through the vineyards.

Veraison is in its last stages and I am pleased but surprised by the degree of consistency in coloration. There are a small number of clusters (circa 5-10%) that are less than 90% colored and those will be dropped starting tomorrow. There are probably another 3-5% of clusters in the fruit zone that are still fully green and (metaphorically if not literally) in a different time zone.

These bright green clusters stand out vividly and are on shoots that pushed (grew) later than the others. These are the easiest to see and to remove. To be honest, after having some freeze damage and knowing the potential for lack of uniformity created by secondary buds pushing shoots with late fruit, I am very, very relieved by the small amount of green that I am seeing.  With the green clusters contrasted by black fruit, it will be easy and fast for the crew to drop these on the ground in the next few days.

As my buddy Wes briefly mentioned, one of the permutations of the 2008 vintage in California is the result of a series of frost/freeze events that occurred in April and May during the spring. Cumulatively this was an extreme “event” in terms of timing, frequency, temperatures and duration, unlike anything seen in the last 25 years in California. It is making our work a little harder than normal this year.

This results because grapevines, as a defense mechanism, have three buds rather than only one at each bud position. The smaller second and third buds normally do not grow, but are present and waiting to grow in case the first or even the second bud is injured. In many California vineyards, with the multiple cold events damaging or killing the primary (and in some cases even secondary growth ) the result was that the secondary and tertiary buds pushed and afterwards flowered normally. However, because these replacement buds are later in sequence and on their own developmental trajectory, they bloom, flower and mature at a later period than the earlier buds and canes.The result is two or more different patterns of ripeness, creating lack of uniformity and unevenness in flavor development.

Because the cold air mass that caused these freezing events did not have an inversion layer, the vineyards and regions were affected unpredictably and differently. (Side note: damage caused by a cold air mass absent an inversion layer is categorized as a freeze rather than a frost.) Characteristically with an inversion layer, lower elevation vineyards are damaged by frost while the higher vineyards typically are not. Because this was a freeze caused by a cold air mass without an inversion layer, some low-lying vineyards that normally would have been expected to frost were relatively unscathed, while some higher vineyards that rarely frost were damaged, depending on air movement patterns.  Though in my vineyard it was indeed the lowest portion that took some damage as a result of topographical influences on air movement.

There are two primary tactics to handle variable ripening caused by frost damage. In the case where there is little damage and few of the secondary shoots with late fruit, you simply cut the later ripening fruit off at veraison and drop it to the ground.

When the damage is greater, the second strategy that many folks are employing this year is to actually mark those individual canes, or entire areas consisting of secondary shoots, and then harvesting them in a second pick when that fruit is perfectly ripe at a point after the initial harvest.

Such are the vagaries and impacts of weather…

After spending a week that began in Dallas, basking in the amazing hospitality that Texas is famous for while tasting and showing wine to the trade, it was interesting in Houston yesterday and Thursday as an unusual and very extreme weather event approached from the Gulf of Mexico. For me as a farmer, self-absorbed about the weather that drives my own world, this was a fascinating taste of something extraordinary.

A different kind of weather than I have ever experienced, a type of monster weather event unlike any other, a hurricane, was on people’s minds. Curiously, everyone and everything appears normal during hurricane season, however, folks go about their daily routine with an eye on the Gulf at all times. With the approach of Hurricane Gustav in the Gulf, there was a palpable undertone and buzz in the air

In those areas closer to the coast and in the hurricane’s projected path, folks are currently boarding up and battening down, many are in cars driving north. In nearby Louisiana, a state of emergency has been declared and the evacuation of New Orleans is underway. Gustav is projected to potentially be larger than Katrina… Thinking about the fear and the danger these people are about to experience brings tears to my eyes. Let’s hope and pray for their safety.

Gustav is projected to make landfall about 48 hours from now somewhere along the Gulf Coast with sustained winds of over 120 mph and with gusts up to 200 mph…

I think I will take the frost please.

Despite the Central Coast’s current blanket of marine fog and cool weather, it looks like a fairly strong ridge of high pressure will start to build over the interior of California/Nevada early next week.

As this pressure ridge causes the weather pattern to shift from onshore to offshore flow conditions, we will end August with warmer, (potentially much warmer,) weather along the California coast as our typically dominant marine influence is scoured out and replaced by warm and dry inland air.

The forecast models aren’t quite able to predict the exact scenario this far out… (?!!!) As such the degree of warming is somewhat speculative at this point. However the NOAA weather forecast models for the end of next week all agree and strongly indicate the potential that we will see significant warming. Bringing the distinct possibility that with this nudge, those Pinot Noir vineyards on the cusp will begin harvest next week.

Hopefully this will not be a repeat of 2004!!! Brian… how’s that floor coming along?