Constantin Richter said on FB pretty much all young vines got hit, all his Pinot Blanc and a couple of parcels on flat lands but overall not as bad as some of his neighbors. I’ll hear more from him this weeekend.
As I mentioned above, the Mosel Valley benefitted from the fog. The side valleys were less fortunate. I wonder how Elisenberg fared.
In the Nahe, I heard that Dönnhoff had extensive frost damage, even in warmer sites downriver near Bad Kreuznach. Bockenau and Monzingen are farther upriver and were surely affected by frost.
Yesterday afternoon, we drove to different sites on the Saar with our importer from Calgary. Scharzhofberg and Bockstein looked bad. Wiltinger braune Kupp looked a little better. I was told that Kanzemer Altenberg was decimated by frost.
So sorry to hear about this. Absolutely terrible news for those growers.
I see a lot of this in burgundy (mainly candles) - likely because the wines are more expensive, so more means to do this (as I imagine these solutions don’t come cheap).
AFAIK, some producers (again in burgundy) are experimenting with pruning later.
I’m not sure there is a lot you can do on steep Mosel slopes….
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A friend recently visited Lauer, apparently Florian told him they lost half the grapes that go into Senior in one night
After we got hit by frost in '22 I told a neighbor that I was thinking about getting a couple pallets of organic vineyard candles sent over from France - and he laughed - and then I laughed because the probability of another frost risk any time soon was low…
…and yet this year in Oregon we have just sweated out another series of frost events - with no significant damage but this news from Germany just makes my heart sink and my stomach churn.
Glad you made it without too much damage. I was wondering how you were doing after our last communication Sorry about the anxiety you went through for a few days.
I feel bad for the German vineyard owners - some great wines there and such an impact.
I’ve definitely had a couple sleepless nights in this past month - we mowed grasses down to try to keep the cold air sliding downhill - but ultimately there is helplessness that one needs to accept that is fairly painful - both emotionally and as a matter of economics.
At Hofgut Falkenstein, we have about 4 hectares of vineyard that were less affected by frost. These include Krettnacher Altenberg and the place-names Auf dem Hölzchen and Ober Schäfershaus. A few parcels in Niedermenniger Herrenberg look good. One of them is Meyer Nepal.
In Euchariusberg, we have several parcels that are glowing green. What’s strange is how the rounded hilltop, where a vintner has his large parcel, has frost damage, whereas other parcels lower down this high hill were less affected. As I mentioned before, the eastern section of the hillside was hit hard by the frost. The cold air must have either blown down this section or accumulated here, or both. I noticed this phenomenon on a smaller but similar-shaped hill in Niedermenniger Sonnenberg.
In Scharzhofberg, the highest parcels, below the peak of Pergentsknopp, even have significant frost damage.
The higher, steeper sections of Bockstein, such as in Heppenstein, were as severely damaged by frost as those lower down the slope.
Usually, it’s the lower-lying areas of a valley that are prone to frost.
Before the town of Konz, where the valley narrows, the frost tends to settle. That’s why the south-facing slope at Falkenstein is so prone to frost.
The hope is that the secondary buds will produce a shoot and cluster in the frost-affected areas.
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Is frost pretty common in Germany in April, even late April? I would think so given how far north these vineyards are. What recent vintages have been impacted by frost and how did the vintages turn out for quality? For quantity?
It is not just frost but where you are in the growing season. It was unseasonably warm and it was looking like a very early harvest.
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The earliest budbreak in history at sone estates, only 2014 was close I think.
I had dinner with Gernot Kollman in NYC a couple of weeks ago and I said wow it looks like it is going to be an early harvest. He just shrugged and said way too early to say that. The words of an experienced winemaker.
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As I mentioned in an earlier comment, there’s a threat of frost until Ice Saints in mid-May. To a lesser extent, the Saar had frost in 2019. The quality can still be good, but not the quantity.
We will probably have an early and a late harvest in the same vintage because of the frost damage.
Frost can be a strange beast indeed. It does tend to want to hover in lower areas and that’s where most of the damage usually is. But there have been a few instances here in Santa Barbara County where higher areas were badly affected - it was unusually cold and the frost hung out at higher elevations. At the lower elevations, it’s easier to disrupt the inversion layer with fans, but not higher.
Cheers
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I was wondering about this - double harvest with early and late fruit. Will make for a very busy year, tending two crops with separate maturation timelines. Going to be a rough season.
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It is challenging for sure - and a lot of planning needs to be done. Those vines that did not get hit hard will need to be marked so as not to be confused with the later ripening vines. Lots of work indeed . . .
Variations in wind direction and wind speed have made significant contributions to where cold air stacks up on my site.
Our vineyard is on a saddle that predominantly faces west. In 2022 it appears, based on patterning, that the cold air slid down the slope above us, hit our grove of oak trees, stalled, and then slowly slid off the north side of the saddle, pushed by some light wind from the southwest. Chardonnay bud break had occurred on that northern saddle and therefore the primary buds were heavily impacted by that slow moving cold air that had enough time to stack up above the fruiting wire. We got out right after the frost with some hefty mulching to support the vines after the frost stress, and they largely overcame the productive volume during the 2022 growing year with their secondary shoots (many of which emerged from the trunk). However, 2023 definitely saw some latent impact on volume - due to some latent malaise from the stress of the frost event and short-term recovery. Just a bit of a working vacation, perhaps?
This year, there was virtually no wind from the southwest so the downhill cold air flow was faster and followed the natural drainage off the southern side of the saddle more readily. Pinot was just breaking at the time, but we fared okay since the cold air didn’t stack all the way up to the fruiting wire. This is where the mowing may have possibly helped a little to keep that air speed in high gear. After 2022, we now prune early-to-mid March.
I admit that on frost risk warning nights I just sit and bed and refresh my weather station data starting at 3am like a completely manic helicopter mom. At first light I’m out to scout the frost patterns. I suppose that if I ever get some pallets of candles sent over from France I should probably know where to put them under different conditions. But then again, uncertainty looms since there always seems to be a pattern we’ve never seen before.
Wishing a quick vine recovery to you all @Lars_Carlberg
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