Sorry they were hit so hard by the cold. Hope they can recover quickly.
http://www.wine-searcher.com/m/2014/03/finger-lakes-wine-country-declared-a-disaster-zone
Wow. I know it is bad, but didn’t realize this bad.
thanks …’
we are resistant this is my second major weather event in ten years … the last one cost me $100,000 in vines and then lost production for four years… East Seneca banana belt my property and the Hobbs site held at - 6 F that was our coldest temp… that night our sister vineyard where my Riesling is got down to -14 and I want to vomit …
planting our ‘Majestic Riesling Project’ this year that was planned two years ago this spring at the primary tasting room site that held only - 6 F when the rest of the region got winter kill …
micro pockets protected, but the majority of the fruiting vines are in sensitive areas.,… one site IIRC went down to -18 Keuka Lake…they are done for … 100%
we (the FLX) will grow quality fruit this year the problem will be small crops for the next three years … the report is too pessimistic its too early to see the power of the vines… the cane was real hard lignification was tight so winter hardiness was at its theoretical maxim …
this spring and summer the real story will unfold vineyard by vineyard …
Cheers !!!
Similarly two states over, from what I’m hearing, Ohio’s vinifera crop was completely destroyed for 2014 though some native (concord, etc) vines will make fruit. Still too early to tell if the vines or just the vintage will be lost.
So sorry to hear this. Hope you all can hang in there.
We visited the Finger Lakes last year for the first time. Thru a connection with Evan Dawson, we picked six of the best wineries and spent a day and a half tasting and touring.
The wines to which we were directed were excellent. We bought a bunch … All whites. We didn’t even taste reds as we have PLENTY.
This is a real tragedy. These vintners have invested money, sweat and blood to develop a new viticultural area and they have truly arrived.
Here is an ancillary article about the area:
http://www.wine-searcher.com/m/2013/05/getting-a-handle-on-finger-lakes-wine
As John above says, it’s still too early to know what the long term outcome of the damage will be. The short term is mostly bad.
On the other hand, I spoke with a wine producer on the southern end of Keuka Lake. He says buds on his vines are 80% intact–Riesling, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, even Gewurztraminer (which is surprising). He claims that the southern end of the Finger Lakes region did not experience the damage that the northern end experienced. Makes some sense, since the farther north you go, the closer you are to the frozen Great Lakes. Where I live at Keuka Lake, we are somewhat protected from Great Lakes influenced weather.
Having said that, I lived for one year in Greenland when in the Air Force in the late 60s. I never felt that cold since–until this year.
Wishing you well John Z. I hope the damage isn’t as bad as expected.
So sorry to hear this. I feared that this would happen with all of the headlines throughout the winter of severe cold back east. Hopefully the damage turns out to be less than is being reported. I’ve seen pics of older plantings there that were J-trained. Is the practice of trenching and burying still being used in the FL?
Only by the smart among us…
Even though we have been experiencing relatively warm winters for the past decade or more, this region is famous (or infamous, depending how you view it) for sudden severe cold snaps that follow unusual warm spells. Those cold snaps can do quick damage to the vine if it is not buried to the graft. Many growers had to relearn that lesson a couple winters back.
How is the vinifera upper half going to be protected against phylloxera if the graft is buried?
Burying is done after each harvest and just before the vines go dormant by “hilling up” around the graft to protect it from winter kill. When spring arrives, the hilled up soil is removed. There’s a particular tractor equipment called the “takeout” for this purpose.
Phylloxera is a root louse disease. As long as the vine is alive, and below the graft is not vinifera, vine death from Phylloxera remains at bay.
What are you pushing up against the graft?
Something inorganic, like, gosh, I dunno, perlite and Styrofoam and gravel?
Or something with a high organic content?
The soil at the edge of the rows is pushed up in autumn and pulled back down in spring. That’s all.
Gosh, I don’t know that that would fly, Down South.
Down here, pushing soil up against the bark - even in the winter - would be courting disaster.
Of course, it’s a moot point anyway, since we can’t even grow vinifera down here, on account of the Pierce’s Disease.
What kind of disaster would pushing the soil cause in the South?
FLX update on winter damage … Was out with the crew that prunes just about a zillion vines each year on the east side … The southern part eastern seneca the core banana belts winter damage is manageable …now being its still early the vascular system needs to be tested in the vines at each stage of the growing season … So we really wont know the whole store until we see fruit … That said I am very optimistic that somehow we in the southern eastern part of seneca were spared … Reports of the FLX being ravaged to the breaking point are greatly exaggerated … Cheers !!!
I will follow up during the season …
From Johannes Reinhardt’s newest e-mail -
“As most of you, if not all, did experience this past few months - the winter has been very long and at times also very cold. As a result, we should see damage of different degrees on first and secondary buds across many Finger Lakes vineyards. There might be also some trunk-damage, which will often be noticed later once a vineyard is in full vegetation stage and in need of supply for nutrients and water from the ground. How much damage we will see is not all the way clear yet, since a vineyard can recover to a certain degree from that kind of challenge.”
Yes, the damage is widespread but as John mentioned, southern parts of the Finger Lakes seem to have fared better than northern parts of the region, which might have something to do with proximity to Lake Ontario as well as the hills surrounding the Finger Lakes. With real estate, it’s always location that counts.
One of the wonderful things about this region is that it is so uncluttered with man made structures that you can visually follow a storm by looking up and into the distance, and that storm may never come to your location. From the southern part of Keuka Lake, I have watched numerous rain, hail, and snow storms travel northeast of me while either the sun shined here or it was merely overcast. In fact, weather reports cannot be trusted because the weather is so localized.
Incidentally, we are putting our place up for sale next month. Anyone interested, PM me.
How are grapes looking in the Finger Lakes? Was the damage as bad as expected?