When frost kills new shoots the crop is lost. The vine will, eventually throw new ones from latent buds, but they will have little to no fruit clusters on them, and they will be a month or more behind. Frost damage has no real impact for the following season, fortunately, but the damage is done for the current season.
I feel for these growers… 12, 13, 14 hail, then this… yikes. I cant imagine staying alive as a domaine with those consecutive losses.
not everything is toast… in the damaged area there are pockets of potential… what I will say is if the summer is hot and the tertiary and secondary buds produce fruit and I think this will be the case … I call a limited fruit and great vintage in the works… call me optimistic, but in the FLX I have seen #ell freeze over and still we produced great wine …
And here I was reading that snow was now a thing of the past, and that children would not know what snow was. ![[scratch.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/4/42a16863a8714da3c1604419e3eb9206bb87aa50.gif "scratch"){kind=small}
If the frost is early or had enough it can effect the latent but next year. We saw this in 2008 here in AV when in late April after 26 frost events that season we had 2 nights below 26* and we lost half the 2008 crop and 25-33% of the 2009 crop.
Latent buds that push are generally not very uniform in ripening from vine to vine to picking a pick date can be difficult or multiple passes may be needed to increase quality.
Change got hit yesterday it sounds like, frost and snow.
FWIW, the last frost vintage in burgundy, 1991, produced many fabulous wines.
I guess it is just easier to have no grapes?
If they can’t work out how to protect their grapes and work together as a community of growers then they should avoid complaining about instances of adverse weather that they do have control over. As someone who spends a lot of their daily grind working in the vines it seems ridiculous to not take every precaution possible.
Hail is heartbreaking, frost (in many cases) is preventable or at the very least able to be minimized.
Interesting, I hadn’t heard that. Maybe Burgundy is (on average) hotter in summer but more variable in spring. I assume it’s colder in winter (snow is not so uncommon there, IIRC) while in the Willamette valley IIRC it doesn’t snow very often.
^
I’ve always been a fan of 91s
I am sorry to read about the damage you had.
Frankly, with the types of losses you and others had, you guys should have been working together and figured that out ahead of time. I assume that some kind of sharing would have been appropriate. I bet after this that is what you guys do.
Had no idea anyone still used this technology or if it is legal in Burgundy but I do know it works. I got the pick from FB it is from Switzerland. A few days ago.
The 8 folks that would benefit from it. Whoever gives up the 10’x10’ footprint does not split the cost. They work best in low spots and there are smaller mobile units that have no bigger footprint than a car. Would there not be a spot you could find next to a road or make use of a tractor road for a trailer unit? Tow it out there with the tractor when needed and tow it out when not needed.
They’re still used ubiquitously in Chablis, so imagine they are probably legal on the Cote as well.
Yes, legal. There was even a nice picture of somebody using candles in a square block of vines in Les Amoureuses. The problem is that nobody is really prepared, and unlike in Chablis, there’s no automatic alarm system to wake everyone at 4am when a trigger temperture is reached. The last small frost damage was 2010, you have to go back to 91 for the last significant episode of damage.
The night in question (last Tuesday to Wednesday morning) was actually not that cold, rarely reaching -2, but the ground was moist after plenty of weekend rain. If it had been dry, the vines would hardly have been troubled at that temperature…
Courtesy @cparentgros
There is no systems in the vineyards for warning at 36 or 34*(2.2-1*c)? We have several systems at our vineyard. First a custom agricultural forecast call in number updated 2 times a day sponsored by out Farm Bureau. Second we have our own weather station(solar powered with cell servisce to send data) with remote sensor at the drip hose in the coldest spot in the vineyard, it will email and text message if any of the set parameters are met. Third we have 2 cabled frost sensors in the vineyard, one wired to my father in laws bedroom(set at 36f/2.2c) one in the living room set to 34f/1c. Forth we have a frost fan that has its own sensor to turn itself on that we adjust depending on how low the prediction is for the night usually about 36c/2.2f. Fifth we have 3 led lights that go from green/36, to orange/35, to yellow/34 flashing yellow at 33, red at 32 and flashing red below 32. They can be seen from virtually anywhere near the vineyard and most importantly from the kitchen or at the water pump for the overhead sprinklers. We also have multiple thermometers and pyrometers (infra red temperature taker) we use to calibrate all of the above. There are also 3 neighbors with similar systems and cell phones to call/text to compare/contrast data and to make sure every one is awake and watching.
Still his favorite way to tell when to turn on is when the dew on the drip hose goes from liquid to solid in the coldest spot. When there is no dew we are much more concerned as the air temperature can drop much faster.
I though moisture was good against protecting against frost. Humidity is higher and it will take the air longer to cool down the more water there is in the air. Which is why overhead sprinklers are so common here as we get below 30/-1.1 every vintage and that is the limit of the fan. Where as the sprinklers can protect to 25/-3.8 or 26/-3.2.
All this to protect up to $50/bottle PN and $25-28/bottle SB/Semillon. Time to get some technology in those vineyards or maybe it is so rare its not worth the trouble. We have frost events every season here in AV, an average of 8 with the rage of 5-28 nights at our estate which is at the frostiest end of Anderson Valley.
This isn’t quite right - what you are trying to do is maintain the temperature at the wetbulb temp rather than dew point (wet bulb is always higher).
Joe, they calculate in Chablis, when very dry, (like last spring) that they can go as low as -3.5 before the frost kills. If the vineyard is as low as only -1.5, but everything is wet, then the damage will be done at the lower temp. And no, in the cote d’or they rely on forecasts, not alarms (unlike in chablis) - and the frost wasn’t forecast…
Hi everybody,
In fact april was warm in France and look like the beginning of summer/spring.
So some buds appears (i hope that my english is good )
But suddenly, it’s frozen one night.
And the morning after sun appear and burn all frozen buds like this
http://www.hostingpics.net/viewer.php?id=717950IMG7314.jpg
2 solutions : lights or “chaufferette” and drizzle with water jet for protect buds against the sun (water protect buds)
Problem are that Loire, cotes de beaune are not ready for these 2 solutions, and you make this only for your best wines . So chablis grand cru was protected not chablis village and petit chablis.