Hail in Barolo now

WINE TALK
1

Luca from Vietti reporting it is golf ball sized. How awful.

Adam Lee
Siduri Wines

2

I could never be a farmer. Not a sober one anyway. How awful is right.

3

damn, Burgundy and Barolo.

4

what does a ‘hail canon’ do?
shoot down the golf balls some how? create heat to melt them? or just shatter them into smaller pieces?

5
6

everything is on the interweb… damn :slight_smile:

7

Did they work?

8

Let me guess. Prices are going to go up…gasp…for the 2014 Barolos??
Tom

9

They don’t seem to work

10

Any word on the extent of the damage?

11

I’ve heard that there is serious damage in Monforte, Ginestra and Gavarini in particular, as well as modest damage west of Barolo and skirting up towards La Morra, with a little hail also falling in Roddi and Verduno but no reports on damage yet.

Just got another report. Damage widespread, like throughout the Barolo zone, though centered on Barolo and Monforte, where losses are running 20% to 50%, particularly along hilltop sites. Losses in Grinzane Cavour and Diano d’Alba as well, but much less affected.

The hailstones themselves were very large and even those with hail netting in place suffered damage. It’s storming now as well so folks have not been able to get in to the vineyards much, but tomorrow or the next day they’ll have to get through the vineyards to spray so I expect we’ll have a complete impression of damage by the weekend.

12

Bummer

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From my producers, I hear the following:
Monvigliero was spared, maybe a small amount of damage in Neirane. These are both in Verduno, of course.

Rue in Barolo, 10-15% loss; Dardi Bussia in monforte, 15-20% loss.

Though there has been an above average amount of rain so far this year, the grapes are looking good (for those that spray for powdery mildew.) No one wants more storms, but one producer likened the hail damage to “nature providing green harvest.”

We shall see…

14

Silvia Altare tells me:
Lightly affected in la Morra, more so the Santa Maria side, not the Annunziata side.
Pretty bad in parts of Barolo, Castelletto di Monforte, a bit in Novello. Their small piece of rented Dolcetto vineyards in Monforte was crushed, virtually nothing left.
A smidge in Serralunga, but not a cause of concern.
They use hail nets, and were completely covered, so her only cause for personal concern was the Dolcetto.

15

Damn. We were just there last week, too.

16

From our producers, we have heard the following:

The hail occurred in Barolo and Monforte but it created more fear than actual damage. Hopefully it doesn’t end up being as dramatic as in Burgundy some days ago. In general we’ve heard the plants were not damaged, but only some bunches of grapes.

As Chiara Boschis told us the hailstorm was huge and powerful, leaving big hailstones on the ground. But since it damaged only some grapes and not the plants, the hail had just did what each producer was getting ready to do at this time of the growing season – thinning the grapes. She estimated losses of about 20% of the total production in those areas, but much of that would be been dropped to green harvesting anyway so the net impact will be much smaller.

Conversely, Giorgio Pelissero explained in Treiso and Barbaresco they just had huge “tropical” rains without any hail or damage to the fruit and vines.

17

Hi Kevin,
You post touches on what my folks basically said - mother nature provided her own “Green Harvest”! Funny you should mention “dolcetto”… On of my producers makes a cru from Monvigliero (Brangero) and also produces pigato from Liguria (La Ginestraia from around Cervo). Turns out he got hit not only in Monvigliero (minor) but also his Ligurian properties took a hit (concerning but not devastating) to which he wrote to me: “Why the barolo and the pigato, Why the hail never fall on the dolcetto!!!” [snort.gif]