I was all over Sonoma County last week, talking with friends and was stunned at the shatter in almost every part of the county. I also saw several vineyards that were so badly damaged from frost that they looked like someone blow torched them.

I remember the aweful shatter in 1998, but this looks worse to me. Good luck as harvest commences!

Time for another price increase.

cdr - it was really hit or miss (sometimes within the same vineyard) and a real nail biter. Our fruit at one vineyard (cab) never saw frost and looks great yet a friend who sources from the same vineyard (different block much lower on the mountain) won't see any fruit this year due to the frost. Crop is much smaller this year but berries are very tight and overall quality looks very good.

KarenT
Jean Edwards Cellars

I only had frost damage in my new plantings, the Harrison Vineyard (2nd year) and Sesson Vineyard (1st year). Lost less than 1% in each, and the plants threw new shoots quickly.

One was dormant rootstock, the other was one year olds pruned back to a single bud, so both were low to the ground. Both recovered and are on fine pace right now. Sesson is at the cordon wire, and Harrison has a single shoot down the wire. I don't expect long term impact in either.

I didn't have frost related shatter anywhere. I had the best set ever on my Grenache, and that will usually shatter if there's a full moon and gravity is pulling to hard on it, or I sneeze and disrupt air flow within 70 yards of a flowering plant.

I do have set issues in a few vineyards. Crimson-Clover is windy all the time and I get some stringy clusters. Chaine d'Or had poor set in the Cabernet from wind and fog, but that happens every year. Woodruff's we had to run the tractor through the vineyard at flowering to cut fire lines and the Pinot Noir has a little shatter.

All in all though I'm looking at healthy yields in this part of the world and I've heard so many times now "This vineyard looks the best it ever has", that I'm pretty excited for this harvest. What happens north of the Bay though is often very different from what happens here.

I just put some pictures up in fact:

http://stefaniawine.blogspot.com/

Thanks for the link Paul. Interesting stuff.

Yes, and in other news, our syrah crop was severely affected by the spring frosts. We lost about 30% of our average/anticipated cropload. Other Paso vineyards are also reporting losses of up to 30%. The zinfandel escaped unscathed and some vineyards in Paso are reporting moderate-to-none losses. Of course "severe" is relative as I understand our compadres in Sonoma and Napa were hit even harder. Plus, our uber-warm summer has birds and other wildlife on the prowl for sources of food and water, which makes patrolling what is left of our syrah a constant chore. I know other vineyards are feeling the pressure, too. So for 2008, there will be some great wine coming out of Paso Robles and (from reports) the central coast, but not very much available, at least in SVD's and terroir-driven productions.

We lost over 40% of our Carneros Chardonnay. We sit in a bit of a low spot in the AVA and the back to back frosts in March really hammered us. Couple that with the deep thinning of the secondaries and shoots and we are looking at about a 50% of normal harvest at best. On the bright side, the canopy is great so we should get some nice concentrated berries this year and hopefully will be making some good wines.

www.gofesselvineyards.com

Decanter writes that Bordeaux is going to have a tough vintage as well with possible mildew...

hmmm maybe its time to turn back toward Spain and Italy...

quote:

Originally posted by Stefania Wine:
Crimson-Clover

Over and over.....

I hadn't ever thought of that reference

Sounds like you will survive the vintage quite nicely.

quote:

Originally posted by mpls wine guy:
Sounds like you will survive the vintage quite nicely.

I'm very excited about this vintage. It does help that now 70% of my grape supplies are under my farming control. Even if we had lost crop, I'd be in better shape than the wineries that have to buy in all their grapes.

Will one of you farmer-types explain what "shatter" is? Since I'm used to it, I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm ignorant.

I haven't really heard many people talk about shatter as a problem? In fact, in vineyards I work with in Son County that weren't frosted, set was pretty good?

Where were you that was so bad, cdr?

I like the price increase idea. I'll look into that

Yeah, I haven't seen/heard too many reports of shatter here--most people I've talked with were totally shell-shocked by the frost damage. I can see the effects of shatter up close, but it doesn't seem as severe as the 2006 spring storm season.

G&PN, 'Shatter' is uneven or poor pollination, resulting in partially pollinated clusters, or tiny green berries that just fall off, making for clusters with open spaces instead of a full, fat berry cluster. It is usually the result of spring storms battering the flowers off the vines, or an early season heat wave that affects the vine sugar.

This year California has seen both. Between the spring frosts burning green growth back and having to reprune and start over again in many cases, and then the early summer heat waves (which can also reduce cluster and berry size even if pollination succeeds) this has been a challenging vintage. What's left, if carefully husbanded, should be excellent--but better get in line now for those favorite SVDs.

I was mostly at some sites in and around the Russian River as well as some high elevation vineyards in the Alexander Valley. The worst damage I saw was in RRV, but numerous vineyards in Alexander Valley had clusters with so many different sized berries, missing berries, damaged clusters, uneven ripening, etc., it looked bad, and the growers mentioned the sleepless nights because of the frist alarms.

The responses I got were to the effect that the crop is small but good quality. My concern is that there are going to be a lot of mixed clusters with berries at varying stages of development in large numbers. Rigorous selection at the sorting table and in the vineyard will be crucial in my opinion.

Hmmm...no outrageous shatter problems in my RRV vineyards. As par for the course as farming can be.

Different-sized berries is actually something I consider pretty positive. Chicks and hens can come from the selection of plant material.

I think we'll be down +/- 10% overall from 2007, which is a smallish basis. From the 10 year average, down maybe 15%? That's just our particular winery, though. I know some had huge frost losses.

I'm pretty excited, and expect to start picking late next week. My only concern currently is a bit of hot air that's supposed to be blowing our way soon. I'm staring out my window at the neighbor unloading bins of SB right now.

Winerugger,

Thanks for sharing your insight. How much land do you farm and which varietals? Not to hijack the thread, but seeing as how I started it. . .

I'm employed by a winery. We don't own any vineyards, but purchase fruit from a variety of vineyards throughout Northern CA. Pinot and Chardonnay exclusively.

We're seeing a bit smaller crop and smaller berries which we suspect may be from a combination of the late frost and starting out at water deficit. No apparent damage though.

Have not heard of much shatter down here in the Santa Ynez Valley. Frost damage, on the other hand, has been fairly catastrophic, but sporadic. Some vineyards will see crop declines of over 50%, where others do not seem to be affected whatsoever . . .

We're just hoping to a bit warmer weather down here to get things kick-started . . . but not TOO hot like in 2006 . . .

Will report back later in the week . . .

Cheers!

quote:

Originally posted by Golf&Pinot Nut:
Will one of you farmer-types explain what "shatter" is? Since I'm used to it, I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm ignorant.

GPN,

I took some pictures for you on Saturday and wrote a blog about shatter:

http://stefaniawine.blogspot.com/

Thanks for the writeup Paul. Very informative and the pics really helped.

quote:

Originally posted by Stefania Wine:

quote:

Originally posted by Golf&Pinot Nut:
Will one of you farmer-types explain what "shatter" is? Since I'm used to it, I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm ignorant.

GPN,

I took some pictures for you on Saturday and wrote a blog about shatter:

http://stefaniawine.blogspot.com/

Thanks, tlily. Good stuff.

When you see shatter like this does it impact the character of the fruit in the remaining berries?