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Feature Article
Yet another storms rolls in over Mendocino vineyards on Friday evening, continuing the trend that has thus far marked the 2006 vintage.
Winter Without End
Vines and vignerons alike endure incessant cold and rain and consider the implications for the 2006 vintage in Mendocino
by
Thom Elkjer
April 9, 2006
YORKVILLE HIGHLANDS – APRIL 9, 2006. The vines surrounding the tasting room at Yorkville Cellars have the same feeling to them that most humans do in rural Mendocino County these days: an inward-turning, deeply chilled determination to wait out a winter that seems unwilling to end. There are no buds to be seen, and only a faint swelling here and there to suggest that vital energy will one day burst forth.
Two weeks past the equinox – normally a temporal signpost of budbreak in North Coast vineyards – the skies are still leaden, the ground still sodden, the air still chilly, and the forecast still foreboding. Yorkville Cellars has already seen more than 70 inches of rain since the dry season officially ended last fall, and the numbers don’t tell the whole story.
“It’s not just that we’ve gotten above-average rainfall, it’s how late into the spring it has continued and how constantly it has kept up,” says proprietor Edward Wallo. “We’ve had significant rainfall in 31 of the past 36 days, and there’s more on the way.” Asked to sum up his feeling about the 2006 vintage at this point, he doesn’t hesitate: “Beyond horrible.”
Wallo has farmed his estate since 1992 and says only 1998 – a famously panned vintage in northern California – compares in terms of the amount, lateness, and constancy of cold, cold rain. “I won’t be able to get a tractor into the vineyard for weeks,” he says, “and that’s assuming the rain stops fairly soon. If it keeps up, I don’t know what we’ll do.”
Vineyard owners all over the North Coast are in the same predicament.
“I’m getting concerned,” says Dennis de la Montanya, whose nine North Coast ranches include parcels in Dry Creek Valley, Lake County, Alexander Valley, and Sonoma Coast. The latter appellation has seen rainfall of up to 100 inches in some areas. “For one thing, we could get root rot because of drowned roots,” de la Montanya notes. “The vineyards aren’t draining because the rain just hasn’t stopped. Even if things clear up here pretty quick, we’re still looking at a small crop that costs a lot to bring in. The harvest will be late, and we’ll have to go through the fields to drop a lot more fruit than usual. If we don’t, we won’t get the rest of the fruit ripe before the next rainy season starts.”
While some vintners in cool-climate Anderson Valley also fret about root rot, others see a silver lining in the grey clouds lying low from horizon to horizon. “Sure, it’s been cold and wet, but that’s a safe combination,” notes Mary Elke, owner of Donnelly Creek Vineyard, one of Anderson Valley’s biggest vine patches. “Even though [overnight temperatures] are still getting well down in the 30s, it’s so wet that we don’t get frost.”
Her neighbor Kurt Schoeneman, who owns Ferrington Vineyard (a source for various high-end Pinot Noir producers including Williams Selyem), also seems unconcerned. “We pruned in December and our buds are out almost everywhere but in the Sauvignon Blanc,” he told me as a fresh storm rolled in, pelting us with raindrops. “It’s the people who pruned late, to avoid frost, that are now on the hotseat. Their vineyards could bud and flower really late, but still during the time when we get frost in the valley, so they have to get through that. Then they’re looking at a really late harvest and all the risks that go with that. We rolled the dice and came up lucky this year, but it’s a crapshoot every year.”
Elke also points to pruning strategy as one key to how this vintage might play out. “We’re cane-pruned, not cordon-pruned,” she explains, “and the apical dominance [concentration of new growth at the tip of a cane] that we usually get by this time of year has not kicked in because of the weather,” she explains. “That means we have two buds per position rather than the usual one, and they’re all coming along at the same slow rate. So we could wind up with a big crop that all gets ripe at the same time.”
That seems an optimistic view for someone who readily admits, after a walk through the vineyard, that less than 1% of her vine canes are showing green tips. She also acknowledges that the rains that rolled back in on Friday night are supposed to linger for another two weeks at least.
Still, hope springs eternal in the human breast – and it is spring according to the calendar. If only spring weather would arrive as well.
~ Thom Elkjer, Mendocino Editor
To comment on Thom Elkjer writings and thoughts, contact him at t.elkjer@appellationamerica.com
Two weeks past the equinox – normally a temporal signpost of budbreak in North Coast vineyards – the skies are still leaden, the ground still sodden, the air still chilly, and the forecast still foreboding. Yorkville Cellars has already seen more than 70 inches of rain since the dry season officially ended last fall, and the numbers don’t tell the whole story.
“It’s not just that we’ve gotten above-average rainfall, it’s how late into the spring it has continued and how constantly it has kept up,” says proprietor Edward Wallo. “We’ve had significant rainfall in 31 of the past 36 days, and there’s more on the way.” Asked to sum up his feeling about the 2006 vintage at this point, he doesn’t hesitate: “Beyond horrible.”
Wallo has farmed his estate since 1992 and says only 1998 – a famously panned vintage in northern California – compares in terms of the amount, lateness, and constancy of cold, cold rain. “I won’t be able to get a tractor into the vineyard for weeks,” he says, “and that’s assuming the rain stops fairly soon. If it keeps up, I don’t know what we’ll do.”
Vineyard owners all over the North Coast are in the same predicament.
“I’m getting concerned,” says Dennis de la Montanya, whose nine North Coast ranches include parcels in Dry Creek Valley, Lake County, Alexander Valley, and Sonoma Coast. The latter appellation has seen rainfall of up to 100 inches in some areas. “For one thing, we could get root rot because of drowned roots,” de la Montanya notes. “The vineyards aren’t draining because the rain just hasn’t stopped. Even if things clear up here pretty quick, we’re still looking at a small crop that costs a lot to bring in. The harvest will be late, and we’ll have to go through the fields to drop a lot more fruit than usual. If we don’t, we won’t get the rest of the fruit ripe before the next rainy season starts.”
While some vintners in cool-climate Anderson Valley also fret about root rot, others see a silver lining in the grey clouds lying low from horizon to horizon. “Sure, it’s been cold and wet, but that’s a safe combination,” notes Mary Elke, owner of Donnelly Creek Vineyard, one of Anderson Valley’s biggest vine patches. “Even though [overnight temperatures] are still getting well down in the 30s, it’s so wet that we don’t get frost.”
Her neighbor Kurt Schoeneman, who owns Ferrington Vineyard (a source for various high-end Pinot Noir producers including Williams Selyem), also seems unconcerned. “We pruned in December and our buds are out almost everywhere but in the Sauvignon Blanc,” he told me as a fresh storm rolled in, pelting us with raindrops. “It’s the people who pruned late, to avoid frost, that are now on the hotseat. Their vineyards could bud and flower really late, but still during the time when we get frost in the valley, so they have to get through that. Then they’re looking at a really late harvest and all the risks that go with that. We rolled the dice and came up lucky this year, but it’s a crapshoot every year.”
Elke also points to pruning strategy as one key to how this vintage might play out. “We’re cane-pruned, not cordon-pruned,” she explains, “and the apical dominance [concentration of new growth at the tip of a cane] that we usually get by this time of year has not kicked in because of the weather,” she explains. “That means we have two buds per position rather than the usual one, and they’re all coming along at the same slow rate. So we could wind up with a big crop that all gets ripe at the same time.”
That seems an optimistic view for someone who readily admits, after a walk through the vineyard, that less than 1% of her vine canes are showing green tips. She also acknowledges that the rains that rolled back in on Friday night are supposed to linger for another two weeks at least.
Still, hope springs eternal in the human breast – and it is spring according to the calendar. If only spring weather would arrive as well.
~ Thom Elkjer, Mendocino Editor
To comment on Thom Elkjer writings and thoughts, contact him at t.elkjer@appellationamerica.com
