Spring? Not really.

Yesterday was the first day of spring in the Northern hemisphere but today is cold and wet and raw. The vines have not yet woken up thank goodness. I was worried as we had the wettest windiest winter on record followed by a warm snap in late January that caused the fruit trees to start budding. The fresh leaves were quickly freeze-dried as the weather turned nasty again.

Alex ordered and planted replacement vines for the ones we lost and he worries that we'll lose a few more to the wet land. He has dug trenches around the young vines to keep them from drowning.

Meanwhile, a global pandemic has taken the world by storm. I read the NEJM every week to update myself on what's known but so much is not. Many countries are on lockdown, borders closed and citizens told to remain secluded indoors. We feel fortunate to be out in the country. We walk the land secure in the knowledge that the novel coronavirus won't get to us on our 10 acres unless we bring it in. What a bizarre situation the world is in.

So to lighten the mood, here's an image of Europe from space. They can actually see vineyards from up there.  And below are from yesterday's walk on the land.

Climate reports

Today I came across an article in Euronews about the changes European agriculture is facing due to climate change, and it sounds serious. Now the article was a sponsored feature by Copernicus which is getting funding from the ECMWF and the EU. Copernicus is selling their climate data services through this article, but it did have some very interesting information relevant to our project. One of the crops covered is grapevines naturally, which are under increasing stress in Spain and Portugal.

They point out that a study recently indicated that vineyards need to adapt urgently to protect the quality of their harvests but the current policy for Protected Designation of Origin regions is standing in the way. Interesting. They also note experimentation with different varieties and altered methods.

One of Portugal’s main port wine producers is testing a climate application meant to improve the vineyard’s resilience to climate change. The Vineyards Integrated Smart Climate Application (VISCA), an EU initiative, combines climate, agriculture and farmer-specific information to adapt crop planning to climate change. Crop forcing, one technique used, involves moving the ripening time from hot summer months to later, cooler months, by extra pruning, halting the vine’s natural cycle and forcing it to start it later.

The VISCA project which has Horizon 2020 funding and ends in December of this year, has developed a tool for monitoring and advising farmers about mitigating the effects of climate change. All very interesting. We need to follow up with VISCA to see if any follow-up research is planned.

Meanwhile, a preliminary climate report for 2019 in Ireland has shown that our hunch seems to be in line with reality.

When fully analysed, 2019 will likely be the second or third warmest year on record. Average temperatures for the five-year (2015-2019) and ten-year (2010-2019) periods are almost certain to be the highest on record. Since the 1980s each decade has been warmer than the previous one. This trend is expected to continue.

I'm not certain any more that I want to be right. If climate change is somehow an impetus for diseases like COVID-19 to break out in prolonged pandemics, then making wine won't make enough of a difference.