This could be a record bad year for wines, which could result in decreased supplies and increased cost across the board. In France, they are predicting 30% lower yields than normal due to the late frost early in the season. In California, they are reducing their yield on purpose by cutting some of the grape clusters off to concentrate moisture in the remaining clusters to save the crop altogether.
Many of the classic winemaking towns have restricted water supplies. Some have even denied farmers access to the reservoirs completely. Nearly 1000 landowners in Mendocino county were told there wasn't enough water for them. An emergency law passed enables the government to prohibit people from diverting water. All these people flocked to the sunshine in the west without considering if they could survive there. What to do when you have millions of people and drought for two years in a row? The Russian River valley known for its vineyards is in dire straits with farmers trucking water to their vineyards. The Dixie Fire in the Sierra Nevada is the largest wildfire in Calfornia's history.
When the NY Times does an article about vineyards suffering, you know it's bad. But it's a really interesting article about two different methods of growing grapes. One manages the vineyard without watering and other interventions, the other waters in interesting patterns. It seems that watering in vineyards causes the grapes to keep their roots shallow. Avoiding watering encourages the vines to grow deep roots in search of water thereby increasing their resilience to other climatic conditions and pestilence.
We've decided not to water and once again we seem to have made a decision that makes sense without us knowing so scientifically. But it makes sense to me that if vines grow long above ground they would have to grow long roots below ground to anchor themselves. And they do.
Curiously, when we first moved here, there were no mushrooms growing on the land. Since we planted trees, we've got many varieties of mushrooms popping up all over the place, suggesting that the earth is returning to a natural vegetative state and the fungi have moved in. That means the land is healing itself and for that I am grateful. Land that has fungi should retain moisture better and should also drain better as they add structure to the soil that enables penetration.
As of the 12th of August, at 122 mm, we've already had twice as much rain as in all of June or July. The grapes are finally getting plumper. But do they have the time to get to a nice size before veraison?
PS Hamel Family Wines switched their vineyard to dry farming with excellent results.
