Yesterday was balmy and calm and everything seemed to come alive. The bees were a buzz, the flowers were coming to life, and the birds were singing up a storm. And yes, today the stormy weather took over. Gale force winds, rain in the late afternoon and cold temps made me realise it's not really over. But here are a few signs that things are about to change.
But I cannot find my heated propagators from last year, so my seed trays are falling behind. I'll have to just bite the bullet tomorrow.
Spring has arrived on the bank holiday weekend celebrating St Bridget's Day this Monday. Imbolc, St Bridget's actual feast day, arrived on the 1st of February, of course. But the weather was better today. It provided the perfect opportunity to prune the vines.
We actually started yesterday and I did the little ones - Albarino and Pinot Noir - last week. Yesterday, I finished the Chardonnay vines, and today I did the younger Solaris. They were brutal. We had let them grow wild and they took on interesting shapes that needed to be coaxed into straight trunks, but I got through the lot and removed most everything that didn't belong, although there will be editing to do. In a few cases, I wasn't sure which of the stems to pick as the primary so I left two or three options which I will inspect more closely with fresh eyes.
In some cases, it was very easy to see which was the primary and in almost all cases, the primary was already quite strong, to the top of the post, and rather woody. This is the year when they reach adulthood and their permanent shape.
Alex worked on the 'old' vines now in their eighth year and he did a very nice job. It's really feeling like a mature vineyard in that section.
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| In the beginning, I was shy about cutting. |
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| Yes, it's the moon. New day coming. |
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| Alex's pruning |
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| May need a bit of editing |
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| The piles of cuttings are growing |
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| The sun is getting ready to set. Just a few more to do. |
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| Looking a bit tidier. |
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| Lovely sky |
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| Croagh Patrick is aglow |
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| Lovely calm day |
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| Stunning panorama |
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| New stray, Ginger, coming for a walk with me. |
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| Fiery sunset |
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| Peach on earth |
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| The hills are alive... |
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| Bye-bye sun |
While New Zealand deals with massive flooding, Chile burns and Turkey is dealing with devastating earthquakes in which thousands have lost their lives.
Everyone knows about NZ wines, and the celebrated Marlborough region is among the most heavily affected by the heavy rains. It is unknown if the rains will damage the vines.
In Chile, fires have ripped through winemaking regions, destroying some of the region's oldest vines. Three regions – Araucanía, Biobío, and Ñuble – have declared a state of emergency after temperatures soared to more than 40C. Wildfires have already burned more than 40,000ha in the area. Record temperatures and strong winds have made it difficult to stop the blazes from spreading. The drought conditions had already made this a challenging year for Chilean winemakers.
You didn't know about the wines of Turkey? Cappadocia, Aegean, Thrace, Central, and Eastern Anatolia are Turkey’s major grape-growing and wine-production areas where you can find numerous vineyards. Sadly, just a small proportion of Turkish-grown grapes are made into wine, but some of the boutique vineyards have been producing fine wines that are being recognised on the international stage.
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| Fog enveloping Clew Bay |
We've had some unusual weather for mid-winter. Cold frost alternating with fog, hail and sleet showers with lightning and thunder, but not so much wind. Our land is soggy and the midlands are flooded.
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| Frost on the window |
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| Flooding in the midlands |
But I have managed to start pruning in the vineyard. I got the Pinot Noir and Albarino pruned, followed by the Chardonnay. Now just the Rondo and Solaris left, the latter of which is not going to be easy.
Alex is going to try propagating the Chardonnay clippings and he's been busy grafting cuttings from Ross house orchard trees onto our fruit trees. We'll see if it works. He's also replacing broken posts of which we have quite a few after that long spell of stormy weather.
Meanwhile, the Guardian reported that a vineyard in the Cotswalds of England won one of the top prizes for their 2021 Sauvignon Blanc. I don't think that would work here as it isn't harvested until October or later.
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| Albarino barely visible |
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| The fog returns |
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Multiple heavy rainstorms are flooding vast areas, washing out roads, and triggering mudslides, but vineyards appear unharmed so far. Despite a waterlogged start to the new year and multiple closures of tasting events, vineyard owners are relieved that after several years of drought-induced reduced yields, the rainfall total is already past its average for the winter season. And there's more rain on the way.
For some, it's not all rosy. For small operations that rely on direct sales during wine tastings in winter, being closed to visitors is a harsh reality. For those who had to evacuate or are cut off with road closures, again it's potentially damaging. Fallen trees, road closures and power outages aside, Napa and Sonoma's vintners haven't reported much damage to wineries or vineyards.
Fortunately, vineyards are dormant at this time of year. It is several weeks away from bud break when tender leaves emerge and can be damaged by severe weather. Even some standing water in dormant vineyards typically won't cause much concern. The major exception would be vineyards subject to erosion. In addition, it may be weeks or longer before the ground dries enough to get tractors into the vineyards.
Also problematic is the closure of restaurants in flooded towns and cities throughout California. Reduced sales to the trade could be damaging to the industry in a season already plagued by reduced yields. Creeks that haven't run in years have overflowed their banks and washed out roads.
V. Sattui Vineyard lost an iconic 275-year-old oak tree when it toppled in front of the winery after being uprooted by the storms.
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| Source: Copernicus/ECMWF |
European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service reported the eight warmest years on record have now occurred since 2014, with 2022 being the fifth-hottest. NASA and NOAA also issued analyses of global temperatures for 2022, and their findings were similar. NASA’s analysis ranked 2022 as tied with 2015 for the fifth warmest, while NOAA had last year as the sixth warmest.
Copernicus found that the 10-year average temperature for the period 2013-2022 is 1.14°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial baseline. NASA determined that the world is now 1.2°C (2.1°F) warmer overall than it was in the second half of the 19th century.
Copernicus scientists reported that Europe had its hottest summer ever in 2022. Separate research has shown that heat waves in Europe are increasing in frequency and intensity at a faster rate than almost anywhere else, fueled not only by warming but also by shifts in atmospheric and oceanic circulation.
Eastern and Central China, Pakistan and India all experienced lengthy and extreme heat waves in 2022, and monsoon floods in Pakistan. The heat and accompanying dryness also contributed to drought and extensive wildfires in the Western United States and now to flooding with persistent atmospheric rivers. Extreme weather events are likely to continue until humanity achieves net zero emissions.
The Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the globe since 1979.
While 2022 was a La Niña year, an oceanic and atmospheric phenomenon that is the colder counterpart of El Niño, reversion to El Niño will bring stronger warming. The persistence of a cooling La Niña event, now in its third year, means that 2022 was not the warmest year on record, but is “only” the fifth or sixth warmest. "The rare event now would be to see a really cold year," said Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus service.
The World Meteorological Organization reported that the atmospheric concentration of all the main greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – had reached record highs. The heating of the oceans, and the impact on extreme weather, will increase until net zero emissions are achieved.
A weird anomaly is that the Northern Hemisphere is warmer than the Southern and is warming more quickly. It is considered that the northern hemisphere has more land mass while the southern hemisphere has more ocean and therefore varies in the rate of warming. The Northern Hemisphere is warmer than the Southern Hemisphere in part because of northward cross-equatorial ocean heat transport. Of course, if the Gulf Stream is indeed slowing down, then the rate of heat exchange should also slow down.
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| Global average temperature compared with mid-20th century Source: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies |
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| Global annual mean temperature difference from pre-industrial conditions (1850–1900) for six global temperature data sets (1850–2022, 2022 based on an average to September). Source: WMO |
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| Globally averaged mole fraction (measure of atmospheric concentration), from 1984 to 2021, of CO2 in parts per million (left), CH4 in parts per billion (centre), and N2O in parts per billion (right). |
The weather on this side of the world has been pretty abysmal as well. Constant rain and wind for weeks it seems. So I can't really prune in the vineyard which means I have turned my attention to the polytunnel. The soil we bought from the County Council is awful. Black oily stuff that sticks to everything and doesn't want to wash off. It's from Croagh Patrick and has shale in it, so I'm assuming the slick stuff is shale oil.
I removed it from the first raised bed in the Autumn, and now I've dug away four wheelbarrows full of it from the second bed. I laid nicely decomposing seaweed that's been lying outside the polytunnel since this summer at the base (I need a little more to add a good layer). Then I have a couple of fish boxes full of compost to mix on top. That should do it.
I bought seeds from a new outfit called Seeds Ireland that does only organic, genetically unmodified and naturally pollinated seeds. That means you can save seeds from the plants you grow to grow again and be reasonably sure they will perform as well as the original ones. I like that idea.
