Pressing the Rondo

The Rondo stopped bubbling so we decided to finally press it and transfer it to demijohns. We moved the must from the steel fermentation tank into the hydropress. We used the yellow buckets (sterilised) to collect the juice. After the juice stopped flowing on its own, Alex activated the hydropress. We collected one full bucket of juice. 

Very dark red. Nice scent. Bland taste. I tested the Brix and it came in at 9 but quite unclear. Specific gravity came in at 1.000. That shouldn't be. We transferred into two demijohns using the stainless steel funnel and a large glass measuring cup (all sterilised). The room temperature went from 20.7 to 21.8 while we worked. 

While cleaning up, we ran out of hot water, so we'll have another round of clean-up tomorrow. 

The weather yesterday was filthy and today lovely. Cool this morning -- almost nippy -- so we collected many of the vulnerable potted plants and transferred them to the polytunnel. The temperature hit 13.2C today compared with 16.5C yesterday and 18C for days before that. Unnatural.  

The vineyard is looking very colourful as all of the red grape vines have turned lovely colours. Curiously, the white vines remain green. 

The clear glass bottles arrived by courier today. The box was ripped and smashed but miraculously the bottles are intact. The green bottles and corks should arrive Friday.  Alex is next undertaking learning how to use the new equipment, especially the bottle washer and the heater. We won't be bottling for a while as we have to rack at least once, but I'm thinking of racking twice because the juice is quite cloudy. We'll see.

Another gorgeous day

We hit a high of 18C today. It was sunny and calm until mid-afternoon when the clouds started rolling in. It was a day when I really felt like just hanging out, but I did alot as usual. While Alex weeded and mowed the lawn, I did laundry, picked raspberries and apples, painted the fence, checked on the vineyard, pruned roses, and so on. But I did it fairly slowly. The day started very foggy,  so foggy they closed down Shannon Airport. But by mid-morning it had burned off. 

What's interesting is that many of the Pinot Noir vines have clusters of tiny grapes turning red. Also the Rondo is having a second cropping that is turning red. The roses in the vineyard are stunning with so many perfect blooms. 

The apples are huge and plentiful this year as well, and the crop of red and yellow raspberries was extraordinary. 

What a day!

 

Sunny, still, T-shirt weather mid-October. And then this...

It is definitely Autumn in the orchard and garden, but you could believe it was summer. We hit a high of 18.7C today according to the MSC weather station. Yesterday, as we drove from town, the car registered 18.2C. I know it's heresy to say it, but I am enjoying this brief period of climate weirdness. 

The warmest September on record globally

September 2023 brought heat waves, heavy rainfall, and the first named storm of the season, Storm Agnes. Even though the EU's Copernicus has revealed that globally September was the warmest on record, it did not prove to be that in Mayo. It was the same in Newport as in 2021, but there are no data for 2022. It was considerably higher than the long-term average, which I am sure contributed to a boost in sugar content towards the end of the ripening, allowing us to harvest before the storms hit. 

I wrote the following for the OCC website:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2023 is on track to become a record-breaking year with the global mean temperature to date at 0.52 degrees Celsius higher than average, says the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Last month was the warmest September on record globally, reaching 0.93°C above the average temperature for the same month in the period 1991-2020. The month as a whole was around 1.75°C warmer than the September average for 1850-1900, the preindustrial reference period. The global mean temperature in September was the most atypical warm month of any year in the ERA5 dataset, which dates back to 1940. 

Copernicus calculated the average temperature for September was 16.38°C which broke the record set in September 2020 by a whopping half-degree Celsius. This is the warmest margin above average for a month in 83 years of records kept by the Copernicus Climate Change Service. 

The hot temperatures were chiefly driven by persistent and unusual warmth in the world's oceans, which didn't cool off as much in September as normal and have been breaking records since spring. The average sea surface temperature for September over 60°S–60°N reached 20.92C, which is the highest on record for September and the second highest across all months, behind August 2023.

Antarctic sea ice extent remained at a record low level for the time of year. Both the daily and monthly extents reached their lowest annual maxima in the satellite record in September, with the monthly extent 9% below average. The daily Arctic sea ice extent reached its 6th lowest annual minimum while the monthly sea ice extent ranked 5th lowest, at 18% below average.

According to Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S): "The unprecedented temperatures for the time of year observed in September - following a record summer - have broken records by an extraordinary amount. This extreme month has pushed 2023 into the dubious honour of first place - on track to be the warmest year and around 1.4°C above preindustrial average temperatures. Two months out from COP28 – the sense of urgency for ambitious climate action has never been more critical.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Monthly values for NEWPORT up to 05-oct-2023

Total rainfall in millimetres for NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2023	183.2	91.6	188.4	121.1	48.5	77.9	206.8	139.8	142.4	26.1			1225.8
2022	98.8	260.4	67.8	84.0	107.0	148.0	59.2	104.1	97.3	233.9	187.5	154.6	1602.6
2021	225.6	147.6	141.1	45.6	113.5	64.1	59.7	155.6	137.0	265.7	183.3	186.6	1725.4
2020	139.5	342.8	178.2	25.5	54.7	164.5	187.9	137.9	153.4	228.0	206.6	232.7	2051.7
LTA	166.7	126.5	141.2	96.8	94.7	89.7	100.9	132.5	131.5	176.0	170.4	180.2	1607.1

Mean temperature in degrees Celsius for NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2023	6.6	8.0	7.6	9.9	13.3	17.4	14.9	15.8	15.2	14.4			12.1
2022	7.2	7.1	8.0	9.9	12.6	13.8	15.9	16.2	n/a	12.2	9.4	5.2	10.7
2021	5.0	6.7	7.9	9.0	10.4	13.3	17.5	16.4	15.2	11.9	9.3	7.6	10.9
2020	7.2	6.0	6.6	11.0	12.8	13.8	14.4	16.0	13.8	10.5	9.1	6.1	10.6
LTA	6.1	6.1	7.3	9.0	11.5	13.8	15.4	15.4	13.5	10.8	8.3	6.5	10.3

Mean 10cm soil temperature for NEWPORT at 0900 UTC

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2023	5.2	6.8	6.6	9.1	13.7	18.6	16.3	16.3	14.7	n/a			12.0
2022	6.2	6.2	6.3	9.3	13.2	14.8	16.8	16.6	n/a	11.5	8.4	4.4	10.4
2021	3.6	5.0	6.8	8.2	10.9	14.3	17.9	16.3	15.2	11.3	8.6	6.6	10.4
2020	5.7	4.7	5.4	9.7	13.0	14.8	14.9	16.3	13.7	9.5	8.0	5.1	10.1
LTA	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a

Global Solar Radiation in Joules/cm2 for NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2023	6245	10639	21429	37277	55732	58473	41797	36857	29338	3819			301606
2022	6311	10756	33399	40555	51569	47246	48439	51169	n/a	15988	7869	6167	319468
2021	6620	13347	20370	45694	55690	45488	49455	40490	22413	16358	7235	3780	326940
2020	6263	10808	24545	46192	58476	43537	40215	40555	25558	18487	6319	5209	326164
LTA	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a

Potential Evapotranspiration (mm) for NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2023	14.3	20.9	33.0	56.4	83.3	100.6	70.1	64.4	50.1	5.9			499.0
2022	13.7	23.0	47.2	60.6	77.7	76.0	80.4	82.0	n/a	27.2	17.2	9.2	514.2
2021	7.6	22.9	30.7	62.9	76.3	70.7	87.8	67.5	38.3	25.1	14.1	14.6	518.5
2020	17.6	21.9	35.0	70.2	91.6	72.9	66.2	66.4	42.7	28.1	13.6	10.4	536.6
LTA	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a

Evaporation (mm) for NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2023	18.8	28.2	47.6	81.6	118.2	137.1	99.5	89.1	67.8	8.4			696.3
2022	17.9	32.4	66.5	86.8	114.5	109.2	111.1	113.2	n/a	37.0	22.0	11.4	722.0
2021	10.9	32.1	45.4	89.9	111.2	102.0	117.2	93.5	52.1	34.7	18.6	19.1	726.7
2020	22.4	31.9	51.8	98.9	130.8	104.8	94.3	92.7	59.1	38.8	18.1	13.6	757.2
LTA	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a

Degree Days Below 15.5 Degree Celsius for NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Total
2023	275	210	246	171	85	18	39	26	53	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
2022	256	234	235	171	97	63	30	28	N/A	103	185	320	N/A
2021	325	247	236	200	167	79	20	23	40	114	187	245	1883
2020	257	276	275	143	111	73	55	31	71	156	193	291	1935

---

Notes on the Data

Evaporation and PE data are calculated using Penman/Monteith formulae.
The ‘LTA’ (referred to within a table) is average for the climatological long-term-average (LTA) reference period 1981-2010.
Data updated daily at Mid-day.

September Weather Statement from Met Eireann