Buds are getting bigger

Pinot Noir

Albarino

Chardonnay getting started?

Solaris

Rondo

 

But there's no real sign of life just yet. Meanwhile, the one in the polytunnel is in full leaf and stretching already. Big difference. 

Genetic analysis pinpoints origins of viticulture

If grapes came to Europe in the neolithic period, they must have come with the farming communities of Ceide Fields. Not that they would have survived for 11,000 years, but there might be some progeny around.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add8655 

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adg6617

The worst case for California

 

If things couldn't get worse for Californians, first massive drought, then flooding rains, now blizzards. When will the pestilence arrive? 

Buds forming

 

I did an edit of the vine pruning today. Found a few things to remove that I was cautious about before. And I noticed that the mild wet weather has brought on bud development on the Solaris and Chardonnay vines. The Pinot Noir and Albarino are still dormant and I didn't check the Rondo.

Everything else is growing, too. The grass needs mowing, the fruit trees are coming to life. Good thing we pruned them last week. 

There was a beautiful rainbow yesterday and the tides have been extraordinarily high this week. But the weather has now improved which means getting caught up in the garden before it really takes off. 

12,000 bottles of wine dug out of the silt

New Zealand crews are assessing the damage after cyclone Gabrielle. In some places, they face total loss as hundreds of hectares of land are under many meters of silt brought in by the flooding. Many are blaming the extensive monoculture forestry for the landslides. 

In other places, wineries are digging to reach bottles of wine now stuck underneath the silt, meters of it. The bottles have gone for testing, and hopefully auction as the wine was not insured. The silt and slash have left many roads to vineyards and wineries unpassable. 

When I drove around NZ, even in good weather there are landslides that cut off roads. I had to wait for hours in one remote region for bulldozers to clear a lane covered in mud and pine trees. To go back would have taken many hours and there was no alternative route. In some places, cars shared bridges with trains, which was another experience altogether. But if those bridges were taken out, it will take weeks if not months to rebuild. 

People from the hard-hit Esk Valley are being evacuated as heavy rains approach. Heavy rain is expected in cyclone-hit Gisborne, Hawke's Bay, and Coromandel Peninsula overnight. Heavy rain and thunderstorms are causing flooding around Auckland and Northland. If this isn't an impact from climate change, then what is it?  

Meanwhile, North America is experiencing record snowfalls in half the country, whereas the other half is reporting record-high temperatures. Go figure! 

Devastation in New Zealand

The devastation was evident on the North Island in New Zealand after cyclone Gabrielle tore through last week, with flooding and mudslides wreaking havoc in two wine-producing regions. Wine producers in the Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne regions of New Zealand face power cuts and water shortages as they prepare for the 2023 harvest in the cyclone-ravaged regions, this after weeks of flooding due to heavy rains at the end of January. 

MetService described Cyclone Gabrielle as one of the worst storms to hit New Zealand in living history. Hawkes Bay received three times the amount of rain in one night than it usually would during the whole month of February. Many vines were completely submerged during the cyclone, just weeks before the start of the grape harvest. The extent of the damage won’t be known for some time, with communications and access to some vineyards still cut off by high waters and landslides. It could take weeks to get power and communications back up and running. 

Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne are New Zealand’s second- and third-largest wine-producing regions respectively, yielding a combined 60,000 tonnes in 2022 and accounting for 12% of the vintage.

20 wines under $20

In an interesting article in the New York Times, a wine critic chooses 20 unusual wines that provide interest and great value at less than $20. Among them are several made from unusual varietals. I have been noticing that people are experimenting and doing very interesting things with wines that don't fit the AOCs. They are even buying vineyards that are outside regulated regions where winemaking is precisely controlled so they can try out all kinds of different things. Biodynamics, sustainable organic farming, no additives, different mixes, unknown varietals. How exciting!

There are wines from Virginia, Macedonia, Austria, Catalonia and even France highlighted. There's one Malbec from the Uco Valley that we must try - Altos Las Hormigas. There's a white rioja from Muga that sounds divine. None of these are mass-produced. Some are made from grapes growing on 100-year-old vines, others are made from ancient varieties that have not been favoured by winemakers for centuries. 

There is even a wine made from high-quality trebbiano Abruzzese grapes grown on overhead trellises, Jasci Trebbiano d’Abruzzo 2021. "The grapes are farmed organically and trained on overhead pergolas, a traditional method that many have rejected as out of date, though some thoughtful producers are finding that older generations might have had excellent reasons to prefer it. The wine is clear, pure, textured and refreshing."

I am glad people are getting creative. This whole notion of controlled regions where no one can venture outside the box is unnerving to me. It means there may be room for us to experiment as well.