Well, the first of many heartburn moments is here.  The vines have woken up and started to push, Spring is here, right?  Wrong.  This week we are looking at frost conditions in Napa and Lake Counties. 

What does that mean for the vines?  In the ideal season, the vines push out after the threat of frost, they grow in mild sunshine days, highs of 80, lows of 60, and then we harvest sometime in late September or early October.   The vines are very optimistic, they assume it will always be an ideal season, so they push out the most fruitful shoots they have first.  They do have a secondary and tertiary shoot waiting in reserve, just in case.

Frost in is the forecast.  This is where we keep an eye on the thermometer to see how cold it gets overnight.  Will it dip low enough and long enough to freeze the primary shoot?  If that happens, the primary (and most fruitful) shoot will drop off, vine will then push out the secondary shoot (not quite as good or fruitful).  And if it turns into a really weird year and we have frost after the secondary shoot has pushed, well, there is the tertiary shoot.  Let’s hope we don’t get to this one.

Since we can’t control the weather, what can we do?  Fortunately we do have a some options to help the vines out.  In the good old days, we used smudge pots.  Essentially diesel heaters placed in the vineyards.  Another option is the use of water; wet ice will insulate the vines at a chilly 32 degrees.  Damage to the vines occurs at 31 degrees, a slim margin of error there.  And the third option is the use of fans.  The idea is to circulate the warmer air above the vineyard down into the vineyard (think ceiling fan in the house).  And Tejada vineyard has a fan.

So when you have your morning cup of coffee, raise a toast to Ibo, who will be up through the night, manning the fan this week.  I know I will!

Cheers
eric