2011 East Coast Weather and Vintage Thread

Well, let’s see where this goes. Post here for anything relating to wine farming east of the Mississippi.

Cold here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, 20’s over night. Ground frozen down about eight inches. Inch of snow predicted for tomorrow. Rough pruning is complete and have just started fine pruning young plantings.

Back prunning again after a trip north into New England. 3rd leaf vines are done and one more acre to go with our 4th leaf vines. These are all head pruned at about a foot and a half off the ground, so knees really get a workout. Up next are our 15 year old plantings where the fruiting wire is a comfortable 3 feet high.

While on holiday, had lunch at the CIA in Hudson Valley where we enjoyed two lovely New York wines, a Chardonnay, sorry can’t remember the Long Island producer and a Millbrook Tocai Fruilano. Then lots of Vermont raw cheese, milk and maple syrup and New Hampshire beer, very good, and a 2005 Newton Unfiltered Merlot, also wonderful.

Nice to see the updates of Glen Manor Jeff, keep it up. Guess you are getting ready to start the Hodder Hill vines by the description, always my favorite of your line up.

COLD in the east! 2 F this morning in the Lancaster Valley, Pennsylvania. The coldest temps here in six years! 13 F here at lunchtime with brilliant sunshine!

Going up to about 70 here today.

The coldest it’s been here this year is 12 degrees F. I’m hoping for a few nights below 5F to kill any Pierce’s disease causing bacteria that may have infected some of my vines.

Up to a foot of snow expected today in the region and we happen to be in the bullseye for the heaviest. Barrel work today, plowing tomorrow.

We’re ‘only’ expecting 8 inches here in S.E. Pa.

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Got a foot as forecasted. Semi with bottles coming Friday.

Victor, Nice upholstered patio furniture.

12-14 inches here just West of Philly.

Jeff - I know this isn’t weather related, but are you having stink bug issues?

I have in-laws in Loudon County who have problems (though they grow vegetables and Christmas trees and have avoided my prodding to plant grapes).

No problems yet in the vineyards but we do look and smell for them on the sorting tables, finding a few, Asian Lady bugs too. My stink bug problem is in my home. They came in last fall and continue each day to crawl out of the woodworks. Thousands came in, most got sucked up into the shop vac but now we see about 20 a day. I learned the hard way to inspect my coffee pot in the morning, before brewing.

It sounds funny even though it is anything but, but those things are a nightmare and especially as they can hide in the clusters.

We were at Hawk Mountain in early October and the place (as well as where we were staying) was crawling with them. All over the place. But the scary thing was that two weeks later I opened the closet to pull out a jacket and one of these fuckers, still alive, was crawling on it. Then in early November, while driving back from Montreal, another one started crawling up the inside of my windshield (I pulled into a gas station and flushed it). It gave me a whole new appreciation for the sniffer-dogs at the airport and the guys looking for fresh food at the border crossing - even as it also made me appreciate there is no way to stop something like this from spreading.

The monster snow storm is going to miss us, just an inch of rain tonight. Look out and good luck Pennsylvania and New York.

Public Service Announcement: The Mayor’s Office has granted all rats and roaches the option to telecommute to work today.

Quick, just in for lunch. After being brutalized all day yesterday in high winds, today is a glorious day to be out pruning. 35, sunny and no wind.

Jeff, you’re in a banana belt down in Virginia. Down to 10 F this morning and 27 F at 1 PM. Winds still 10 MPH in Lancaster, PA.

50s here next week. Warm enough to start wraping and tying some, 45K, canes.

Saw large flocks of Canada geese heading north yesterday about a month earlier than last year.