2010 West Coast Weather and Vintage Thread

I guess I’ll start it off!

We’ve finally been enjoying lots of rain. Out here at Lake Nacimiento, which is a little north of Paso Robles, we’ve had 20" of rain through March 5th, as opposed to a total of 9" this time last year. The lake has gone from an almost dry 9% capacity to 58% of capacity. And water continues to run off from the wet soils in the surrounding hills. I was getting a little scared to see what might be at the bottom of lake …

Expecting more rain this coming week.

Technically, can’t too much rain be a bad thing? I assume that too much would result in an abundance of diluted fruit or am I just crazy?

In the Willamette Valley:

Daffodils - 2 weeks early
Ornamental trees including redbuds and flowering cherries - 3 weeks early
Magnolia trees - 3 weeks early
Tulips - tough to tell because they’re not in bloom yet, but at least 3 weeks ahead of schedule
Grapevines - can’t tell yet, but likely a very early budbreak (normally mid-April), bringing the chance of a late freeze damaging the vines

timing is everything. Dilution might happen if there’s rain close to harvest. Right now the vines are dormant, not even growing.

Even in poorly drained soils, as Steve said, it’s still too early to worry about dilution. The bigger risk from heavy rains this time of year is erosion. If it’s still raining a lot in May and June it can wreck havoc on flowering and lead to poor and/or uneven set; if later in the season then that it can cause a lot of fungal pressure and obviously dilution…

We are way ahead of normal across WA state. Here in Western Washington we already have Daffodils and cherry trees blooming about 2-4 weeks earlier than normal. It should make for an early bud break and long growing year…

Mary, don’t let me derail this, but thank you SO much for starting all these vintage threads!

BTW. Nice job derailing the vintage thread…!

I have Sangiovese at pencil eraser stage. Everything else pretty darn tight. We’re behind on wildflowers etc unlike WA. Looking forward to some serious rain over the next 5 days.

Southern Santa Clara County is about 30% more rain than all of last season so far, 20in vs 15, (we got about 10 in of that in a week in Jan)

We’ve got Whites in leaf and Zinfandel budded out the Cab still looks near dormant. Orchard’s been blooming for weeks and the Daffodils are done. Poppies getting into bloom and the Cover Crop Mustard is just starting to bloom.

After a warm and dry first half of March, we’re back to more normal weather up here in Oregon. We’re still about 3 inches short of normal for the calendar year, primarily due to a warmer/drier than normal February and early March.

I was at Marshall and Carolyn Manning’s for their annual March Magnum Madness party on Saturday. They have a micro-vineyard of Gruner Veltliner (17 vines) and they have bud break.

After some really warm weather so far this year, we are now below normal temperatures here in WA state. I had bud break on my Chardonnay last week here in Woodinville and the Pinot is still at wooly bud stage. Now with the cold showery weather, I think things will slow down for a while. We are still 1-2 weeks ahead of schedule.

FWIW, Mike Pechner of KCBS forecasts a hard freeze Friday morning for Marin, Sonoma, Napa and Solano counties. The weather.com forecast shows nothing like this.

We’ve got yellow and pink leaves emerging on Syrah and Zin. This is crazy early for us. Hopefully the rain and clouds hang in there through the next month or so.

Exciting, but a little scary.

We had just about every kind of weather today, with high winds, heavy rain and hail. I’m so sorry for the pear growers in our area with the trees blooming during all of this. Hail really sucks on those blossoms.

Sure could have a helluva frost event with all of this cold air.

Looks like the snow just missed us last night. I can see it up at about 2200 feet on the hills above the vineyard. Its 33 out there right now, with some scattered high clouds and fog. I’d think the next 48 hours are gonna be tricky for frost depending on clearing, winds and cloud cover. 85% of my stuff is still tight, so I could handle a frost now, but I know most of everyone else is now exposed. Good luck everyone!

We’ve got good growth at home:

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The chardonnay at Chaine d’Or is out about 2-4 inches. Cab is still asleep everywhere except the ‘Church Vineyard’. As is normal, I’m freaking out now about spraying between the rains.

Great looking stuff. You can taste to see how ripe things are while sitting in the hot tub!

This year I’m going to shoot a turket from my tub!

Casey - the picture I have up here is one of me telling the story of smacking the hell out of a mockingbird who had gotten into my nets in the back yard. I’d have shot him, but you know my neighbors are closer than yours.