If you’ve been in to the shop in the last month you’ve probably heard me (or someone else) griping about the Summer that wasn’t. It seems cruel to be approaching September knowing that you haven’t seen a 70 degree day in two months. Fortunately around here that just means that I can’t wear shorts to work but just a bit north of us in Wine Country it has real ramifications.
Some growers are definitely a bit concerned about what may be the coolest growing season in forty years or so.
At this time of year grapes should be well into veraison, which is the beginning of the grapes true ripening when they change color, sugars and berry size increase and acids begin to decline. This year many vineyards have only recently entered that phase meaning that the remaining time in which ripening can occur is probably much shorter than usual.
A crude, but useful, measure of the ability of grapes to photosynthesize, and thus ripen, is “degree days”. These measure the the average temperature for the day subtracted by 50F and over a region’s growing season is an indicator of ripeness. Using this measure, in most of the regions north of us the grapes are about two weeks behind normal.
According to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, the average maximum temperature there for July was 75.1 degrees F, more than 7 degrees below the 50-year average. It was also the second lowest temperature average for July since 1960!
Of course the current weather doesn’t mean that the harvest will be horrible just that growers will, among other things, be cluster thinning to help the plants speed up their ripening as well as hoping for a warm, dry October.
A possible upside is that many wineries will produce more balanced versions of wines that have been a bit too big and fat in prior vintages. In fact, at the recent Rutherford Dust Tasting some growers/wineries, who in recent vintages have been toning down the ripeness at which they pick, were pleased with 2010’s grape development.
Over in Sonoma County they’re more worried, especially about the thicker skinned varietals which need more time and heat to fully develop. Just remember that with wine, as with many things, local still matters. It is a huge industry, but it is still agriculture and dependent upon what Mother Nature provides each grapefield.
Thankfully California winemakers know what they’re doing and, although we’ll have to see where things go this year, I’m sure that good wine will still come from 2010.
In the meantime enjoy what we already have in the bottle.
That was fun!
I have to say that our special Pinot Tasting last Friday night (8/6)was a real kick. Not only did the 1961 Louis Latour Burgundy show very nicely after all those years, the Pinots from California, Oregon and France really highlighted some of the differences between the regions.
(the “Mcgyver box my dad delivered old wines in)
The ‘61 was the special event of the evening. A soft brown color with brick colored overtones, it had a nice amount of spice and fruit to the nose, given its age, and the same was true on the palate. It managed to hold up for five decades and still deliver fun for all of us. Admittedly it had a half life of about 20 minutes and was certainly 3/4 gone after 40 but that’s to be expected with such an old Burgundy - especially a simple “Bourgogne” rather than a famous long lasting village such as Gevrey Chambertin.
Everyone who got to enjoy it should say a silent thanks to my father who bought those 3 bottles in 1963. I did the same verbally for all of us and he was tickled that the wine still had life to it.
Among the other wines one could really see that Oregon Pinots can often be more similar to French than to Californian. Although this isn’t always true it certainly was last week. In our tasting order we actually jumped from Burgundy to Oregon to Burgundy and back to Oregon before we went on to the fuller bodied California Pinots tasted. The Oregonian wines showed off nice earthiness and bright acidity that allowed them to blend in with the French representatives.
The two Californian Pinots were definitely more fruit forward but had nuances and charm of their own - just horses of a different color.
All in all, lot’s of fun.
Thanks for coming (or reading)!