You don’t need to wend your way around the northern California wine country on a wine tour to know that the area has seen a dearth of precipitation this winter. It’s been the biggest news story for the area, the state, the nation and that story has seeped out into the world headlines over the last few months given the potential devastation that the drought could wager against the year’s Sonoma County and Napa County grape crop and wine production.
But this week’s rains have allowed many to breathe a sign of some relief. The rains have been almost non-existent this fall and winter when the rains usually come, that the precipitation that did arrive was inevitably bound to come up short on what was needed. This week’s offering, while significant, won’t restore the aquifer, the reservoirs, lakes and ponds, the soil, or people’s confidence that all is right in the wine country.
The low water levels have been a cause for concern not for what most might imagine - irrigation, but rather for use as a defender against frost. Vineyards spray the crops and soak the grape bunches the night of an impending frost so that a shield of protective ice on the outside of the grape prevents the juice inside the grape from freezing and damaging the quality of the crop. This is often prevalent well into March and can devastate a lot of the crops with one quick frost as was the case during 2007. If the growers don’t have the water reserves, they don’t have the protection they need and that has meant that all of the growers and wineries have been preoccupied with rainfall. This becomes a late winter and early spring concern once there has been a bud break and the fruits are exposed. After that point if a late frost comes into Sonoma Valley and Napa Valley, growers must respond with their protective measures. During a normal year a grower will resort to frost protection a dozen times. But last year was an exception, when such was necessary more than twice that amount.
More rain is expected late this weekend and into the early part of the week, so the current optimism is that the combination of the separate events will carry the wineries toward a successful year so that the wine toursdon’t add to their tour monologs anything about the devastating drought of the 2009 grape harvest.
