Yourhoustonnews.com./- Wine WalkCalifornia is experiencing its worst drought in the last 250 years. Texas has been cooler than normal with nice rains. The north has experienced record-breaking cold temperatures and snows!
What does this mean for grape growing in the USA? Here’s the scoop on what is happening in the vineyards and what to expect.
First, Texas’ cool weather and longer-than-normal winter has delayed “bud break” by weeks if not months. Vines along the Texas Coastal areas are just now budding out which is five weeks later than last year. Hopefully the longer cool period of winter will delay “bud break” an equally longer period in the Texas Hill Country and High Plains.
Last year’s late freezes knocked the quantity of fruit from Texas vineyards, but the quality was great. Expect great Texas wines from 2013, but the supply will be substantially less.
California’s drought and mild winter and caused vineyards to experience “bud break” about six-to-eight-weeks earlier. This has caused serious concern since California has been known to have freezes in April. If this happens, expect a substantially lower quantity of grapes since water used for spray-irrigating vineyards to protect grapes during freezes is in dire short supply. There are cities which will run out of water in California this year. This is a huge concern for most of the wineries throughout the USA since many wineries outside of California, including Texas wineries get their supply of grapes for making wines from California vineyards.
Last year’s bountiful grape harvest could be reduced substantially causing many non-Californian wineries to produce significantly less wine than the prior year.
However, the really bad news is in New York state. The 19 counties in the Finger Lakes grape-growing area were decimated with temperatures below negative 15 degrees which is the threshold at which grape vines will not survive. The USDA has declared that northern region of the fifth largest wine-producing area in the USA to be a disaster area. Numerous vineyards were reported to be completely wiped out. Since it was declared a disaster, federal assistance is available, but it takes about three to four years to get a vineyard to the point where it can produce quality grapes. One of the big problems is that many vineyards cannot be planted this year due to a shortage of grape vines suitable for planting in that part of the northern USA.
I predict there will be significant shortages of American wines. Those shortages will be made up with increased imports from Chile, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand. Let us hope for continued mild weather in California, but this drought will have serious vineyard consequences! Time will tell of what the actual magnitude of impacts will be.