It's springtime in the vineyard.  The vines are waking from their winter slumber and pushing out their first shoots. By the end of March our young Grenache vines were the first variety to start the race to fruit production, followed by Petit Verdot.  Each spring the fuzzy buds begin to swell and the first leaves push out. We call that budbreak, which is both variety and vine age sensitive. Young vines tend to break bud first. Varieties such as Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Grenache, and Roussane tend to wake up earlier.  For vineyards that are in the frost danger zones, these details become more important.

Since our Adelaida Springs Ranch estate vineyard is at the headwaters of Jack Creek, with an average elevation of 1700 feet, frost hasn't been much of a concern in the past. This year Mother Nature unleashed a week of bizarre weather that left some vineyards in Paso Robles with significant crop damage for the 2011 vintage. While not unscathed, we are happy to report that our mature vines saw less than 5% damage.  Our young Petit Verdot vines, planted at the lowest elevation, were not as lucky: many buds and new shoots got frosted to a crisp.  Grape vines happen to be very resilient, however. With each bud that produces a shoot, there are 2 dormant vegetative buds that will emerge if primary shoots are damaged.  Although not as fruitful as the original buds, they give the vine a second chance to produce a crop. So we're hopeful for a Petit Verdot comeback.

Although April and May frost pressure in Paso Robles is not uncommon, this was a rare event both in type and severity.  Radiation frost, which is more common, occurs on cold clear nights when the warmth from the ground is lost to the atmosphere and cold air settles in low lying areas. The air a few feet higher in the atmosphere is above freezing, creating a an inversion layer. This is why you often see fans in vineyards, which help stir the warmer air into the lower lying areas. Advection frost can occur at any time of the day, and is the result of cold air rushing into an area and replacing warm air. Advection frost is harder to combat because of the lack of inversion layer. The advection frost that plagued Paso Robles the 1st week of April was caused by thunderstorms, which also delivered several inches of hail in areas of the Adelaida.

It is probably safe to say that we have completed the 2011 rain season with just over 45 inches of rain. Since we are a mountain vineyard with close proximity to the coastal range, we are at the front lines for ocean-born storms. For the second year in a row we have seen above average rainfall, which historically averages around 35 inches, almost triple the average of the Paso Robles airport, just 13 miles northeastward. For the first time since 1983, neighboring Lake Nacimiento was overflowing. This year's rainfall has helped replenish groundwater and created an abundance of rangeland plants. As of the 1st week in May we have mowed our vineyard for the second time (but probably not the last time) of the season. In the next week we will be tilling every other row in our lower blocks to preserve soil moisture in our drier sandstone soils.