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Weather & Climate

A collection of 284 issues

Veraison 2015 Suggests an Early September Start to Harvest

Although we've been distracted by the more unusual occurrence of last weekend's summer rainstorm, this week also has provided the annual milestone of veraison. Veraison marks the point where the grapes stop accumulating mass and start accumulating sugar (and, more noticeably, change color from green to

Did 2.6" of rain in July really just happen?

Yesterday, we hosted a seminar on dry-farming. In the rain. In Paso Robles. In July. And it wasn't just a little rain, either. As we were talking about how we've been working to plant increasing acres of vines without any irrigation infrastructure, and how we'

State of the Vineyard, Mid-Summer Edition

This has been an unusual summer. We had the warmest late-winter/early-spring anyone can remember. This was followed by the coolest May in 20 years. Then June was hot. July, so far, has been cool, and we've even had (very unusual for summer in Paso Robles) a couple

Photos of the Day (Week? Summer?): Celestial Meetings

The sky put on a show last night. Not only was there a beautiful full moon, but Venus and Jupiter came together in a conjunction that takes place just once per year. And the timing worked: the moon was rising in the east at the same time that the planets

Shatter explained: A perfect flower, but not a perfect bloom

By Levi Glenn Every year there is a one- to two-week period when the vineyard smells wonderful. That's when you know bloom has arrived. It's not the unbelievably effusive smell of an orange grove in full blossom. Or the sweetly intoxicating blue bush lupine, a beautiful

Dry Farming in California's Drought, Part 3: How We Got Here (and Where We Go Next)

I was struck by a quote from Tegan Passalaqua, the winemaker at Turley, in a recent article on JancisRobinson.com. In an interview with Alder Yarrow, Tegan said "In a Mediterranean climate like we have, vertical shoot positioning and 3 by 6 vineyard spacing is basically farming hydroponically"

Dry-Farming in California's Drought, Part 2: Looking Forward to the Past

In the first part of this 3-part series on farming in California's drought, I looked at how our climate here in California differs in crucial ways from that in the Mediterranean, and what lessons we took from these differences in how we would choose to farm. In this

Dry-Farming in California's Drought, Part 1: Understanding California's Only-Sorta-Mediterranean Climate

Over the last few months, it seems like everyone I meet, whether locally or around the country, is wondering how we're doing in what our governor has termed a "historic drought". Many are surprised to hear that while we're watching it warily, we think

Photo Essay: Spring in the Vineyard

This spring continues to be benign. After our scare in early April, we've had three weeks of beautiful weather, with lows between 36° and 45°, and highs between 57° and 82°. The average low has been 39° and the average high 70°: really perfect spring weather. We'

State of the Vineyard, mid-April Edition

Ten days ago, I was convinced that we were going to get clobbered by frost in the aftermath of a cold, wet Pacific storm. All the conditions were in place: an early budbreak, a weather pattern shift, and a powerful late-season cold front with origins in Alaska that was heading