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Weather & Climate

A collection of 284 issues

Harvest, weeks of October 6th and 13th: Lignification, Whole Cluster Fermentation and a Yield Assessment

We've had two busy weeks of harvest surrounding last weekend's cold snap. Before the freeze, we pushed to bring in the last of our Marsanne, Syrah and Grenache Blanc, our Picpoul, the bulk of our Grenache, and a significant chunk of our Roussanne. We figured that

Cold, Cold, Cold: A Harvest Freeze in Paso Robles

Until now, harvest 2008 has been proceeding under nearly ideal conditions. Daytime highs have been in the 80s, lows in the 40s, and the grapes are ripening beautifully. Enter this weekend. A cold, dry arctic low dropped down into California about six weeks earlier than normal, and we have seen

Harvest, Weeks of September 22nd and 29th

After what seemed like weeks of waiting, all of a sudden most of the vineyard is ready to pick. Last week, we focused on whites and picked the rest of the Viognier, most of the rest of the Grenache Blanc, and the Picpoul Blanc (we also picked the first of

Animated satellite images of Paso Robles morning fog retreating up the Salinas River Valley

We've been in the midst of a glorious weather pattern for most of the last three weeks. These days begin with fog in the mornings in Paso Robles where I live (though usually not at the vineyard) and nighttime temperatures in the mid-40s. The fog burns off by

Veraison 2008 Photos of Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre and Counoise

We're seeing veraison in most of our red varieties. Our timing is nearly identical to last year, when I wrote my post on Veraison on July 27th. Veraison (sometimes anglicized to verasion and pronounced vuh-rey-zhun) is the time of year when berries stop increasing in size and refocus

July Vineyard Photo Album

After a couple of weeks of seasonably warm weather (days in the 90s or low 100s and nights in the 50s) we had a break in the heat from a cut-off low and a resulting deep marine layer. Sunday and Monday we had fog in the morning, breezy, cool days

An excellent beginning to the growing season, strange smoky weather notwithstanding

With two big fires burning to the north of us in Monterey County over the last few weeks, including the Indians Fire that has burned nearly 60,000 acres in three weeks and the Gallery Fire (just south of Big Sur) that has burned over 13,000 acres since Saturday,

A bullet dodged: only minor vineyard damage from a serious California-wide frost event

California was badly zapped last week by a deep trough of cold air that spread south from Canada and brought freezing nights from Mendocino to Santa Barbara. The perils presented by this frost were made more severe by the fact that it followed a week of unusually warm weather, where

Frost Damage

As I'd feared when I posted about the early budbreak a week or so ago, we got a frost Sunday night. And not a little one, either. It got down to 27 degrees at the weather station in the center of the vineyard, which means that the coldest

Budbreak is terrifying (but hopeful)

With the recent warm weather, we're starting to see budbreak in our earlier-sprouting varietals, particularly Viognier and Grenache. A Grenache vine pushes, below: As usual, we're seeing earlier budbread at the tops of the hills, which are less often frosted because the cold air slumps down