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Weather & Climate

A collection of 288 issues

The most recent atmospheric river was great news for Paso Robles wine country

That last California storm was a doozy. Los Angeles got nearly an entire year's worth of rainfall in one day. The mountains outside Santa Barbara received enough rain that water levels at Lake Cachuma rose more than 5 feet and are now at the spillway. The Sierra Nevada

A welcome, gentle start to the Paso Robles rainy season

What a difference a year makes. This week last year we were in the middle of a three-week stretch where four separate atmospheric river storms slammed into the California Central Coast, totaling nearly 20 inches of rain. That was more than we'd received any of the three previous

The brief, lovely season with the last of the fall colors and the first shoots of green

You can feel the weather changing as we exit November. The dry offshore winds and the extreme diurnal shifts of the early part of the month are just a memory. In its place we've got weak low pressure systems in the Pacific, regular cloud cover overhead, and mornings

2023 Harvest Recap: Late, but Worth the Wait

On Thursday, with the bin of Roussanne pictured below, we completed the 2023 harvest. Well, mostly, at least. We completed the last pick. There's still some of that pick that is sitting on straw in one of our greenhouses, working to get that last little bit of concentration.

Knowing rain is on the way makes our brief, lovely autumn all the more special

It's always a shock when daylight savings ends, and I realize it's already dark as I wrap up my work day. But there are rewards of having the sun set while I'm still at work, not least that I can look out my office

Harvest 2023 update: a deep exhale as warm weather brings the finish line in sight

Three weeks ago we were all pretty nervous. We'd had the coolest September in our history, and not just by a little. High temperatures were more than 7.5°F cooler than average, which on top of the delayed growing season meant that as the calendar flipped to

Harvest Update: After a Record-Cool September, Things Heat Up (Thankfully)

This week, we got our first Grenache off of Jewel Ridge, from an early morning pick. The fruit was lovely, as was the view west over the lines of hills: Even a few days ago, a view like this would have been hard to come by. We've had

A Picture Worth 1,000 Words, 2023 Harvest Edition

This morning I was standing on the crushpad talking to Chelsea. I asked her whether the fermentations had started on the grapes we picked last week. She said that they were just getting going, and mentioned that the plan was to bring the barrels outside so that they could benefit

Harvest 2023 begins. What a difference a year makes!

On Tuesday, we brought in our first two lots, both for Patelin: a little less than seven tons of Viognier from a vineyard called New Creations and a little more than six tons of Syrah from Tofino. Both looked great. Yesterday, we brought in the Pinot Noir from the vineyard

Shatter, sunburn, and millerandage: the challenge of estimating crops in a year like 2023

Exactly one year ago we started the 2022 harvest with four tons of Viognier off the estate. Not this year. Here we're still in such an early stage of veraison that there's a lot more green than red out there in the vineyard. On a positive