Californian winemakers upbeat thanks to heavy winter rains
Winter rains have pulled Californian winemakers back from the brink of disaster, after five years of record low rainfall.
Between three to five inches of rain in October and November, growing heavier as the months went by, with extremely heavy rain in January and February have resulted in the ground being saturated.
“It’s been wonderful,” Jason Haas of Tablas Creek Vineyard in Adelaida, Paso Robles told the Los Angeles Times. “The well levels are better than they’ve been in half a decade. Creeks are running, the reservoirs are nearly full; springs are welling up on our hillsides that we don’t remember seeing for many years.”
Hass is optimistic that the acquifiers, from which the area’s irrigation system gets its water, are being replenished. However, in the Central Coast, some producers point out that their rainfall totals have been small compared with the torrential rain of the North Coast, in Napa and Sonoma.
“The perception is that the drought has ended, but that hasn’t been the case for us,’ said Nicholas Miller whose family owns three large Central Coast vineyards, including Bien Nacido and French Camp. “It’s been a great winter but we didn’t really get the capacity we needed.”
A year ago, the water level at the Cachuma Reservoir was only at 8% capacity,which Miller described as an “unbelievable crisis”. Now it stands at 48%, which is a reprieve, but still below where grape growers and other farmers would like it to be.
Other immediate benefits of the heavy rain, other than the hydrating effect include healthier less compact soils, with better structure, and nutrient chemistry, and best of all less saline.
“There are carbonates, sulfates and chlorides in irrigation water which build up in the soil during periods of drought,” pointed out Peter Cargasachi of Cargasachi Vineyard in the Sta. Rita Hills.
The heavy rain will result in more vigorous shoot and leaf growth, which can lead to imbalance in the vine unless the growth is kept in check and the plant’s energy directed towards fruit production. And clusters will inevitably be larger and less concentrated.
Another benefit of the rainfall is that it’s set back a growing season that has been routinely early during the years of drought.