I was having a funny email exchange today with Tor Kenward, an old friend who makes wine in Napa Valley. He was saying how the harvest in Napa is a little over a week late still, but the recent warm weather was moving things forward.
I was thinking how far behind Paso Robles was when I was there about a week ago. Many of the grapes had not changed color, nor had they gone through veraison, as they say. The harvest was clearly behind in California’s Central Coast.
Meanwhile, the harvest in many parts of Italy, such as Tuscany, is just about over. Bordeaux is busy harvesting, as is most of the rest of Europe. I know that many Italian wine producers were struggling with this year’s huge heat spikes, with afternoon temperatures in late August reaching close to 110 Fahrenheit. Most serious wine producers had to cut away dried out grapes. Hydraulic stress was everywhere.
It sounds like the jammy 2003 harvest for Italy, but many producers say that the cool nights for most of the summer have made it different. Bordeaux is another story due to the wet weather during the later part of the growing season.
But then there’s my old friend Tor. He hasn’t even started harvesting yet.
I wrote him and told him how strange the wine grape growing seasons seem to be around the world now. And I wrote how Europe looks like the warm growing region now, with California the cool climate.
“I guess they found a bottle with a genie and asked for a California year,” he said.
We joked that maybe he will have to move to England or Greenland in the future to make wines, with his warm weather winemaking experience.
I added that he might fit in very well in Greenland making his Cabernet and Chardonnay…lots of Tors in Greenland, just not many winemakers yet.
