Spring Freezes a Threat to Wineries

Mark Neal eased the Ford Expedition along the rutted path, surveying the carnage like a despairing general who has watched his boys take another whipping.

In Neal’s eyes, this verdant landscape in the heart of Napa Valley’s wine country is indeed a battlefield, a place where many of his beloved grapevines have literally been nipped in the bud.

“Look, this one’s totally toasted,” Neal said, holding deadened sauvignon blanc buds gently between his fingers. Dressed in blue jeans and a hunting jacket, he sadly surveyed the solitary growing field. “This whole row is nuked to the max. It’s just terrible to see.”

On the hillsides and lowlands, rows of metal trellises support drooping vines attacked by an overnight killer: black frost, the result of plummeting temperatures and low humidity.

Many of Neal’s infant shoots and budding grape clusters have been freeze-dried, their expensive fruit blackened and wrinkled as though torched by fire.

For vineyard managers such as Neal, April and May are often the cruelest months as unpredictable freezes take their toll, threatening to spoil the year’s upstart crop.

Until frost season abates in early June, the prospect of a vintage year hangs in the balance.

At worst, officials say, losses for the six-county Northern California wine-growing region could hit $100 million--which would represent the most severe frost damage since a killer cold snap swept through the area in the early 1970s.

But like the aging of a hearty cabernet, growers say, assessing frost damage takes time. With recent good weather, secondary shoots are replacing damaged buds on some vines. Though the new clusters are often less fruitful and could delay the harvest for six weeks, growers hope that 2001 could still be a banner year.

All of this in spite of a once-in-a-generation frost that has forced graveyard-shift vigils to protect vulnerable plants that many veteran growers talk about as if they were part of the family.

“When you look at the vines and see this dollhouse-sized, tiny little cluster of grapes where blossoms will come out, your heart just goes out,” said Joy Sterling, whose family owns the Iron Horse winery in Sonoma County. “You say, ‘How can I protect this fragile, little, sweet grape-to-be?’ ”

Growers were ambushed last month by successive nights of subzero temperatures from frigid Alaskan air that hit during the year’s first big surge of vine growth--especially chardonnays and merlots. On cold nights with low humidity, the lack of moisture causes the grape buds to dry out and freeze more quickly--compelling growers to work even faster to save their investments.

With each spring, the annual frost watch becomes more tense, growers say, because the stakes are rising.

California’s $33-billion annual wine industry produces 90% of the nation’s table wines. Nearly 90% of the state’s 470,000 wine-producing acres are north of Monterey County, areas more susceptible to annual frosts.

And with prices for high-end grapes doubling over the last decade--from $1,000 to $2,000 per ton since 1990--the annual drive to protect vines has become a nail-biting gambit that recently saw Neal work 140 hours in one week.

Along with killer frosts, growers fear damaging moisture during spring bloom, untimely fall harvest rains and insect pests such as the glassy-winged sharpshooter. And this season, there is the likelihood that rolling electricity blackouts could cause new problems.

“Growers flirt with disaster each and every year,” said winegrowing consultant Phillip Freese.

Neal, president of a vineyard management company that cultivates 2,000 acres for a dozen wine labels, is often made crazy by the capricious frosts. Like an unpredictable wildfire or tornado, frost can destroy one row of plants and leave the next untouched.

“I take too much pride in making things perfect,” said the 42-year-old Napa County native. “Mother Nature is kicking us in the butt, and I can’t defend my vines. And I take that personally.”

Sterling gets even more personal with her grapes.

The former TV journalist is the author of four books on winegrowing. Her first, “A Cultivated Life,” portrays her family’s fights against frost.

“These are wonderful plants, so giving, but they need our care and protection,” Sterling said in an interview. “There’s so much passion that goes into every bottle of wine that so very few people realize. Spread that care and mothering over 250 acres, and it produces a massive springtime anxiety.”

These days, frost protection has gone high-tech. Sophisticated alarm systems--digital field thermometers with built-in pagers--awaken growers when temperatures dip below a preset point.

Expensive wind machines also pull down the warmer inversion layer of air to mix with and heat the colder currents below.

Spraying water on the vines is another lifesaving technique. The water freezes and encases the buds in ice, maintaining a constant 32 degrees. Splitting hairs with nature, growers know that if the temperature falls just one degree, the buds will freeze.

But Neal and others also worry that spraying too much could deplete wells and leave them without water for the dry summer months to come.

Richard Camera, director of vineyard operations for Napa Valley’s Hess Collection winery, said his company paid a steep price for failing to install frost protection systems. He recalled sitting in the fields after one recent frost, watching his wilted vines. “You just sit there, and you feel drained, deflated, horrible,” he said.

“And it doesn’t go away in a day or two. You drive by and you see this field of priceless product now totally wiped out. And then you feel terrible all over again.”

Gustavo Brambila, general manager of the Peju Province winery in St. Helena, had the opposite problem: Though he spent $200,000 for frost protection, he still suffered big losses.

Said Brambila: “It just shows that you can’t throw money at nature and expect to win.”

Mother Nature isn’t always the worst enemy. One cold night, winemaker Ulysses Lolonis lost power because of a failed fuse--and the utility at first refused to repair the problem until morning.

“I didn’t exactly threaten her,” Lolonis recalled, “but I told the woman on the phone that I had $200,000 worth of grapes freezing on the vine, and that if I lost my business, I’d lose my home as well. She got somebody right out there.”

And Neal knows that the big wind machines that often blow all night are so loud “they’re like a 747 landing in your driveway.” Irked neighbors sometimes sabotage the fans to quiet them, stealing gas and other parts.

While they await word of this spring’s frost damage, growers say they’ve returned to the fields because there’s much work to be done before the cork can be popped on the 2001 vintage.

“All the glamour comes after bottling,” said Sterling. “Up until then, we’re all just farmers.”