Katarina's Blog

The amount of rain and how well it stays in the soil as well as how much sun the grapes get, all impact the flavor of the wine. After a rainy winter the season is just getting started with bud break and both past, present and future weather will impact the flavor of 2019 wines.

What about all this rain the past months and your vines? That is a question I have been getting a lot lately. Since October we have had 68 inches of rain, which is over 50% more than our normal rainfall. As a matter of fact northern California is now officially drought free. But there are also consequences such as erosion and damaged vines.

Harvest is over and it was a fast and furious one this year. It started earlier than ever and we were done with Cabernet Sauvignon at the end of September which is record early. Now we are waiting to see what El Nino will bring. But before that we have the fun "Wine and Food Affair" festival and we are introducing a new wine and a special recipe to go along.

We had no rain for 8 months. I really started worrying in January since it is a month when we usually get only a few glimpses of the sun after weeks and weeks of downpour. A couple of weeks ago we had not seen real rain since before summer.

To farm is to worry they say. At least it is to be obsessed by weather. These days it is even worse since you can be obsessed not just with the real weather but you can live through a number of different virtual realities until the real weather hits. You can follow the weather forecast weeks in advance and see how the percentage chance for various outcomes change.