A foggy reprieve
Cooler weather provides welcome pause to hectic grape harvest; heat expected to return by weekend
Cooler temperatures and morning fog are giving grape growers a little break in this season’s sprint to harvest.
“It’s maybe slowed. It hasn’t brought anything to a screeching halt, but we can play catch-up,” said Saralee Kunde, whose family vineyard is in the Russian River area.
“We love the fog. We’ve got a little lull right now,” said Dennis De La Montanya, a Healdsburg winery owner. “But we’ll be back at it,” he said, noting expected warmer days later in the week; temperatures are expected to return to the 90s by Saturday in some North Bay locations.
But Tuesday, overcast skies remained throughout the day, bringing unseasonably cool temperatures to the region, including a high of only 63 in Santa Rosa, nearly 40 degrees cooler than last week’s hot spell.
“What a difference the marine layer makes,” said meteorologist Brian Tentinger of the National Weather Service.
Tuesday was expected to be the coolest day of the week, with fog forecast to lessen gradually as the week progresses. Temperatures are expected to reach 78 degrees in Santa Rosa today, rising toward the 80s and 90s this weekend.
A dry spring, frost and hot, windy weather have combined to create a lighter grape crop this year and an earlier harvest than usual.
It also caused a hectic hustle in last week’s heat to bring in grapes, with some red grapes being picked alongside many of the whites in some vineyards.
George Rose of Kendall-Jackson Winery said they are 8 percent through harvesting 4,000 acres in the Alexander Valley and on the hillside vineyards near The Geysers.
“The heat spooked us a little bit, but with the fog moving in we are moving back to normal,” Rose said.
“Yesterday we picked merlot and cabernet, a little zin from Alexander Valley; almost all the sauvignon blanc is in. Chardonnay is beginning to trickle in. Multiple grape varieties seem to be ripening at the same time,” Rose said Tuesday.
Kunde said workers there are 25 to 30 percent of the way through harvesting 400 acres.
“The weather is so nice, yesterday and today was nice for the night picks, it was cool for the nighttime, but I don’t think it will slow anything way down,” Kunde said.
De La Montanya estimated he’s about 60 percent in, with most of his red and late harvest wine grapes in the Alexander and Dry Creek valleys left to go.
He expected to have his harvest completed by late September.
“I don’t recall being done before the end of October,” he said.
Sonoma County’s harvest is now probably more than 10 percent complete, and perhaps 15 percent or more, said Nick Frey, president of the Sonoma County Wine Grape Commission.
Most white grapes from the warmer Alexander and Dry Creek valleys are off the vine, but plenty are still hanging in places, like in the cooler Russian River area, Frey said.
The return of the fog is a good thing, but it won’t slow things down much, Frey said.
“Last week was a big week obviously, and this week will continue to be a big week even though we got some relief,” he said.
In Mendocino County, the harvest is also about 10 percent finished, with sauvignon blanc and chardonnay being harvested at the same time, said Tony Linegar, assistant agricultural commissioner.
Following weeks of warm weather, Tuesday’s fog completely socked in the Ukiah Valley, he said.
That’s good because the cooler temperatures keep acid levels in the grapes from dropping too quickly. But if it hangs around too long, the moisture could pose mildew problems down the road, Linegar said.
When added to the frost damage, high winds and heat spikes, the last thing grape growers want to battle now is mildew rotting the clusters before they can harvest them.
“It’s been a really crazy year,” Linegar said. “I think growers are going to be happy to put this one behind them.”