The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (and other stories) - the tale of 2007
After a week of temperatures plummeting to below freezing point, it reached its apogee on Sunday the 22nd of October, when the mercury dropped to -6°C. Between 11pm and 8am, the temperature never climbed above -2°C. The effect on the vines was immediate, with buds, shoots and leaves all suffering the same burning fate.
Our assessment indicated losses in region of 90%. At this stage, I will point out that we could see this happening. Low rainfalls had persisted through winter and spring. August and September were very mild, and budburst early. Through this knowledge, and a devastating experience with hail in 2002, we had elected to take out crop insurance that included frost damage. Cold comfort (pardon the expression), when the assessor tells you that the loss is 100%. I believe that this is also called good management, not luck. I am yet to here of another grower in the valley being insured, which I find surprising. Bear in mind here, that only the crop was insured, some $120,000 of grapes. The real loss was $750,000 of wine. So we got to cover the cost of running the vineyard, but we're looking at having significantly less wine to sell. I'd like to think that the response from the region was mature and considered. There certainly didn't appear to be anyone going around, holus-bolus with cheque books offering crazy prices for grapes. Some of the larger companies, quite sensibly, looked outside of the region as an immediate response, and were able to purchase grapes. I think that this was sanguine acceptance of the widespread damage to all local growers, so no issues of "woe is we", this was part of agricultural risk - wear it and move on. For me, over a period of several weeks, I was able to contact and negotiate to purchase supplementary fruit from a number of vineyards. Usually this information was passed on from others, who had heard of our plight. A tractor driver found us a 30 year old, unirrigated chardonnay vineyard with the best looking fruit I have seen in years. Only a few tonnes, but excellent quality.
In another instance, a neighbouring grower/producers did offer to sell fruit from his vineyard as he believed at the time that he had a few extra tonnes over his requirements. The drought took care of the surplus tonnes as the season progressed. And only one grower got greedy, but it's all swings and roundabouts. As a postscript, we are still fighting the insurance company for the total amount of the insurance. After the assessment, we stripped the entire vineyard back by hand, fertilised and watered heavily to promote an even secondary budburst. This was done primarily for sake of canopy architecture for V2008. We did end up harvesting some of the varieties, although most were sub-economic to pick, and the quality was low. The total tonnes were about 15% of the normal crop, and based on general bud fruitfulness, would indicate that these were the tertiary buds. The insurance company are saying that we have, in fact, secured 15% of the crop, therefore the assessment was wrong, and we should receive only 85% of the insurance monies. What an absolute rort, as this is an entirely different crop to the one destroyed by frost. So, no matter how low you think you can sink to the floor, there will always be somebody prepared to give you another slippering for good measure.
As for next season, it really depends on how well we are able to prune this winter. Canes are short and skinny, so accurate selection will be the key. Generally, we feel that the plants are carbohydrate depleted from the additional demands we have placed on the plants this year, (through secondary bud burst). Our expectation for 2008 at this stage is for a high bunch counts (bud dissections look very promising), and low bunch weights. That usually spells high quality. So let's look to the silver lining, and move past V2007 as quickly as possible.
David Bicknell June 2007