NEWS
CRAZY GOOD O
If pressure and heat are required to make a diamond, 2017 is a real gem. By Rob Davis
ften I am asked how one vintage compares itself to another. But just like the offspring in a family, each child is different, and that is definitely the case with the 2017 growing season. Winemakers and winegrowers find
descriptors, such as “challenging,” “unique” or “Mother Nature at her best,” but this year, without exception, the word used time and time again was “crazy.” So many records were broken this year, as noted in my welcome letter on page 7. But if “crazy” was the collective sigh, this season was also met with mutual admiration by all on how resilient grapevines can demonstrate their beauty under considerable adversity.
Like returning to one’s time zone after a long international flight, spring 2017 was a return to normalcy. Five years of drought came to an end. Reservoirs were full. The water table had recovered. And what was really nice to see was the arrival of budbreak in mid-March (not February). Finally Mother Nature, dare I say it, was behaving normally again.
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Cover crop was knee-deep due to all the moisture in the ground. Tractors actually had to wait until the soil dried up enough to mow the high grass between vineyard rows.
April showers were plentiful, and half-way through spring, May flowering of the grapevines began—three weeks later than the last few vintages. So far so good. Bloom conditions were normal with some light wind, allowing an average-sized crop of grape clusters to form on Russian River Valley chardonnay. And in Alexander Valley, malbec, merlot and petit verdot were beginning to flower. Unseasonable rain returned toward the end of May when later maturing cabernet sauvignon grapes were still flowering, which caused some shatter on the clusters.
But then, like lightning striking a house, the weather jolted us awake with an abrupt shift. Three heat spikes hit Sonoma County in June and July, bringing hot days with temperatures either in the mid-90s or well above 100. News reports called it the worst heat wave in a decade. Over Father’s Day weekend, clusters were seizing up, and
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