Frost Damage

As I'd feared when I posted about the early budbreak a week or so ago, we got a frost Sunday night.  And not a little one, either.  It got down to 27 degrees at the weather station in the center of the vineyard, which means that the coldest spots were a couple of degrees colder than that.  Fortunately, much of the vineyard wasn't out yet, but we did see some damage in all the sections of the vineyard that had sprouted.  Even the tops of the hills, which normally avoid our radiation frosts, saw some damage.  A photo of some Grenache vines shows the quirky nature of frost damage.  One sprout can be frozen while another a few inches away is fine:

Overall, we'd classify this as having a mild to moderate impact.  We'll see some effects from this throughout the growing season, but it doesn't look like it will seriously cut down either on production or on the quality of the growing season this year.

Of course, we still have over a month to go before we can relax... but we look pretty safe this week, with rain forecast for tomorrow and then a warming trend for the rest of the week.