Cold weather affects local wineries

By Alexandra Latremouille

Staff writer

 

The winter weather is concerning winemakers in Windsor and Essex County, but the possible extent of the damage to their crops has not been determined.

Like last year, the extreme cold is potentially affecting vine growth and destroying buds. However, local growers will not know exactly how much damage is occurring until early March.

The president of Sprucewood Estate Winery said although this is not the coldest year they have experienced, it is still potentially deadly to their crops.

“Last year was colder, almost down to negative 25,” said Stephen Mitchell. “This killed all of our buds and was taxing on the plants…[A crew from Niagara] suspects there’s bud damage this year. The other concern is that there’s trunk damage. In either case, we’d have to re-grow the crops.”

A report by Washington State University states different vines have varying thresholds for the cold. Those used by the 17 wineries in Windsor and Essex experience 10 per cent bud damage between -5 C and -11 C.

One of the owners of Colchester Ridge Estate Winery said they use surface-mounted fans to keep their plants healthy. However, they are not always effective.

“(These are) critical temperatures for when we have to turn the fan on — because that will push the convection layer down — is -19.5 degrees centigrade,” said Nancy Gorski. “But based on how cold it got in one of the areas of the vines — it actually got down to -24.5 C with the fan on — we may experience up to 50 per cent winter kill just for the fruiting canes.”

Gorski said their vines are generally able to be preserved by using a method called “buttage.” This involves building up the dirt around the vines to ensure the grafts remain in place.

However, she said if they do lose 50 per cent of their grapes, they still have options to aid them financially.

“We’re lucky enough that we have quite a bit of wine in stock, wine that will age well,” said Gorski. “We also might end up having to purchase wine from other areas in Ontario that haven’t been hit as hard. But I understand places like Niagara were hit pretty hard as well.”

According to Mitchell, grapes can be gathered from international wineries if those in Canada are not faring well.

“I’m sure the government will allow local wineries to get grapes internationally again,” said Mitchell. “Ontario wineries are worth over $500 billion. The government wouldn’t let us go under.”

Mitchell said wine growing is essentially farming, “and dealing with the weather is always a gamble.”