Vintage Report
Once again some of the vines were damaged due to weather conditions. In this case it was not a harsh winter but an unusual cold snap in early October of 2009. This cold snap (temperatures ranged from -4C to -6C on our vineyards) not only affected the harvest but in that the vines had not yet “shut down” for the winter some bud damage did occur. As in the winter damage of 2008/2009 this was varietal and site specific and for us it was the same blocks that were hurt from the previous year that saw the damage – so once again Syrah from the winery and Driver sites and certain blocks of Merlot from Inkameep Vineyards produced less than normal crop loads. The balance of the vines looked great in early spring – bud break occurred around the normal time (late April).
May and June were cooler and wetter than the norm – the cooler temperatures put us a little behind (about 2 weeks or so at the beginning of July) and the wetter conditions increased the disease pressure so spray programs needed to be adjusted to compensate. The wetter conditions also produced more vigour in blocks with heavier soils so a real effort was needed to bring some balance back to the vines – restricted irrigation and plenty of leaf removal was critical in getting some sunlight into the clusters.
Near the beginning of July things started to turn around as a solid high pressure system entered the valley and we started to see our temperatures climb into the 30+ Celsius range. The trend continued and we had our typical Okanagan summer but still remained behind in development with verasion occurring towards the end of August as opposed to more typically beginning to mid month.
As is normally the case September is a critical month for grape maturity. As a result of the poor weather in May/ June we had already done a fair amount of crop removal but cooler than normal temperatures and higher than normal precipitation in the first couple of weeks in September were still giving us some cause for concern. We were seeing low sugars and high acids the like we haven’t seen since 1999. However Mother Nature had a respite in store for us and from mid-Sept into the first week of November we had relatively ideal harvest conditions. For most of our growing sites the fruit we received was actually better balanced than that of the warmer years, requiring very little in the way of manipulation from a winemaking standpoint. Look for some crisp whites and intense Pinot Noirs; and with the initial concerns over ripening the bigger Bordeaux/ Rhône style wines having dissipated you can expect some pretty concentrated Merlots, Cabs and Syrah’s as well. In the end it was a huge sigh of relief as the early vineyard work and late weather reprieve have allowed us to once again produce some outstanding Okanagan wines.
