You Ladies are EXPENSIVE!

Brrrrr -- it's been cold of late in the mornings! And that means potential frost damage to -- be still your heart -- our grapes. Yesterday I was on my way to that awesome Napa Valley lodging site, The Wine Country Inn, when I saw all the various keep-the-vines-frost-free "things" going: big fans whirring away (to circulate air), sprinklers spitting, portable pots puffing out warm smoke, etc. Later, talking to my friends at Nord Vineyards, who own or manage 900 Napa Valley vineyard acres, I learned several things, including:

* The Nords believe they've lost about 10% (or 90 acres) of grapevine buds

* Spring frost can't kill the grapevines, it can only damage the new growth, and thus make those vines not produce any grapes that year

Foreground, warming pots; background, sprinklers

Well, 90 acres doesn't sound like a whole lot, does it? But I did the math: you get approximately 4 tons of grapes per acre, which translates into about 250 cases of wine per acre. Say each bottle is $25, that's $300 per case. So each acre produces about $76,800 of wine. Multiple that by 90 acres... and that's $6,912,000 in lost revenue to wineries, grape growers, etc. Ouch! Mother Nature (one of the "Ladies" referred to in the title) can be humbling, and expensive, force! Anyway, keep warm this weekend, and know that the vineyard management folks are working hard to keep the vineyards warm, too.