Walter Sobchak writes:
Unseasonable late April weather damaged vineyards in France and England
They warned us that the delicate vineyards could be severely damaged by man caused global climate change. We wouldn’t listen and see what we got:
French Bordeaux vineyards could lose half of harvest due to frost on Sat May 6, 2017
REUTERS BORDEAUX, France “Bordeaux vineyards in southwest France could lose about half of their harvest this year after two nights of frost damaged the crop at the end of April, a wine industry official said on Saturday. … Wines from the Cognac, Bergerac, and Lot-et-Garonne regions had also been affected … ‘For Bordeaux wines…we estimate that the impact will be a loss of about 50 percent, depend on how many buds can regrow'”
English vineyards report ‘catastrophic’ damage after severe April frost
GUARDIAN.COM “Chris White, the chief executive of Denbies Wine Estate in Surrey, said up to 75% of its crop was damaged by last week’s sub-zero temperatures: “The temperature dropped to -6C and at that level it causes catastrophic damage to buds,” he said. White said staff had worked in vain using special fans and heaters to protect the vineyard, which at 265 acres in the UK’s biggest, after an Arctic blast swept across the UK. … ‘It’s been a stark reminder of the difficulties faced by wine producers in the country, and yes … at this moment we are asking ourselves whether we were mad to try and grow vines in England,’ said Wenman”
WINESPECTATOR.COM French Winemakers Weathering Worst Frost in 25 Years
Cold weather struck France’s young vine buds again this week, and Bordeaux is the latest region to suffer frost damage. Farther north, Burgundy and Champagne also weathered cold conditions and frost. Damage reports are incomplete so far, mainly because winegrowers have been busy preparing anti-frost measures.
Bordeaux’s Right Bank Hit Hard
“We can already estimate that we have lost nearly half of the potential crop,” said Xavier Coumau, president of Bordeaux’s Syndicate of Wine and Spirits Courtiers.
Many are calling it the worst frost since 1991, as temperatures dropped to nearly 26° F in some spots. Damage has been reported on the Right Bank, including in Pomerol and St.-Emilion—though the plateau of St.-Emilion was spared—as well as Pessac and Graves and even up in the western edge of the Médoc.
“It is rather dramatic,” Stéphane Derenoncourt, proprietor of Domaine de l’A in Castillon and consultant to dozens of Right Bank estates, told Wine Spectator. “Only the plateau and the tops of slopes are spared. There is damage everywhere, sometimes 100 percent. We haven’t seen everything yet, and it is fo
We need to learn that the truly insidious thing about Climate Change is that it just doesn’t mean the world is getting warmer, it also means that frosts will occur in late April in locations as far south as Green Bay, WI.
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Fortunately I’m a beer drinker.
I’m an equal opportunity drinker, myself. Beer, red wine, white wine, whisky, brandy, vodka….
Oh, hold on there, Big Fella. Hops are very sensitive to temperature and humidity, just like grapes. A bad season for hops could mean a shortage of pale ale, lager, stout, mead, and other such inviting beverages, that go nicely with smoked sausage, fresh kraut, cornbread and BBQ beans.
The entire world crop of hops could be wiped out and it wouldn’t affect the production of Budweiser, Coors, and Miller beers.
Hops in mead?
Jerome,
Yes. It can be and is done.
http://meadist.com/drinking-mead/top-hopped-meads-hop-heads/
“… Climate Change […] just doesn’t mean the world is getting warmer, it also means that frosts will occur in late April in locations as far south as Green Bay, WI.”
I don’t know exactly why but this was worth a belly laugh but it was. Felix the Cat had a magic bag of tricks but it pales to nothing compared to the Climate Change Toolbox. All things ARE Climate Change.
I read the accounts of Galileo’s confrontation with the Vatican over some works of his (specifically a work of fiction). I read about the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition and the things done in the name of God, I could not believe people would be so superstitious that they could justify burning a widow at the stake, or hanging dozens on the hysterical charges of young women.
I consoled myself by thinking “thank God we have grown out of that kind of thinking.”
Along comes AGW and crushes that hope quite dramatically. Proof that Orwell was a prophet. Never underestimate the depth to which humans will go to hide from reality.
When the glaciers start advancing toward Minneapolis a few centuries hence, I am assured Global Warming will be blamed.
I don’t think they are exactly “hiding from reality”. I think they are trying (and succeeding) at creating their own reality.
Al Gore must have showed up in France for an unannounced visit.
Instead of spraying water, why didn’t they just place large blocks of dry ice in the vineyard? The CO2 would have evaporated and circulated in the air close to the ground for a while, trapping tons of heat. I know there’s delicate balance between getting too cold and burning your grape vines with overheated air, but an experienced vintner should know how many blocks of dry ice could safely be used.
Someday, Hawaiian children high on the ski slopes of Mona Loa will not know what good French wine tastes like as they schuss down the ski slopes.
Just like Zorro, global weirding has struck again. Temperance forces everywhere say “thank you, mask man.”
/sarc (and God/Allah/Buddha/Cthulu/GiantSpaghettiMonster/LRH help you if you needed this)
The temperature record adjustment planners made a strategic mistake by scientifically cooling the past.
Instead, they should have scientifically homogenized the historical data to show that in the past the weather was perfectly average all the time, not too cold and not too hot. Just marvelous Goldilocks-kind of weather all the times. Climate science could then demonstrate how much we have disturbed nature every time it gets hot or cold.
I expect them to correct this obvious scientific error.
I keep my white wine crop in the fridge. Doesn’t seem to harm it.
OK, but don’t let it freeze. It would pop the cork and I was told that’s bad.
” it also means that frosts will occur in late April in locations as far south as Green Bay, WI.”
or snow as far south as Texas at the end of April. Texas is quite a big state, but the northern part is further south than Green Bay. So is Kansas where 30% of the wheat is estimated to be lost. Inquiring minds want to know, is that local as in weather or climate as in broad based ?
Even though wacky weather everywhere is the norm statistically over time, the alarmists are trying to say this is now Attribution of CO2 in making the jet stream loopy, with Beta Blocking highs and all. It is just wacky weather that we don’t remember happened 15-20 years ago now. The sad thing is, is that the Alarmists will now say anything to instil fear into the children. This is where the real battle is taking place now, which is in the indoctrination of CAGW through news and education, especially K-12 and college & university. The poor kids don’t know any better, and is part of the curriculum now, if they reject it, they fail. It really has become now a battle between the forces of light and darkness. Good and Evil. No religion inferred, other than that of the new CAGW normal they are stuffing down everyone’s throat.
The CAGWers make a lot of noise anywhere where there is a drought or flood or hot weather as climate AGW, and snowfalls. They are very quite when it snows in Saudi Arabia, the Mediterranean, and north Africa. The cold out break is wide spread but nothing is being said. Last year parts of eastern Russia were buried under snow much earlier than normal while the warmist were going on about how warm it was in the US.. shhhh
Don’t underestimate kids, they tend to be a little more intelligent than the left believe, else communism would never fall. And communism is evil.. and that’s the agenda of CAGW, not protecting the planet
Oh, I forgot about the some 2 million monarch butterflies that froze to death in Mexico. But then that’s just weather being said sarcastically.
The doubleclick/google ad served up with this post said, “Help people affected by disasters. Donate to the Red Cross today.”
This will have no effect on the belief system of the CAGW advocates, or is it Climate Change, or whatever rationalization they are using this year.
The photo is of irrigation designed to protect the vines from frost damage. The principal being that as the water freezes it gives up its heat to the vines and protects them. I have used it on Blackcurrents and it worked well.
Median date of last 32 degree freeze based on 1981 to 2010 average in the Green Bay area is May 1 to 10.
http://www.weather.gov/images/mkx/climate/springlastfreeze.png
It doesn’t affect Green Bay, but when you get into mountainous areas, altitude affects the date. On your map, my median frost would be May 1-10. However, I don’t put out plants until the end of May (unless I’m feeling brave!). I’m out in the open and 500 ft higher in altitude than the city area.
The map does indeed show people’s memories are not reliable, doesn’t it?
In the Twin cities we plant tomatoes May 15th. But All of the other annuals are in the ground for most of my neighbors flower beds, including mine.
That yellow area over MN should extend into the Twin Cities metro. Heat isles are the best!!
Forget French wine. Their soils are used up. Ontario wine is far superior and not threatened by some cool weather. And we make 95% of all ice-wine here because we have the hot summers to grow the grapes and the reliably cold winter to freeze them. Don’t like it myself though. Too sweet.
You must be talking about Ontario Canada. Ontario California’s record low is 46 F in 2003. No freezing winters there. Of course, even if you had typed “Ontario, ca,” it still wouldn’t have told us which Ontario you were talking about.
Louis, you must be reading something put out by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. I grew up down there (in Pomona, to be specific) and I can remember in the 50’s when the morning skies were dark with the smoke from the smudge pots used by the orchardists to keep their citrus from freezing. We need to kill this rumor of no freezing weather, before we have another wave of snowbirds from New York settling in here.
According to Al Gore the siberian wine this year will be superb.
I love ice wine and have made it in the past. It is sweet but not meant to drink in any quantity. It is like a dessert. A small glass instead of ice cream or other sweets. Delicious!
in maine my next 4 nights supposed to run around 33 degF
No surprise there.
I am 50 miles west of Chicago, a hard frost last night, again.
As for planting tomatoes, usually memorial day.
I have the 1942 book from the USDA, “Man and Climate”, and 75 years of “warming” tomatoes still can’t be put in before memorial day, the old frost maps are still valid.
On June 22, 1989,(or 1990) we awoke with our entire irrigation system frozen, the following morning same thing. This was on a ranch in Southwest Colorado. Weather is pure chaos, always has been ,always will be.
And a lot of that cold air is coming from the arctic where it is melting the ice.
That’s the propaganda anyway.
I was wondering about that as well. They haven’t updated since the second of May.
The Great Le Roy Ladurie documented French vine growth from the year 1000 in his book’ Times of feast times of Famine.’
The fact that it is only the worst frost in 21 years shows us that it is nothing unusual. Looking back 1000 years (where records grow better over the last 500) we can see that it is a regular occurence.
Mind you CET shows that there has been a general cooling throughout this century with spring the worst affected (see figure 5) Note the vineyard in Sussex is a little south of the CET measuring stations
https://judithcurry.com/2015/11/25/the-rise-and-fall-of-central-england-temperature/
tonyb
the temperature data I had for Lincoln UK was :
min max min max
outside temp : inside temperature
Feb -0.4 11.8 7.2 15.5
mar 0.9 18.0 10.7 19.2
April 1.6 21.7 13.8 21.3
the minimum outside temperature was very slow to rise but the internal room temperatures have been very mild and close to the baseline temperature of 18.0 centigrade due to the increase of solar radiation.
I told you so! Global warming has many faces: hot weather, cold weather, drought, flood, increased hurricanes, decreased hurricanes, more tornadoes, fewer tornadoes – the list goes on and on.
Forrest: It’s only anecdotal, but I have not observed anyone in the mainstream (or other media, for that matter) with a memory longer than a goldfish.
The alarmists have long been calling for the demise of traditional wine growing areas due to heat so this does fly in the face of that. See link for proclamations of wine doom :
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/apr/08/climate-change-wine-production
https://www.mcleishestatewines.com.au/2017-vintage-report/
Grapes LOVE a bit of warmth. 🙂
An idiot in south west England planted an olive grove in 2006 to take advantage of global warming. By 2012 he was saying ” Olives haven’t worked that well for me, though”.
See all the original hype at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1522414/First-olive-grove-takes-root-in-sunny-Devon.html and the BBC of course at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/5118860.stm saying “A Devon smallholder has planted an olive grove with the aim of cashing in on global warming” .
And the idiot is an “environmental consultant”!
Dang there are a lot of very stupid, naive people in the world. I’m glad he wasted his money. Good for him.
Apparently, releasing the CO2 bound up in fossil fuels is like releasing Superman’s arch enemies from the Phantom Zone. Once released, those evil molecules spend their time plotting to take over the world by wreaking all kinds of havoc. First they warm the climate to cause plants to bud earlier in the Spring. Then they cool the climate to freeze the newly formed buds and fruit on those plants. Why do you think Gaia banished this evil CO2 into the phantom zone of coal and oil and buried it deep in the earth in the first place? To protect the planet, you fools!
(Here’s the “/SARC” in case some Gaia worshiper thinks I’m being serious.)
“…buried it deep in the earth…”
Would that be Tartarus?
That’s horrifying. It’s such a shame to lose such a crop to Climate Change. More important, it has never happened before and would never have happened if it wasn’t for AGW.
I cannot repost this one! The audience is too stupid to interpret this on their own. This is just ‘fuel’ to the fire for Alarmists. I am getting confused……………. is Whats Up with That an Alarmist publication, or a reasoned media?
Um, Edith, the article is just put here to inform people that their expectations of getting a good wine to go with crepes with beef and mushrooms may be compromised. And we’re just having some fun.
How about satirical or ironic… as far as this post goes, anyway.
“………. is Whats Up with That an Alarmist publication, or a reasoned media?”
Edith, what kind of media are you used to consume –
Krone.at, BILD.de ?
https://www.google.at/search?client=ms-android-samsung&biw=360&bih=288&ei=e4wPWdKMEeH06AS3-7agAQ&q=krone.at+&oq=krone.at+&gs_l=mobile-gws-serp.3
https://www.google.at/search?client=ms-android-samsung&biw=360&bih=288&ei=FpUPWaKEOaP76ATChJ-ACw&q=bild.de++english&oq=bild.de++english&gs_l=mobile-gws-serp.3
https://www.google.at/search?client=ms-android-samsung&biw=360&bih=288&ei=OpcPWerzKIGn6ATYj5rIBg&q=nzz+news+nzz.ch&oq=nzz+news+nzz.ch&gs_l=mobile-gws-serp.3
I’m concerned that the loss of winter wheat this past season may result in my not being able to get enough flour to make pie crusts for tarte de pommes a la Normandie, and quiches (that’s egg and bacon pie, guys) and plain old apple pie. I may have to resort to buying store-bought biscuits instead of making my own, with sausage gravy on the side.
I just don’t know if I can live this way. I think it’s asking too much of anyone to have to give up good cooking and resort to microwaving everything.
Sara, you actually cook?!?!?
The children just aren’t going to know what cooking is!
The wheat lost to snow in KS (dunno for sure yet how much) was hard winter wheat. Don’t you use soft white wheat for pie crust?
Soft white wheat? Not necessarily. Wheat flour is processed so heavily that unless it is specifically labeled ‘whole wheat’ or unbleached (like Ceresota brand), it’s hard to tell where it’s sourced. But hard red winter wheat is generally used in foods that require a high gluten content such as flatbreads, Asian noodles, tortillas, cereals. It’s a general-purpose flour source, which means it can be mixed with other processed wheat flours. Hard red wheat may be somewhat more elastic that soft wheat, but hard white wheat (cross between hard red and soft white) is quite high in protein and may be a better source of nutrients.
And anyway, the flakiness of piecrust is the cook’s responsibility.
A flakey pie crust may be somewhat more light using soft wheat, but the real flakiness comes from pockets of fat (butter or lard) worked gently into the pie dough which melt when the pie crust is baked. Just don’t overwork the dough.
And that reminds me: if you do NOT have celiac disease (allergy to gluten), the latest report is that you should NOT follow a gluten-free diet. You will be missing out on nutrients that you need, including fiber, iron, folate, niacin, thiamine, calcium, vitamin B12, phosphorus and zinc.
Sara, you should take that “latest report” with a grain of salt, just like the fear-mongering CAGW studies. Gluten-laden foods aren’t the only sources of those nutrients you mentioned.
Yes, SMC, I do cook.
BBQ beans with smoked sausage, use the crock pot or slow cooker for this.
One to two whole links of smoked sausage*
2 to 4 14 oz.cans of mixed beans (I use beans canned in mild chili sauce)*
thin sliced onion
Worcestershire sauce
spicy mustard – optional
Your favorite BBQ sauce (I like Sweet Baby Ray’s Hickory Smoked version)
*amounts depend on how many people you’re serving
Put the onion on the bottom of the crock pot
Add the canned beans – if you’re using beans canned in chili sauce as I do, do NOT drain them
Add at least one half bottle or 1.5 cups of BBQ sauce
Stir in Wrocestershire sauce, about 1 tablespoonful and spicy mustard (optional)
Put the whole smoked sausage rings on top of the beans. The sausage will be cooked by the steam generated. Cook on LOW heat for 5 to 6 hours. Do NOT open the lid to sniff the aromas.
Make some cornbread to go with this.
Slice some tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini and put on a platter with radishes, green onions, celery, carrots, etc.
About one-half sausage ring is a good serving for one person.
And for dessert: fresh apple pie with ice cream.
You are a women after my own heart Sara! Egg and bacon pie… Mmmmn. All good. And now I hear that we don’t even have to worry about saturated fat or cholesterol anymore. Gonna fill my boots…getting hungry now.
Sara just don’t know if she can live this way.
Never knew there’s still Sara’s habitating this globe.
Thanks, Sara !
Australia to the rescue, fear not we had a bumper crop this year, your pies are safe in our hands
Fortunately, because of the WARM SUNNY WEATHER, Australia has had one of the most prolific vintages.
Not just in bulk, but a Hunter Valley winegrower friend of mine says it could be one of the best quality vintage for a very long time.
and all because of WARM WEATHER. 🙂
Interestingly, here in New Zealand (autumn) we have had some unusual early frosts. I cannot remember frosts in early April at my latitude and altitude before. But, no doubt it would have happened before
I note from the RSS site that the troposphere has been cooling rapidly throughout the satellite record. Can anyone here comment on this please. It looks to be important: the upper atmosphere is cooling while the lower remains stable