Recent article tallies up Missouri's spring freeze disaster

From Appellation America:

Spring Freeze Leads to Summer Squeeze

It's interesting to note how Norton and Vignoles - both late budders - were spared the worst of the damage and will come through as the least affected varieties.

"The labrusca was wiped out," said Jon Held

There is a God!

Thanks for the article, Paul, very interesting.

Norton, the native American grape (vitis aestivalis) that produces Missouri’s best red wine, and also a fine port, is a little tougher.

Now that sounds interesting. Has anyone sampled a fortified Norton? I'd love to!

Missouri’s wineries [ . . .] took enough of a beating that the state Department of Agriculture ruled that Missouri wineries can buy out-of-state grapes and juice for 2007. Wineries can buy necessary grapes or juice to produce as much as 95 percent of the amount of wine which they produced last year.

I was puzzled by this. Certainly they can't still label it Missouri wine, can they? And if they wanted to produce wine with an "American" appellation, Missouri's Department of Agriculture couldn't prevent them from doing that any year, could they? Or is this a deal where they get some subsidy-or-other if they produce 'Missouri wine' and they'll get the subsidy this year if they produce any wine?

"The labrusca was wiped out," said Jon Held

There is a God!

Yep, and He was particularly kind to us in Ontario, if not Missouri. My own labruscas have leafed out beautifully!

Great questions, Keith. I sure hope we get some answers on them - I'd like to know as well.

North Georgia was hit pretty hard as well from the April freeze. This was a response from David Harris, owner of Blackstock Vineyards near Dahlonega, to a query from me concerning how he faired from the freeze and whether he would be able to sell grapes to home wine makers this year (I have purchased grapes from him in the past):

Not this year, Alan. We have just sustained some extensive fruit losses to this last weekend's freeze. I think we will have enough fruit from secondary buds for a normal crush for our winery, but I don't think we will have any extra fruit to sell other wineries or home winemakers for 2007. Considering we sold about 150 tons last year to others, it is still a considerable hit, financially.

He only grows vinifera. There are some other vineyards in the area that grow Norton and hybrids (Seyval, Vidal) but I haven't heard how those varietals held up to the cold. But it would be safe to assume most vinifera in the area was hit pretty hard. I'm going to be in the Atlanta area latter this month on a business trip, so I may head up to Dahlonega one afternoon to see how everyone made out (plus to beg for grapes with hat in hand.)