Weather and Wine

For the past week, an icy situation has been worrying many growers in key
Argentinean wine valleys: the much feared zonda and later frost. According to
experts, this current climate event could generate losses in production of
wine grapes from 25% to 30%, reports AndesWines.com

The latest reports show that micro wine growing regions Agrelo, Sur de La
Consulta, Ugarteche y Altamira have resulted affected in specific areas.

This year’s frost has been the largest one in years, say local growers.
Nonetheless, AndesWines reports that enologists and wine producers are
expecting grape prices to stay below record levels because of last year’s
price spike, especially in the areas that produce Premium grapes.

Familia Catena’s chief enologist, Alejandro Vigil, explained to
AndesWines.com that the frost destroyed many recent sprouts and that the
weather conditions drew humidity of the zones, allowing the rime to stay
longer.

The CEO of Bodega Melipal, Santiago Santamaría, added that operations in
Agrelo, region with a small frost history and where the company’s head
operations are located, will register small losses in Merlot, while some
Malbec lots will also have to be downsized.

The chief enologist from Bodega Kaikén, Eduardo Alemparte, explained that
the current frost episode was more intense and longest than in previous
years, with temperatures dropping to -4°C in some areas.

Alemparte insisted that “the previous frost did not affect us so much,
because for many of the varieties , at least in the first region and in
the Uco valley, the vines hadn’t blossomed yet. I think there will not be
a setback to the sprouts, they will recover but we will have to wait to
see if there were any damages to the fruit. I do believe it’s highly
unlikable because they were in a pre-blooming state”.

BETWEEN 25% TO 30% OF ARGENTINEAN WINE GRAPE PRODUCTION COULD BE LOST TO FROSTY WEATHER CONDITIONS
http://www.andeswines.com

Grapes are good...wine even better!!