Vintners brace for worst

NAPA -- Killer frosts followed by searing temperatures are giving California's vineyards a bad case of whiplash, and grape growers worry the extreme weather could reduce the size of the 2008 grape crop.

"When you have this kind of weather at the outset, hold onto your seatbelt," Napa Valley vineyard investor David Freed said Monday at the annual Vineyard Economics Seminar in Napa.

In addition to being a financial disappointment for growers, a smaller crop this year could hasten what some see as a looming shortage of quality California wine grapes.

California growers need to spend billions over the next several years planting new vineyards or replanting old ones to keep up with growing demand for fine wines and to prevent wineries from looking overseas to meet their needs, said Brian Clements, a partner with Turrentine Brokerage, a Novato bulk wine and grape broker.

"We're getting over seven years of global excess," Clements said. "That ocean of wine that used to be out there is now a lake."

Freed, Clements and others sketched a portrait Monday of a California wine industry in improving health but still facing significant challenges from cheaper imports, particularly in hot grape varieties like pinot noir.

Those challenges are likely to increase this year, thanks to biting April frosts that have singed tender young shoots in vineyards around the state. Most hands in the room went up when Freed asked how many growers had seen at least a 5 percent loss. Some had seen as much as 15 percent.

The extent of the frost damage won't be known for a few more weeks, when growers will be able to see clearly what percentage of the little flowers on their blooming vines get pollenated and are set on their path to become grapes.

But the signs are troubling, said Freed.

"Our sense is it's going to be a difficult year," said Freed, chairman of UCC Vineyards Group, which has investments in hundreds of acres of vineyards around the state.

His concern is not just the frost or the heat, but their rapid, jarring switch from one extreme to the other, and how that might stress the vines. Vines like nice, gradual temperature changes, not the violent swings that have buffeted the growing season so far, he said.

"Extreme heat kills the flowers," Freed explained about the critical phase called "bloom." "If you have rain, you're screwed. If you have high wind, you're screwed."

Just how much of a beating the frost and heat spike have delivered to Sonoma County's grape crop is, however, far from certain.

Nick Frey, president of the Sonoma County Winegrape Commission, said the damage from the frost is still being assessed, but will probably be less than 10 percent.

That's because if the first clusters were damaged, the second set of clusters that followed might not have been hurt much or at all, depending on a host of factors, Frey said.

"Just about every part of the county has had some frost damage," Frey said. "It was an equal opportunity frost season."

Sonoma County's Agricultural Commissioner Lisa Correia said individual growers have lost "between zero and 100 percent" of their potential crop, but it was too soon to estimate total losses.

Mendocino County Agricultural Commissioner Dave Bengston is also still working on estimates, but thinks frost losses in his county could hit $35 million.

Some growers used up all their water fighting early frosts only to be "sitting ducks" for later ones, he said. Lack of water still could come back to haunt them, he said.

"If we get a long, hot summer, things could just raisin and burn up," he said.

But others are excited for the arrival of the hot weather. Mike Benziger, who is in the middle of replanting a vineyard in Glen Ellen, said the vines leapt to life when temperatures soared over 100 degrees last week.

While he lost about half his cabernet crop on one 35-acre mountaintop vineyard to frost, Benziger said overall the heat has been a welcome boost.

"I haven't seen any evidence of heat damage whatsoever," he said. "I couldn't ask for anything better right now."

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemo

crat.com.