Bad Week.

I'm so glad that TIME magazine (September 25 2017 issue) summed up the 2017 growing season for its readership in one small sentence, albeit in a large red dot.
Yes, admittedly, it did get a little toasty earlier this month.  The mercury climbed to 108 °F in Vinoland and got as high as 114 °F up in Rutherford.  Grapevines do not thrive in extremely hot weather, not many plants do. However, with careful canopy management and an effective irrigation programme - throughout the entire growing season, not just when it is hot - most vineyards fare quite well.  The vast majority of Napa's growers will have planned ahead to ensure that their vineyards could withstand a heatwave.  Consequently, because of these best management practices, vineyards valley-wide saw very little raisining.
My sense of the 2017 growing season is that it has been a rather average one, more normal in many respects.  It isn't that unusual to experience changeable weather in any growing period.  The vineyards of the Napa Valley may, or may not, encounter bud-killing frosts in late spring, rainy days in early summer and the occasional spell of exceptionally high temperatures, and survive it all.  The sky is not falling down.
Curious as to what passes as a 'Good Week' in TIME?  Fast food chain, Chipotle, is now serving up a spicy cheese at all of its restaurants.  Very hot news indeed.

Tan lines.

Tan is not a good colour descriptor for wine; tawny for a port, perhaps, but definitely not sunburn for a Cabernet Sauvignon (CS). However, the sunburn issue here, rather, is heat damage on CS grapes not the hue of a finished wine.
The Napa Valley experienced a rather cool spring (I think I've mentioned that before), coupled with the elevated moisture content of the soil, due to California's excessively wet winter, the grapevines have had a fine start to the 2017 growing season.  In such conditions the vines tend to experience a period of rapid growth, putting all their energy into leaf, shoot and grape making.  A sudden hot spell, like that which arrived in the second week of June, caught the vines unawares and they were not well prepared to deal with, or quick enough to react to, the ensuing heat stress.
The heat damage to the photographed cluster of CS grapes is minor and occurred due to the fact that that particular grapevine is always a little weak and thus cannot produce a better canopy with which to shade the immature clusters.  It is likely that this cluster will raisin and I'll have to drop it (and any others displaying similar heat damage). Wine made from fruit that is sunburnt can be bitter, raisin-like and have issues with VA; all of which are characteristics found in bad wines, made from poor fruit, that are persona non grata in my glass.  So, off with their heads.

Making lemonade.

Yup, California is in desperate need of water as the past three winters have been particularly dry.  Television and radio news agencies are reporting, on a daily basis now, stories about how dire the water shortage is becoming, the need for water conservation and the new restrictions being enforced.  And the fines the average California homeowner will incur if they are caught wasting this precious resource, (neighbours are being encouraged to snitch on one another to the authorities).
The water situation is bad, but there have been worse droughts in California's history.  Of course, there are more people living in California than ever before and with population growth comes the need for more food to be produced.  California needs to eat.

Some little sound bites I have heard on the news include; Agriculture is said to be about 2% of the California economy, but uses some 80% of all the water; It takes one gallon of water to produce one almond; It takes three times as much water to grow one acre of alfalfa (and other forage crops) than it does to grow one acre of rice; California produces more rice than China; Alfalfa production in California is subsidised so that farmers can produce alfalfa cheaply to sell to China for cattle feed.  Now, I don't know how much of what is reported is factual, but stories like these give the average, thirsty California some food for thought.

The rain will come, eventually.  But in the meantime, when life gives you raisins, make Amarone.

Cartoon courtesy of the Napa Valley Register.