In the early morning of April 21st, wineries across Virginia recorded cold temperatures, dipping into the low 20s.
Adam Fariss runs Iron Heart winery in Pulaski County in the New River Valley. “We encountered the worst frost event that I have seen in the 16 years of growing,” Fariss said.
Fariss said nearly 100% of his first buds were killed by the freeze. The first buds produce the most fruit, so an early kill means there will be much less wine this year.
AJ Greely is a winemaker at Hark Vineyard, near Earlysville in central Virginia. They lost about 80% of their first buds. “We are seeing more and more severe weather events,” Greely said. “It’s a hard time for the Virginia wine industry.”
Greely is also president of the Virginia Vineyards Association, which has been assessing the damage to this year’s freeze. They’re still collecting and analyzing the reports, but say a majority of the vineyards they’ve heard from across the Commonwealth suffered.
Other fruit crops, like apples and berries, may also have been impacted by frost this year, according to initial assessments by Virginia Cooperative Extension agents.
Frost in spring is not uncommon. But Greely said in recent years, higher than average temperatures in early spring have caused grape vines to bud much earlier, making them more vulnerable to cold temperatures.
“Ten years ago bud break was around the middle of April,” Greely said. “In the past five years, we’ve seen it in March. So that’s gonna open up a larger frost window for us.”
“Some of the newer growers are thinking, ‘wow, this is gonna be a challenge,’” said Andrew Harner, a Virginia Cooperative extension agent who works with vineyards. . “And even established growers to are coming to me and saying, ‘what do I do now? What do I do next year to prevent this?’”
He said changes in the climate mean we’ll likely see more of these types of events in the years ahead.
Harner is working with the Virginia Vineyards Association to look at what lessons this freeze may be able to teach us about protecting the local wine industry in the years ahead. “I’ve been telling growers, like this is not the last time this is gonna happen,” Harner said. “And we need to think about you know, sort of the next time that this does happen.
Despite the damage, second buds can produce wine. “You know, we’re going through the stages of grief,” Greely said. “But, you know, we’ll keep moving forward. We have wine on backstock. We will make wine this year. It just won’t be as much.”
“But we will pull through. This industry is resilient. The people in it are resilient,” Greely said.
She points to the last significant freeze event in 2020. That year’s harvest was rough for Fariss’ winery, but he said there was a silver lining. Because they didn’t have enough grapes from any single variety, they made a combination blend.
“We actually combined all of the fruit from our entire vintage to create a product that we called the Train Wreck. Which is still our top seller,” Fariss said.
“In farming you have to stay flexible, take the good with the bad, and try to find a way to make due.”
