Grape growers hit with frost damage

Sonoma County grape growers have been hit with one of the worst frost seasons in three decades, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to young grape shoots from Petaluma to the Dry Creek Valley.

“We are not talking about devastation and it will be pockets of here or there,” said Lisa Correia, Sonoma County’s agricultural commissioner. She estimated the countywide damage at 10 to 15 percent. “For individual growers the damage could be high, but countywide, we are not looking at that.”

Correia said that rains forecast for Tuesday evening and Wednesday should warm up the morning temperatures, which have been as low as 26 degrees during the past two weeks.

“The last time we had a frost this damaging was 1977,” said Dennis De La Montanya of De La Montanya Vineyard and Winery. “We always have to run frost protection, always have to be cognizant of the spring time.”

Sunday morning was the worst, with temperatures dipping into the high 20s.

“We had the perfect storm, we had dry air with wind and a cold night, and we experienced damage,” he said.

De La Montanya said his Dry Creek and Alexander Valley vineyards have survived the cold weather, damage at their Russian River vineyard is 25 percent, but at their 52-acre Petaluma vineyard, they lost all of their pinot noir and chardonnay, a loss of between $200,000 and $300,000.

Cecil DeLoach of Hook & Ladder Vineyards and Winery in west Santa Rosa said they’ve had to run their frost protection 30 times this year already, compared to just a few times last year, and there is the possibility of frost for another two weeks.

“We have had a lot of frost damage, people are getting nervous,” DeLoach said.

A grape-grower for 35 years, he said that he hasn’t yet assessed the damage to his 400 acres of grapes on Olivet Road.

“A lot of the stuff that looks OK now, but you won’t know what you got until you get the bloom,” DeLoach said. “There are times it looked OK and I got by, but when it blooms and sets, you realize it’s isn’t as much.”

In Dry Creek Valley, grower Dave Faloni said he thinks he lost about 3 percent of his crop.

“For the last 15 years, we have not had much frost up here,” said Faloni, whose family has been farming the West Dry Creek Road ranch since 1925. “This is like going back to the 1970s.”

Frost in the spring, wind that can destroy blooms and rain before harvest that can cause rot are all part of farming, he said.

“Until you have the grapes in the winery, you don’t have anything,” Faloni said.