Eternal Winter

Here we sit, in the eternal winter called June 2011. The GDDs (Growing Degree Days, a measurement of all the hours over 50F temperature) for my nearest reporting station, year to date, are just 72. For perspective, it was 153 in 2010 (a cool, wet year) and 247 on this date in 2009 (a relatively normal year). In 1998 it was 424 by this date.

That is a very deep pit from which to extricate ourselves. You heard it here first: Unless we get a very many very hot days this summer, this could become a year even worse than 2010 for wine in the Willamette Valley. It could be impossible for grapes to remotely approach ripening.

Let's all fervently hope that does not happen. Too much depends upon it.