Monday, May 19, 2014CONNEAUT, Ohio -- Arnie Esterer kneels close to the grapevine and cuts a tiny piece of bark off a shoot. “If I cut it here, see that dark brown line? That’s dead,” says the owner of Markko Vineyard here. “See how brown this is? This whole thing is dead – and the bud is dead.”
Two rows away, Coletta Burdette is cutting the vinifera grapevines down to bottom wire on the trellis. “It’s the worst I’ve ever seen,” she tells a reporter. “We’re hoping that something’s alive down there that we can use these stakes here to let them grow up. That’s pretty much the only reason we’re leaving those stakes is so that they got something to come up on.”
Not since Esterer cultivated the first European vinifera grapes in Ohio in 1968 has harsh winter weather done this much damage to the Ashtabula and Geauga County vineyards that blossomed by following his lead.
In December, a few days were unseasonably warm, confusing the vines, Esterer says, so they lost some of their cold-weather hardiness. On Jan. 6, a rare polar vortex dropped the temperature in Conneaut from 43 degrees to minus 13 -- and stayed there for 24 hours as extremely heavy winds blew. By the end of February, eight more sub-zero days had occurred.
“It’s like what happens to your house when your pipes are full of water. They freeze and they all explode,” Esterer explains. “That’s what kills the vines -- the vines blow. These are just a whole bundle of pipes,” he says, pointing to shoots.
Worst-case scenario? It could take three or four years until this estate winery again bottles its products. “Some vines will come back and some will have to be replaced. … In June and July, we’ll get very good indications,” he says.
Ohio State University researchers estimate 98% of the state’s vinifera grapes were destroyed. Hybrids fared better – about 57% lost, and native Concord, Catawba and Niagara grapes best of all, about 30% lost.
Still, the Lake Erie wine and tourism industry is open for business, emphasizes Donniella Winchell, executive director of the Ohio Wine Producers. “The wineries will be welcoming guests all summer long and there is no shortage of wine on the shelves,” she says.
2012 was “probably the best growing season in two decades – a warm spring and long hot summer,” Winchell says. “We had a small crop but it was fabulous – the energy could be concentrated.”
“2013 produced one of the biggest crops in decades,” she continues. “So the good news is most every grower’s wine tanks are full. Our cellars are brimming with wine and that means the consumer will see very little shortfall in 2014, and we’ll be in good shape for 2015 if the bulk of the damage is vines that can be refurbished. Then 2016 will likely be a small [crop] year. If we are totally wiped out, 2016 will be more difficult.”
Winchell points to 1994 when a very cold January caused considerable damage. Learning from that experience, vineyards constructed more trenches and buried four-inch tiles that collect water and drain it off the field.
“As horrible as this winter was, it will provide a laboratory for researchers to figure out what kinds of clones might be more suited to these harsher conditions,” she says.
At Markko Vineyard, blue tags designate the chardonnay viniferas that Ohio State viticulturists are studying.
“We’re looking to see if the root stalk had any influence on hardiness,” says Greg Johns, director of Ohio State University’s Ashtabula Agricultural Research Center in North Kingsville. “Arnie [Esterer] has the same chardonnay clone grafted on a number of different root stocks and they often have an influence on how the vine grows.”
Johns describes the situation as “a real predicament. …”We have to cut away the old arms and the old trunks and then we have to bring up the new shoots, the future years’ trunks and arms.”
Even with good growth, nothing is assured, he says. “As they grow, we’ll have to keep a close eye on our vines to see if we get a lot of crown Gall. It’s in the soil.”
Crown gall is like a cancerous growth on the vines. “Because damage was so great, we think here is going to be damage to the crown of the plant, where it’s grafted.”
The 2014 Farm Bill provides subsidies to qualified growers through its Tree Assistance Program, which partially underwrites the cost of vine replacement.
This spring the region’s dormant wine growers’ trade group was re-energized, which enables vineyards and researchers to share resources and knowledge.
“We’re determined to overcome it because to produce the best-quality wines we need to grow the best grapes,” says Ohio State’s Johns.
“This is an opportunity to re-trellis how we bring the vines up and expose them to the sun, how they capture the sunlight and ripen the fruit,” says Esterer. “This gives us an opportunity to change all that. We can put in new wires and new posts and we don’t have to work with existing vines. You can look at a lot of opportunities. It’s amazing.”
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Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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