When Fran Landesman wrote her moody, pessimistic lyrics to Tommy Wolf’s haunting melody and the result was "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most," she didn’t know how perceptive she was. The song later appeared in "The Nervous Set," and over the following half-century was recorded by such legendary singers as Cleo Laine, Shirley Bassey, Ella Fitzgerald, Barbra Streisand and Jackie and Roy Kral.
But the song came true for Missouri grape growers and fruit farmers over Easter weekend when three successive nights of 20-degree temperature savaged crops across the state. It was the worse cold snap in almost 120 years.
Ironically, March had been warm enough that vines and trees and bushes were budding earlier than normal. And that made things all the worse when temperatures fell. Across the state, growing conditions turned into killing conditions.
"We probably will have some Norton and some Vignoles," explained Jon Held, vineyard manager of his family’s Stone Hill winery, the state’s largest. :"Those grapes have later bud breaks, which meant they were less advanced, and Norton always has been a grape that can withstand cold weather, though we still lost more than half of it. Part of the survival rate, of course, was due to the specific location of some of the vineyards. "The major loser was Labrusca grapes like Concord and Catawba," he continued. "We had16 acres of Concords, half two years old and half three years old and ready to produce a first crop. All gone."
Some of the French hybrids like Seyval and Vidal suffered damage, too, but secondary and tertiary growth may bring some grapes during the summer. "It’s impossible to tell right now," Held sighed.
That was the case throughout the state, though Tony Kooyumjian, president of the Augusta Winery, while he spoke of losses of up to 70 per cent in his Norton gtrapes and 60 percent among others, still was optimistic. "We had bumper crops and excellent wine with the 2006 and 2005 vintages," he said, "and there will be plenty of our wine available at the tasting room and all our retail outlets.
Koomyujian brought out couple of 2003 reds, a Norton and a Chambourcin, at a recent tasting, and both were excellent It was interesting to taste them side by side, noting the dark overtones on the rich, velvety Norton, and the lighter, fruitier flavors of the Chambourcin. Both excellent wines, just a question of a flavor preference or a food combination.
The freeze also put a large dent in the Missouri fruit crop, with apples, peaches, melons and berries to be in short supply during the summer. Farther south, in the viticultural area known as the Ozark Highlands, Phyllis Meagher of Meramec Vineyards said she expects only about 20 percent of her Norton and hybrid grapes to produce, while Concord and Catawba are a total loss.
The ravages of the weather will deliver an immediate financial blow as Missouri wineries have to buy grapes and/or juice from growers in other states. Dave Johnson, winemaker at Stone Hill for almost 30 years, pointed out that the workers will have to do all the farming that they usually do when the vines are bringing forth grapes. "And," he added, "good quality Norton grapes already are in extremely short supply, and some of the available grapes out there in other parts of the country will not be up to our standards."
-Joe