How a blast of extreme cold weather could affect the Windsor-Essex grape harvest
Grape growers use snow and blankets to insulate plants when the mercury plummets
The extreme cold temperatures blasting southwestern Ontario have area vineyards feeling the chill, with one Windsor-Essex winemaker already reporting losses.
The vines at Cooper's Hawk Vineyards in Harrow have been weathering temperatures in the –20 C range for the past week, according to winemaker Adam Graham, and icy winds have already started to damage buds.
"This has been a rather hard winter. We've had some pretty frigid nights, so if the temperature gets too low for the grapes it's gonna affect how much we're going to get next year," he explained, adding he estimates about 10 per cent of the crop has been damaged.
The region was again under an extreme cold warning from Environment Canada Tuesday, with temperatures estimated to feel like –30 C overnight with the windchill.
Graham said damage typically begins once the mercury drops below –19 C.
'Good old-fashioned Canadian winter'
If the temperatures continue their chilly trend, grape growers will use snow to insulate the plants and could even cover them with blankets to break the wind.
The cold weather follows two milder seasons in 2016 and 2017, according to Graham, while the winter months in 2014 and 2015 were so rough the basically decimated the entire harvest for many growers.
Graham said he's "cautiously optimistic" that won't happen this year, but added the vineyard will still have to survive two more months of "good old-fashioned Canadian winter."
"You never know what Mother Nature is going to bring to us in January or February," he said. "But it's Canada, you've got to expect this kind of thing every once in a while."