A sphere of hot plasma ninety-three million miles away is the most important source of energy for life on earth. In sunny California, this central star is both our saviour and mortal enemy. Last Sunday, the sun reached its highest point and traveled its longest path through this year’s sky, and at some time in the next month, the grapes in our local vineyards will begin to change color, a point in the ripening process known as veraison, French for the moment of truth. The optimal harvest date is usually very close to one hundred days after veraison.

Grape vines can live for centuries, and though harvest yields decrease, the fruit from older vines gains complexity and concentration. Many of the most distinctive wines we drink are made from plants much older than ourselves, planted and tended by previous generations. These vines have eluded disease, fire, pests!, severe weather, and the fickle human shovel, and they continue to provide our most prized fruit.

This March was unseasonably warm in France, promoting early budding, but when temperatures dropped ten degrees below freezing in early April, frost destroyed much of the harvest and killed many old vines. Winemakers in Burgundy, the Loire and the Jura are reporting anywhere from sixty to one hundred percent losses this year, and some have declared it the most devastating spring in French winemaking history. Following last year’s fruit-splitting hailstorms and US imposed tariffs, this season’s losses are an especially bitter pill for the vignerons of France. Here in California, we’ve been skirting frost, but our vines fall prey to drought, fire, insects and fungus.

If you trace the origin of your wine beyond our shelves, you will find that it is more than just a commercial product, something to buy and consume. The liquid in the bottle is linked to the vineyard site and the forces that defined, and continue to shape it. These forces, geological, meteorological, and human - volcanic eruption, fire, wind and rain, grafting, replanting and pruning - make every wine unique and ephemeral, and remind us that wine appreciation is not only about what’s in the glass.

Cheers,
Max