The Wine Knows

The entire Pacific Northwest has been hit with a storm system that has snow on the ground and temperatures well below freezing.

Here in the heart of Washington's Columbia Valley, we had a wind storm late Saturday that followed with snow early Sunday morning. It's just a couple of inches, but temperatures stayed in the 18 degree range. That dropped into single digits overnight and brought more snow.

We received more snow this morning, though that stopped before noon and temperatures are around 20 degrees right now. Our low is expected to hit 1 (yeah, one) tonight.

What does this do to the vines? Difficult to say, but past experience says it could cause some damage. If the vines have not yet hardened for the winter, they could be very susceptible to cold temperatures, especially if they last longer than a few days. This cold snap is expected to last all week.

The most tender major varieties planted in Washington are Syrah, Merlot and Chardonnay. The most winter-hardy are Riesling and Cabernet Franc.

Our last major freeze was in January 2004, when temperatures dropped 35 degrees (from 18 above to 17 below) in just two hours. This devastated the Walla Walla Valley, which lost 80% of its crop that year.

Prior to that, 1996 was the last freeze, which killed off 40% of the state's crop. And prior to that, 1991 was a big freeze year.

You can go back 60 years and see a pattern of freezes in Washington's Columbia Valley that occur every five to eight years - like clockwork. This is the fifth year since the January 2004 freeze.

One of the angles of the 1996 freeze that really devastated vines was that the sun came out but it was too cold to melt the snow. Thus, the snow reflected the sun onto the vines, warming them during the day, then temperatures plummeted each night. Many experts believe this was one of the worst aspects of that year.

Get this: The rest of this week is supposed to be sunny in the Columbia Valley, but temperatures won't ever get above freezing, according to the National Weather service.

This has the potential to be a major event in Washington wine country.