Your Biggest Fan
posted by mark in Wine Industry, Wine
A few weeks ago when Philip and I were in Napa we kept noticing these large fans in the fields. They weren’t turning so it was obvious they weren’t wind turbines but still I was intrigued to know what they were for. Here’s a picture of one:
When we made it to Larkmead, Snooth guest blogger Dan Petroski was able to clear up the confusion. I’ll explain from what I remember, and he can jump in with anything I miss.
In spring, Napa mornings can be chilly. In fact, sometimes the temperatures can drop below freezing. When this happens, vines are susceptible to frost damage. Frost can decimate an entire crop in one morning — I heard a few horror stories about winemakers getting to the fields to find their whole crop of grapes grey and dead.
Temperatures out in the field are closely monitored. As soon as there is a danger of frost, short metal installations filled with diesel gas are fired up, creating pockets of heat throughout the field. Here’s a picture of one we saw at Duckhorn:
Once these heat generators are fired up the fans begin to blow air through the fields, distributing the warmer air around, raising the ambient temperature and stopping frost from settling on the vines. Then I got carried away taking pictures of all the different models of field fans I could find.
Frost is a big problem in Sonoma too. In fact, I know of a vineyard that had frost damage to 80% of their crop. The vines were not killed but the will be a month behind in growth and in a late growing season this means the harvest may be unusable. In dollar terms this could be as high as $500,000.
As for these fans, I see them all over wine country in California and I have heard them in use. They sound like helicopters. Speaking of helicopters, they are used in some regions (Canada) to have the same effect (http://www.wellandtribune.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1010288).
But helicopters chief benefit over fans is there mobility.
They are extremely useful for drying out a vineyard a half day before harvest. In fact, some of the Bordeaux $$$aires have been known to use their private choppers for this.
This is one of my favorite posts of all time. Its a true trainspotters post (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=trainspotter).
I love this geeky stuff. What other minutae of the wine industry can we compare?
Speaking of trainspotting, I’ve been tagging a load of 90s electronic music and have come across some more classics.
If you bought the helicopter first you might not have enough money for the fan! I doubt this is the case for the uber-wealthy — kudos to them for getting really into the winemaking.
You know, I wonder if those diesel firing pots roast the nearby vines. We didn’t see them in action. Does anyone know? Even if so it would clearly be a small price to pay weighed against a late harvest and a half million dollar hit!
Good question, Philip. I’ll be on the lookout.
Those are great photos by the way.
We literally drove around Napa, stopping the car suddenly when a fan came into view. Mark would lean out the window, take the shot and yell “GO” once he was done…
*hides head in shame*
Fortunately we were always on the way to another winery. Though maybe someone could make a tour guidebook that marks out the fans of Napa Valley on a map. Something for the teetotalers!
Whoever wants it can have that idea, free of charge. I’m feeling generous.
Sounds like Mark’s been to the JBoulanger school of vineyard photography.
My father used to stop/slow the rental car (stickshift of course because its Europe), open the driver side window, point and shoot. The best shots were the right hand on the steering wheel, camera in the left-hand balanced on the roof, shooting the vineyard that he had just passed on the right side while blocking the road and pissing off the local truck/bus/scooter/tractor driver stuck behind.
Did you meet Colin MacPhail at Larkmead? The man’s a hoot!
Not this time, but I think i might have met him once before. I know Dan Petroski, the assistant winemaker, through a friend, and now he’s one of our guest bloggers. See his last post, for example: http://blog.snooth.com/2008/05/07/2005-napa-valley-cabernets/
@Philip … you asked, “What other minutae of the wine industry can we compare?” I was wondering if anyone can tell me, I mean really explain, what the difference between grape clones are. And how do you tell the difference?
Okay, is this way to geeky?
John - that would be a great post, but I’m no way qualified to author it! I was thinking we could talk about different barrel types, or different types of tanks, or how about the various styles of tresses, or some other uber geeky paraphernalia you wino types rely on.
Way too geeky! Here goes:
We’ve all seen race horses (thoroughbreds) at the Kentucky Derby and the like. We’ve also seen the Budweiser Clydesdales - the huge brown horses with white feet and white noses that haul the beer wagon in TV commercials (but sadly not to your pub). These are all the same species - horse (Equus caballus). Similarly, most of the wines we drink today (Chard, Cab, etc) come from the same grape species Vitis Vinifera.
However, it is worthwhile to select the best individuals of horse (or grape vine) for desirable traits like speed, endurance, length of stride (or drought resistance, fruit size, yield, disease resistance). This is why successful race horses are prized and command high stud fees (I believe that at this year’s Kentucky Derby all the horses descended from the same horse!).
With animals, you can’t yet commercially clone successors, but plants are different. “A clone is defined as a population of vines that are propagated asexually from a single mother vine.” This means that all of the vines of that clone are cuttings originally from the same vine. How is this possible? Plant nurseries have been able to turn out prodigious quantities of matter for years.
So this also means that a vineyard of Pinot Noir planted with Dijon Clone could consist of vines that were all the same individual with the same particularities. How would you tell the difference? DNA testing I guess… or you can believe what the nursery tells you… but those are the same guys who thought Chilean Carmenere was Merlot for 100 years!
By the way, all the (seedless) navel oranges that you have ever eaten come from the same plant that had a seedless mutation which prevents it from every reproducing!
That last bit in RBoulanger’s post is all about profitability. If you manage to make a particularly succulent variety of orange which is resistant to all diseases and you want to sell it, you’re essentially giving away the ability on the first sale for your customers to make new ones themselves. BUT, if you remove its reproductive abilities you can sell it to farmers year after year.
Ahhh … I finally understand … grape clones = inbreeding!
I actually have a worrying thought that I need to know some of this for the CSW. At least the general differences between clones / hybrids and crosses. I still havent made it past the online flash intro video of the study materials!