Bud Break / Spring Time / Soil Types, etc...

I've been out in numerous vineyards over the last couple of weeks and just the last few days have been seeing some of the vineyards experiencing bud break. The vines go into dormancy over the winter months and when the warmer weather and longer days come, the vines will come back to life. You can look at the shoots and begin to see the little buds popping out. Now is when all of the vineyard managers start to get excited and a bit edgy. It's imperative that we don't get any bad frosts or heavy cold rainy weather. That's what causes the years when they don't have a lot of fruit or poor quality fruit to make the wine with. At least one of the causes. This is farming after all. The weather is now in the drivers seat. There is only so much we can do to the crops to bring them to the perfect fruit that we all desire.

The elevation and soil type are also huge factors which I didn't understand when I first got into wine. There are several types of soil just here in the Willamette Valley. The soil is a large part of what the French call Terroir(tear-wahr). In Burgundy, which is the area in France where they grow Pinot Noir, their soil is a limestone composition. Ours is much different. Vineyard acreage here is mainly divided between hillside sites on basaltic-origin, clay-loam soils yielding grapes with intense fruit character, and lower-elevation sites on sedimentary, silt-loam soils providing grapes with great structure. To simplify that more, think of the higher elevation sites as having fruit that is rich with red fruit (strawberry, raspberry, etc.)characteristics and the lower elevation sites have more black fruit (spicy black raspberry, blackberry, dark cherry) characteristics.
Of course these are generalities. There are several soil types and varieties of each that are unique. That is exactly why there are AVA's. American Viticultural Areas. I'll go into more detail about that at another time.
The elevations are also key because small elevation changes not only effect soil types, but growing conditions. The higher you go, the cooler it gets. Even from 200 feet elevation (the valley floor is around 100-150 feet above sea level - generally speaking) to as high as 1250 feet. Those vineyards don't always produce fruit because they are not able to fully ripen. The days don't get as warm and the growing season is just a tiny bit shorter. I tend to really like the higher elevations sites for several reasons. One they tend to produce fruit that is a little more earthy in character because the vines have to go down so far to get water. Those vines then pull much more of the minerals from the soil which also produces those rich red fruit characteristics I mentioned.
Do I have you confused yet or do you think you understand a little more about wine? Let me know. I would really love to know what you think. The main thing and most important, just enjoy the wine that you enjoy. Don't let anyone else change your opinion of what you like. Wine Spectator is not the end all to what are the best wines. That's only some people's opinion, not necessarily yours! I know I've had people tell me they didn't like a particular wine or winery and I let that influence my opinion until I, later, tasted that wine again and thought to myself, I really like this wine. I may know more than some on wine and there are plenty of others that know way more than I do. Just because someone else knows more doesn't mean that you will agree with "their opinion". Amen. Now go drink some wine!

Cheers,

Ron