N.B. grape growers still feeling lingering effects of 2018 frost
/by George Fullerton
The late frost in June 2018 impacted a variety of agriculture operations across New Brunswick. Soft fruit crops – including strawberries, blueberries, and grapes – were severely impacted. Some growers suffered losses in excess of 75 percent of their average production.
This year’s below-average temperatures in the spring and into the summer also raised concerns with producers, including grape growers. They were concerned about fruit development and yields.
Retired family physician Dr. Bill Fitch and his wife Linda own the Domaine Latitude 46 Estate Winery in Memramcook in southeastern New Brunswick. They have six acres of grapevines on the home vineyard on the Memramcook River and one acre of grapevines at Belliveau Orchard a bit farther downriver.
Bill and Linda Fitch bought their established vineyard in 2012 and undertook a considerable amount of replanting. They obtained their licence to make and market wine in 2017. They said they had a bumper harvest this year despite the cold spring and cool conditions in September and October.
While the total harvest hadn’t been calculated as of mid-October, Bill Fitch said he was confident that the 14,000 pounds tallied as of that point was double last year’s harvest.
“We had so much crop that we had to purchase two additional fermentation tanks to handle the extra volume,” he said.
Zach Everett, co-owner of the Magnetic Hill Winery near Moncton, considered his harvest two-thirds complete as of mid-October. He pointed out that the cool spring weather resulted in the loss of at least one week of the growing season, which is hard to make up at the end of the season.
Everett noted that their red grape varieties were significantly less mature than normal. Magnetic Hill had plans to harvest their red grapes and use thermo technology to flash cook them and then immediately flash cool them, which Everett said helps concentrate flavours and cook off some “green expressions.” He said that use of thermo technology would be a first for Maritime grape growers.
Everett said they left their white grape varieties on the vines for an extra week, and that they had come off with good volume and good quality.
He said he considered the 2019 white grape variety harvest a bit better than average, adding that a few of the contract growers he deals with reported an exceptional crop this year. However, one contract grower had only about 60 percent of his average harvest due to lingering effects of the severe frost damage in June 2018.
Alan Hudson, who owns the Richibucto River Wine Estate in Mundleville, said they expected to wrap up the harvest on their 20-acre vineyard by the weekend of Oct. 26 and 27.
“Some varieties have done much better than I expected, while other varieties are still recovering from the severe frost damage that occurred in 2018,” said Hudson in mid-October. “Generally, the quality is not bad at all. In addition to the late, cold spring, we also had a killing frost in September, which killed the leaves on some varieties. But other varieties still have green leaves and we don’t expect a severe killing frost, so we can get our crop off comfortably.”
Hudson added, “We are farmers and we always look forward to next year and an even better crop.”
Motts Landing Vineyard and Winery on the north shore of Washademoak Lake in Cambridge-Narrows, N.B., reported a very unusual growing season, but a crop that was coming in better than average.
“We are about two weeks beyond the date we typically complete our harvest,” said Motts Landing co-owner David Craw in mid-October. “We had a late start to the growing season in the spring, but a week of warm, sunny weather for pollination, and that set us up for a lot of fruit on the vines.”
Toward the end of October, Craw noted that they had witnessed no severe frost and they had lots of green leaves in their vineyard. He said he expected their white grape variety harvest to be completed by the weekend of Oct. 19 and 20.
Craw said he considered the quality of their fruit to be better than average with good chemistry, which translates to high potential for excellent wines.
He added that they had some damage to their Muscat grapevines in 2018 because of the late frost. But the vines seem to have recovered from the damage and they had a good crop this year.
Craw said they expected to harvest red grapes at Motts Landing into the end of October, with volumes looking very good.
Alan Gillis of the Gillis of Belleisle Winery in Springfield, N.B., said the harvest from their six-acre vineyard was completed by mid-October. He added that their white grape varieties were higher than average on quantity, with sugar content hovering in the year-to-year average.
Gillis reflected on the 2018 growing season when the late spring frost dropped their production by about 75 percent.
He said that their red grape varieties were down this year compared to their average, but pointed out that the vines were “bouncing back from the 2018 frost damage.”
“A number of growers affected by the late frost in 2018 attempted to recover production through pruning damaged vines,” said Gillis. “We just let our affected vines go wild. Incidentally, that strategy seemed to result in a lot less disease pressure on the vines this growing season to the extent that we did not carry out a number of spray applications we typically do.”
