Growing Season Report Concludes This Year Had Weather

Cataloging conditions it characterized as both without precedent and broadly in line with expectations, the Napa County Growers Alliance released its annual growing-season report Tuesday, concluding that this year’s weather, while different from all previous weather, was nevertheless weather, sources confirmed. The 48-page assessment, which represents eight months of observation by a committee of eleven, was distributed to members ahead of harvest and is available in the lobby of the alliance’s headquarters.

“What we experienced this season was weather — but not the weather we have seen before,” said report co-author Dr. Alan Pruett, presenting beside a chart with no labeled axes. “And yet, in a deeper sense, it was exactly the weather we have seen before, in that it occurred, outdoors, over the valley. The vines responded to it, because it was there. That is the story of this vintage.” Pruett then advanced to a slide reading “The Sun.”

The report describes the season as “dynamic” 41 times and “challenging yet rewarding” nine, and notes that temperatures rose and also fell, that rain arrived at times, and that the sun “continued.” A month-by-month appendix characterizes each month as “a month of contrasts,” with the exception of February, which is described as “notable.” The document contains no numbers. The word “degrees” appears once, in a passage about slope.

Reception among members has been warm, with several growers praising the report’s accuracy. “It’s all in there,” said Rutherford grower Denny Kalb, who called the document courageous. “There was weather, and I farmed in it.” Asked at Tuesday’s press conference whether the report was, on the whole, describing a good year or a bad one, Pruett said that “good” was a 20th-century framework, adding that the alliance prefers to evaluate each vintage “on its own terms, whatever those turn out to have been.”

At press time, the alliance confirmed work had begun on next year’s report, which is finished.