Cape Vineyards Battered by Storm
Brandon MarcFor those of you living in the fairest Cape, and I mean Cape Town of course, you would have certainly experienced one of the Cape’s wildest storms in 30 years. The devastating storm struck on Tuesday 11th November and raged on until it finally subsided on Thursday.
Gale force winds bruised and battered the Mother City, while record rainfall caused flooding throughout the Western Cape. The Cape’s winelands also suffered its fair share of damage in the form of erosion. Mountain streams feeding many vineyards were transformed into gushing rivers washing away vineyards and causing trellis structure losses.
‘Thankfully we are all still alive and well, but next week will have it’s own challenges as we will start to do damage control.’ – Danie Wium, www.my-grape-vine.com
However, the stormy weather was not all bad news as crop farmers of the Boland region have welcomed the rainfall which has come at a critical stage.
I wish everyone the best of luck with the post-storm rehabilitation and hope that vineyard losses are minimal.
Cheers!
Brandon Marc
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Comments
Anetha (Who am I?) Good luck to all the grape farmers with extensive damage. Sometimes though, nature leaves its mark much more unobtrusively. At Steenberg we are battered by the South-Easter - also part of what makes our Sauvignon Blancs successfull, but the 2008 vintage had its challenges. Vineyards ’shut down’ at an average wind speed of 14 km/hour for self-preservation. Over a three month period beginning at the end of 2007, we had an average wind speed of 18 km/hour, with only 5 wind-free days. This, together with severe winds during the flowering period (round about now), resulted in our crop dropping with close to 40%. But that’s also what makes wine such a beautiful living, breathing thing - it is never just a recipe - what you get in your glass is hugely influenced by Mother Nature - or sometimes her wrath!
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Brandon Marc (Who am I?) Thank you for your insightful perspective Anetha… wine is most certainly ‘alive’, one of the many reasons why I find myself intrigued by the illustrious liquid!
Brandon Marc
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Wow! This is unreal. Mother Nature sure was ‘angry’ that day. I sincerely hope that the grape farmers escaped with little crop damage.