There will be no grape crop in British Columbia because cold has killed the buds.
But in Ontario, Debbie Zimmerman, chief executive officer for Grape Growers of Ontario, said so far “we’re good!”
“We’re one of the few places in the country” that will have a grape crop this year, she said, providing the weather for the balance of the season co-operates.
She said the cold snap here enabled wineries to harvest a good crop of grapes for ice wine.
But the weather has been devastating for about 150 grape growers in British Columbia.
“Given the low temperatures and the length of the cold spell, we can assume that nearly all of the grape buds have been killed and there will be very little fruit this year,” research scientist Ben Min Chang of the Summerland Research and Development Centre told the growers’ annual meeting.
“What we need to consider now is whether there has been trunk damage and how we can get our vineyards back into production,” he was quoted by Country Life in B.C. magazine.
