Winter’s polar vortex has wiped out most of Ohio’s wine grape crop.
The bitter cold was the worst for grape growers in 20 years, said Andy Troutman of the Winery at Wolf Creek in Norton and Troutman Vineyards south of Wooster in Wayne County.
He estimated that “at least half” of his 2014 grape crop on 19 acres at the two locations has been destroyed, and that will heavily impact wine production in 2015 and 2016.
“We were just decimated,” he said. “We’ve got significant damage … The polar vortex didn’t spare anyone.”
The cold extensively damaged and killed buds, something that hurts for one year, and may have damaged the vines, something that could hurt for years, he said.
It will be several months before the full extent of the winter damage is known, he said.
Some American grapes like Concord, Catawba and Niagara are hardy and survived, but premium European grapes like Chardonnay and Riesling sustained “really, really heavy damage … and may be wiped out,” Troutman said.
Some of those wines are likely to disappear from Ohio wineries in the coming years, he said.
Such grapes are among the most popular and profitable for wine production, but they are the most susceptible to cold, experts say. American grapes, while hardier, produce wines that tend to be sweeter and less complex, sometimes with an unpleasant taste that wine drinkers call “foxy.”
His wineries had good years in 2012 and 2013 and the tanks are full for future bottlings, so wine production won’t be hurt this year, he said.
The problem was the repeated snaps of bone-chilling arctic air that took a heavy toll on the grapes in Ohio and across the Midwest, said the 41-year-old Troutman.
There was “nothing that we could have done” to change what happened, he said. Growers realize there is such a risk, but Ohio hasn’t faced such cold in many years.
“This is probably the worst grape damage on record in Ohio, even worse than the last bad one that took place in 1994,” said Imed Dami of Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agriculture and Environmental Sciences and state viticulturist.
A state survey involving 62 grape producers with 838 acres showed substantial damage. Vineyards were hit with cold that officially hit 14 degrees below zero and unofficially dropped to 27 degrees below zero.
The growers reported 97 percent losses of European grapes, 57 percent loss of hybrid grapes that are more cold-resistant, and 29 percent loss of American grapes like Concord and Catawba.
Those losses were estimated at $4 million, Ohio State reported. Total losses to producers who also grow juice and table grapes will be much larger since there are nearly 2,000 acres of such crops in Ohio.
Winter damage to grapevine trunks and vine death is much more worrisome and that will take months to uncover, Dami said. He estimated that 20 to 30 percent of the state’s grapevines will die as a result of the polar vortex.
This winter’s cold weather was “more extreme and very different from past cold weather events,” he said.
Growers were also hurt by the fact that warm weather in December made the vines and buds more vulnerable to the killing cold, he said.
Early indications suggest this winter also was rough on the already struggling honeybee population.
It’s still early to tell for certain, but “it does look like it’s going to be a higher loss” than in recent winters, said Denise Ellsworth, who directs Ohio State University’s honeybee and native pollinator education program.
She said many beekeepers are reporting big losses in their honeybee colonies, but those reports are still mostly hearsay. A national survey will be conducted this month by the Bee Informed Partnership, an interdisciplinary team of honeybee experts, and that should provide a clearer picture of how bees across the country fared over the winter.
Even in cases where losses were significant, it’s hard to tell why, she said. Bees normally survive the cold by massing together and vibrating their bodies to produce heat, an action that’s fueled by the honey they eat, she explained. She said the problem could be that the colonies didn’t have enough bees to provide the necessary mass and warmth, but it could also be factors unrelated to the cold, such as Varroa mites or an insufficient honey supply.
Still, Ellsworth suspects the bitter cold had an effect.
The winter’s extreme cold is also expected to take a bite out of fruit production in Ohio this year.
Peach trees, in particular, were hit hard when their flower buds were damaged. “The peach crop could be very limited this year, if any at all,” fruit specialist Gary Gao reported in Buckeye Yard & Garden Line, a weekly report from the Ohio State University Extension.
Gao said blackberry plants that weren’t protected from the cold probably will produce poorly. Even blueberry bushes, which are more tolerant of the cold, may have been affected, Gao reported.
Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com. Reporter Mary Beth Breckenridge contributed to this report.