Back in February I said that, whilst the weather had been warm that it was not exceptional… I was wrong. We have just learned today that February 2024 was the warmest February ever recorded, extending the run of monthly records to nine in a row. This is, of course, can be attributed to global warming (where greenhouse gas emissions are trapping the heat). Temperatures in 2023/2024 were also boosted by an ‘El Niño’ weather event. The warming gases helped to push the monthly average about 1.77C warmer than “pre-industrial” times (before humans started burning large amounts of fossil fuels).

March, however, has seen a drop in temperature – both daytime and during the night. This comes as a slight relief to us in that, had the February trend continued, there was a danger that budding in our vineyards would take place even before pruning is completed – really not good for the plants. Quite apart from that, assuming that this cycle continued we may well have been harvesting our grapes in mid-August, which for our area is unheard of. (Our earliest recorded harvests have been at the very tail-end of August, but never earlier than this).

Unrelated to this was an innocuous accident that took place, whereby our vineyard manager has badly sprained his ankle on his way to work. This was at the very end of January, and he has not worked since then, despite the fact that he is desperate to come back. Winter is one of the busiest times in our vineyards (owing to the pruning), so this really could not have happened at a worse time for us.