A few days ago, we had an unusually cold air mass move in. Vines all over Northern Cal were affected. Vineyards with frost protection systems fared better than those without, but many were pretty severely frost bitten.
The press has been pretty slow to pick up on the story, but I noticed a report on the Nor Cal NBC network tonight, and WineBusiness has put up a couple reports over the last 2 days. No-one will know for sure just how much crop has been lost, but some vineyards may see as much as 50% crop loss, based on initial damage reports.
Yours truly got hit pretty hard. No frost protection systems, and we're fairly high in elevation (about 2800'). Maybe as many as 75% of the primary shoots were fried. Hopefully the secondary growth will carry some fruit.
Following is a link to one of the Napa Vlley press reports, as well as a link to a pic from my vineyard earlier today.
Rough start to an otherwise promising season.