Icewine test #1

We had a freeze this morning. I got a 29 degree measurement in the vineyard with a house thermometer. Opossum Hollow had a 24 degree low. The car reported 31 in the driveway and 35 on Chalk Mountain.

Considering all these measurements, the vineyard air temp was probably around 31. The lower temperature readings were due to exposure to the sky.

About 3/4 of the vines are now in the 'toasted leaf' stage. Surprisingly, the other 1/4 look like they will shrug off the freeze and keep going until something more significant blows through. In one set of Bridlegate x Mourvedre, 6 vines were all toasted, but the one on the end look fine. In other cases, the vines sharing parents had about the same percentage of leaves toasted. In general, the more cordifolia in the vine, the better it's chances of surviving this morning's freeze.

Anticipating the freeze, I decided to harvest my one berry still hanging and call it a 'Texas icewine' test. There has to be a first. When actually doing it, the exercise was more practice than anything else. It really wasn't cold enough for icewine. There was frost on the grass, but the berry wasn't noticeably frozen. The brix was only 20, which was about what I would have expected without the 'freeze'. 5 or 6 hours of air temperatures in the twenties would probably freeze the groups, but I wonder how often such an event is the first significant freeze of the year?