Wineries worry, shiver

Photo: The Canadian Press

Ontario's wine makers and grape growers are nervously watching the weather, fearing that this year's harvest could be literally nipped in the bud by an unusually cold winter.

"We've gotten very close to the critical temperatures for bud survival for vines for next year's crop," says Matthew Speck, the viticulturist at his family's vineyard and winemaking operation near St. Catharines, Ont., in the heart of Ontario's best-known wine region. He said this winter reminds him of 2014-2015, when his winery lost 30 per cent of its yield.

Speck notes what others in the industry know well — that temperatures are vitally important and can vary a great deal from place to place, even within a single property.

But this winter has been harsh for all of southern Ontario, including the Niagara region, where Speck helps run the Henry of Pelham Family Estate winery operation, founded by his parents in 1984.

"We've hovered, a few nights, very close to where some damage may or may not appear — right on that threshold. So it has been nerve-racking, those nights."

This winter, Speck is trying out a new cutting-edge sensor and monitoring system.

The solar-powered devices — about the size of a large cellphone — have GPS locators in them and a connection to a new wireless "internet of things" service that Bell is preparing to roll out commercially.

The system is being developed through a partnership between Shenzhen-based hardware manufacturer Huawei, Bell Canada and Toronto-based BeWhere Holdings. Inc., which specializes in asset-tracking systems.

Together, they have equipped Henry of Pelham with new monitoring technology that Speck thinks could be a big improvement because its sensors are easily moved as needed — rather than placed in fixed locations like traditional sensors that can't easily be moved.

"It allows me to make better, more precise decisions," Speck says.

One of those decisions is whether to start up the huge wind machines that Henry of Pelham and others across Ontario use to warm their vines.

If conditions are right, the machines can raise temperatures on the ground by four or five degrees — enough to prevent cold damage to the grape buds.

But Speck says his tower-mounted propellers cost his operation hundreds of dollars per hour to run, so he needs to know how to optimize their use.

"You may not want to run them on the whole vineyard," Speck says. "It might be one section or a low-lying area that's colder than another. And different varieties are sensitive at different temperatures."