Yes, we had an unseasonably cold second week of September that brought nigh time cold of -2 to -3. What was really unfortunate is that we were unable to get to fixing our wind fence that had been damaged earlier. The wind fence helps deflect the cold air that comes down the mountain and would otherwise enter the vineyard. With it having been damaged by high winds the coldest air was allowed to come into the vineyard and freeze the vines.
This cold snap is 3-4 weeks earlier than usual and had we been able to see this year through to the normal harvest period at the beginning of October we would have had about 1040 degree days and about 159 frost free days. Instead, we were lucky to have such a hot summer because up till Sept 14th we still accumulated 960 degree days growing (celcius) and 137 frost free days and most of the grapes were able to ripen to workable levels and some quite nicely. It is also interesting to see similarities to the summer temperature pattern we had this year to the last time we had an early frost which was in 2009 when we had a hard frost on Sept 21st. That year was a hot year like this one but with the early frost we ended up with 138 frost free days.
I've posted the new climate data.
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