Budbreak on the vineyard and Lecinaro is one our first vines to bud, the vineyard is pruned and trellised, Spring is a time of year filled with anticipation but always tainted with the threat of frost.

Over the past couple of days Puglia and Sardinia have been hit the worst with a great drop in temperatures, frost damage occurs when temperatures drop below 32 °F (0 °C) after green growing tissue has appeared from a bud. It’s generally a threat early in the growing season on cold clear nights, shortly after budbreak. It is a danger because the first green growth produced on a new grapevine shoot is two or three basal leaves, immediately followed by the embryonic flower clusters that will become this year’s crop. Temperatures here dropped to -1.5°C between 2-6am enough time to to cause slight damage to Lecinaro. After pruning, we covered the vines with propolis in the hope this would help and to an extent it did preventing further damage.

Weather is another thing a grower can’t control so keeping our fingers crossed that the forecast is good.