Wine, Fog, Summer, Good
It’s May 26th and it’s finally beginning to look conspicuously like normal in this neck of the woods (Sonoma County). I woke up today, dragged my self to the driveway to pick up my newspapers (San Francisco Chronicle, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, New York Times) and notice that it was gray…everywhere gray…
…The fog had returned!
During the Summer months, up and down the California coast, the fog shows a familiar cycle of rolling in over the land, often about 5p or 6pm, then rolling back out anywhere between 9am to Noon the next morning. This natural cooling and limiting of the sun’s effect is critical to the slow maturation of our grapes. Without this cycle grapes would ripen too fast and not have the time let flavors develop.
Tom,
Nice work, and a good couple of lines about what makes the North Coast of California truly unique.
You might be interested in the following website which has ‘almost’ real-time satellite photos of the Cali coast:
http://sat.wrh.noaa.gov/satellite/1km/Monterey/VIS1MRY.GIF
There’s a new shot every 15 min or so, with about a 15 min processing delay before they get posted. I’ve downloaded and used many pictures from the site during wine education presentations. It’s a good way to demonstrate the fog layer, how it influences the crops here, and just how far it extends over the land.
The satellite pics B&W and are in the visual spectrum, so when it’s dark (locally nightime in California) there are no photos.
Alec
Your sure do live in a beautiful part of the world.