Crippled by spring cold snap, Maryland wineries replant and reset

By Amanda Loudin
For The Chesapeake Bay Journal

For the Maryland wine industry, climate change is a paradox. It has helped the industry diversify and expand as average annual temperatures rise. But last spring an extreme temperature swing, another hallmark of global warming, devastated vineyards across the state.

For several days in March, temperatures soared into the 80s across the region, 30 degrees higher than average. Sensing an end to their winter’s nap, grapevines in Maryland began budding out. Then came April 21, with several hours of temperatures in the mid-20s. Vineyard owners did what they could to protect those delicate buds, but for most the damage had been done.

Melissa Aellen, president of the Maryland Wineries Association, a third-generation vintner at Linganore Winecellars in Mount Airy and founder of Simple Theory Wine Co. in Frederick, says that her family’s vineyards lost 90% of their grapes.

“We have protective sprays and frost machines that can help with frost, but at 24 degrees, that’s a freeze,” she said. “The grapes were so far along from the warm temperatures in March that they couldn’t withstand the cold.”

In vineyard after vineyard, from hilly Western Maryland to comparatively flat Southern Maryland, the damage was extreme. Eastern Shore and Chesapeake Bay-adjacent wineries got off a bit easier thanks to their proximity to the water, but the state’s entire industry suffered this year.

Virginia vineyards also sustained damage of varying degrees, depending on location, and in some cases, the damage was worse.

“The vines were more advanced and more [had put out] buds,” said Joe Fiola, a University of Maryland extension specialist in viticulture and small fruits. “The higher elevations of 800 feet or more did better than the lower because they were behind in bud break.”

Over the past two decades, Maryland wineries enjoyed explosive growth, reaching nearly 1,000 acres of grape growing statewide. That’s thanks in part to the state’s wide range of soil composition, or “terroir,” as vintners call it — but the main driver has been hotter growing seasons.

“We have many climates in this state,” Fiola said.

All that means the state can grow a wide variety of grapes, something researchers like Fiola have helped expand.

“Grapes like heat, but not humidity, which brings disease,” Aellen said. “We’ve worked with the universities to hybridize grapes to better withstand Maryland humidity.”

The list of Maryland-grown grapes continues to expand as temperatures rise. Familiar varieties like pinot noir, cabernet franc, chardonnay and albariño are ever more common, as are hybrids such as vidal blanc, vignoles and chambourcin.

“The limiting factor to East Coast vineyards has always been the very cold winters,” Fiola said. “But now our averages are higher, and we don’t have as many lasting extremes.”

Maryland has reaped this benefit. Where nearby states like Pennsylvania, Virginia and New Jersey have a greater range of average temperatures, Maryland today now sits in a sweet spot for grape cultivation.

“If I were to put in a commercial vineyard on the East Coast, I’d pick Maryland,” Fiola said.

While climate change has made average temperatures more moderate in the state, it also causes shorter events at the extremes, such as this spring’s freeze.

“Late spring frosts haven’t been the Achilles’ heel here,” Fiola said. “But this was an unusual combination of events. The highs were so high in March, and the April freeze lasted several hours.”

The type of damage varied, from killing off weeks-old buds to entire vines, the latter being harder to recover from. Linganore — which is 50 years old — suffered extreme damage but not a total loss of its vines. “Our vineyards aren’t dead. They’re just not producing,” Aellen said. “So, we still have to pay for labor and care, and now we have to buy grapes we didn’t plan on buying.”

By state law, Maryland wineries can source up to 49% of grapes from out of state and still call the resulting wines “Maryland made.” Linganore and others are leaning on industry friends in states like New York and Texas to supplement their losses.

Rachel Lipman is a fifth-generation vintner who makes wine and mead at Loew Vineyards, also in Mount Airy, and is vice president of the Maryland Wineries Association. She says her business is still figuring out its path forward after the spring damage. As the state’s first kosher winery, Loew can’t rely on out-of-state grapes as other wineries can.

“We have to work with our own raw materials,” she said, “unless we could find grapes in another state that are kosher.”

Most of the state’s wineries will still have plenty of wine available this year, according to the vintners, because they were created with past years’ reserves. It’s the next few years that will see more Maryland wine made with some out-of-state grapes.

“We will be replanting most of the vines we lost this year, but it will be three years before they bear fruit, and probably 2029 or 2031 before we can produce wine from the new plants,” Aellen said.

A silver lining for Loew is the fact that it produces mead (made from honey instead of grapes), which will fill in its white wine gaps as reserves run out.

“It’s going to be a very different few years, and we’ll have to get creative,” Lipman said. “But we hope the honey wines can help us hold over.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved some financial assistance in the form of low-interest emergency loans and credit, which some wineries may tap into, but the costs of the April freeze will likely top well over $2 million, according to the Maryland Wineries Association. That leaves plenty of gaps and plenty of worries, Aellen said.

Both Aellen and Lipman emphasize that, while people often consider wine a luxury item, its producers are still farmers and there are tough times ahead. Lipman hopes wine lovers remember that and buy local.

“We still have wine to sell,” she said, “and [local] relationships are the most important factor in our sustainability.”

— Amanda Loudin is a freelance writer based in Howard County.