the foremost authority on Central Coast wineFriday, 23 September 2016 - 6:48HomeNewsCentral Coast Wine ReportNo categoriesPaso Westside’s, Wild, Wet, Windy, Wacky, Weird, WeatherMay 16, 2016 | Author: redwinebuzzI should have guessed something was up when the second week in January it was summer in winter. Off our back deck, the temperatures were in the mid to high 80’s for 13 straight days. Believe me, I was checking vines for bud swelling daily towards the end of the month.The days were not only balmy, but neither were the nights. The coldest it got at our home overlooking our Paso Westside vineyard was in the high 40’s. For Paso, that qualifies as weird. The vines definitely looked like they were trying their best to swell up, but never got to the point of bud break. No question I was worried about the summer weather we were having, but as long as it didn’t precipitate bud break, I felt we were okay.Then came February, (plus the last 2 days of January). Winter returned with a vengeance, and our lows registered mid to high 20’s in the colder valley vineyard. Winter here at CerroPrieto dragged on well into spring, when suddenly, one day winter fled and summer arrived. Well after March 21st we had our first day of not spring, but summer.Once again we were basking in 80-90 degree weather, without the intervening spring. This time, we did get bud swelling, and not long after, bud break. It was late, but the buds came out. The only way we knew it was spring was by of the monster winds that visited during what was nominally called “Spring”.The first winds registered in the high 60’s mph, and evidence of their presence were huge piles of 60 foot Live Oaks, knocked down en masse, with one pile numbering 12 trees piled up like a big bunch of splinters. We had a second such event just below our house, but it was composed of only 6 trees worth of splinters.2005 had been a big year for us with rain totaling some 42”. In 2006, 2007, and 2008 we had 16”, 12” and 9” respectively. It is no secret that 2009- 2010 was a huge rain year, and we registered 41”, which ran clear into April. Here in Paso Robles, every mile west of the 101 Freeway, the rainfall increases by roughly 1” for every mile west that you go. So, there were some folks 15 miles east of town who got some 15-20”, whereas normally they would get only about 7”.The wacky part was the late rains, which tried their best to sabotage grape farmers by raining hard every time we mowed, or weed whacked, or macheted, or hoed. In all, we repeated all four tasks up to five times. Part of that is my own fault, as I had refused to usepre-emergents (preemptive herbicides that can contaminate ground water). But next year, we will use pre-emergents, because each trip through the vineyard with hoes, or machetes, costs out at $4000. That’s right. It’s expensive…especially the way this all came down.The weird part was during bloom. Although absolutely perfect at the outset, it wassubmarined by gods of wrath: Not only