Still

A view from the footbridge, across the frozen lake.

Yes, it's happened:

This winter is colder than last.

In fact, it's the coldest February on record.

Last year, our coldest temperatures recorded were -14 degrees F.

This year, on more than one occasion, our vineyards have registered -17 to -20 degrees. (Depending on elevation. You never realize how much temperature varies until you start recording it on multiple sensors across several acres!)

And so, the vineyard remains still, quieted and muffled under a thick blanket of snow, as winter pruning carries on, and summer planning continues.

Each day the temperature plunges, the snow sparkles all the more, beneath a prism of dazzling ice crystals.

Although cold, this winter has been exceptionally bright: a banana tree I grow at home as a foliage plant, perched in a sunny window, produced a cream-colored flower cluster for the first time ever, bursting open mid-February and blanketing the house with the scent of hyacinth, on the coldest day of the year.

The coldest February on record, but, also one of the sunniest (clear open skies contributing to the plunging mercury.)

Frost paints the banks of the old sawmill creek.

Another season for the record books.

Another winter unlike the one before.

Cold, but dazzling.

Each year's weather is registered in the flavors and aromas of the next year's vintage: I anticipate some dazzling, and unprecedented, wine for 2015.