It’s with a heavy heart that I share the news about a terrible hailstorm that struck Collio late on Saturday night.
Franco and I posted about it this morning over at VinoWire and my good friend Giampaolo Venica — whose vineyards were miraculously spared — sent me the above photo of vineyards in Plessiva.
“‘The hailstorm, which lasted for a good 30 minutes, struck in a leopard-spot pattern [affecting] one out of every six vineyards,’ said Luigi Soini, director at the Cantina Produttori di Cormons. ‘In some cases, as in Plessiva, Zegla, and Preval, 100% of the crop was lost. In others, 80%. In the more fortunate cases, only 10-15% of the fruit was damaged… It’s been years since a calamity of this proportion has occurred in Collio.’”
Source: Università di Udine.
Note how the canopy in the photo above has been almost entirely destroyed. Even where vineyards were not affected directly by the hail, the rot that will follow can have a devastating effect on. Many wineries, said Giampaolo, including some of the biggest names, will not be producing wine in the 2010 vintage.
As much as we love Nature, she can also be cruel…
Do Bianchi 
Terrible! Are there any news about the Slovenian side of the border? It’s so close to Medana, where Movia and Marian Simcic have most of their vineyards.
Yes, also the Brda has been hit, but not as much as the areas of Plessiva and Medana.
Terrible news!….any mail on which producers have been hit worst?
I’m sure that Brda has been hit, too. Plessiva is right by the border, as per Matteo’s comment.
@VinoFreak I don’t want to speculate as to who was damaged the most… I know some of the big names lost their entire crop…
Hate to be the bearer of bad news… :(
Oh, this is so sad…look at those poor vines!!!