There is, for good reason, a lot of reporting right now on climate change and how it's affecting the grape harvest. Everywhere you look, wine regions are experiencing harsher-than-normal conditions. It would be easy to write a post about how hot it is and stop there. But, I want to pick out something else: this is a story of climate volatility, not just heat. A Cold Night in Bigfork, Montana This hit home for me in 2022, when I was asked to evaluate a future winery, and existing vineyard in the Bigfork area of Montana. Two years earlier, in 2020, the growing season had been warm, and the owners felt good about what climate change might mean for grape growing that far north. But, climate change isn't just hotter weather. It's climate volatility. In that same warm year, Montana got a sudden, early, catastrophic cold event. The weather through September and into early October 2020 stayed mild, highs in the mid-50s, with only two nights that dipped to freezing. Because of that, most of the