(ST) - There’s yet another casualty of last winter’s polar vortex: grapes.

About 30 percent of the state’s wine-grape crop is missing in action, said Terri Savaryn, secretary of the Minnesota Grape Growers Association. Individual losses vary widely, from almost zero to 80 percent and up at some northern vineyards.

“Some are in very good shape, and others are taking it on the chin,” said Peter Hemstad, University of Minnesota grape breeder and co-owner of St. Croix Vineyards in Stillwater. “It’s not a catastrophe, but nobody’s happy about it.”

Kyle Peterson, winemaker at the family-owned Winehaven Winery in Chisago City, Minn., considers himself lucky to have lost only 10 percent of his winery’s grapes. “We were really fortunate,” he said. “Given what winter threw at us, we dodged that bullet.”

Less fortunate was Carlos Creek Winery in Alexandria, which lost about 80 percent of its expected grape yield, according to co-owner Tami Bredeson. Most of the vines’ roots survived, but the flower-producing died. That means they’ll produce fewer grapes — or none at all.

The lowest temperature recorded last winter, minus-27 degrees, was “not extreme by Minnesota standards,” Hemstad said. But the cold was unrelenting. “We had 50 days below zero.”

“There was no January thaw,” Bredeson said. “There was never a letup for the plants. They had to struggle so hard, for so long.”

Because of the relative youth of Minnesota’s wine industry, the plants also are young, which makes them more vulnerable to an extreme winter, according to Savaryn.

The state has nearly 50 bonded wineries, and most of them are young, she said. “There are few 20-year-old, established plants.”

To supplement their own supply, growers who lost a lot of grapes are looking to other growing regions where yields are plentiful. “We’re forced to source,” Bredeson said.

Buying grapes from outstate growers won’t increase the winery’s costs, she said.

“We can purchase California grapes, and pay for shipping and still have it less expensive than Minnesota grapes,” which require the same expensive equipment but are produced on a much maller scale than in major wine-growing regions.