Sean P. Sullivan's Northwest Wine Report

Talking about the 2014 growing season in Washington, winemaker Josh Maloney of Milbrandt Vineyards summed it up by quoting the movie Biloxi Blues: “Man it's hot. It's like Africa hot. Tarzan couldn't take this kind of hot.”

 Indeed, 2014 has been another warm growing season in Washington. Most markers from budbreak through veraison have been approximately one to two weeks ahead of historical averages due to the warmth of the year. “Things started early and never slowed down, pretty much across the board,” Maloney said.

Growers and vintners didn’t have to look back far to find a comparable year. “The 2014 season started out as a repeat of 2013 in terms of early, warm spring, near record breaking heat in July and early August,” said Wade Wolfe of Thurston Wolfe Winery, who sources fruit predominantly from the Horse Heaven Hills and Yakima Valley. “But then it shifted to the 'average' mode for most of August and so far into September.”

As one might expect, the largest impact of the warm temperatures has been on sugar accumulation. “Super high sugars,” said Hillary Sjolund of the winemaking consulting service Enomama. Sjolund, who also has her own winery Sonoris, works primarily with fruit from Red Mountain – typically Washington’s warmest appellation.

“I went through 70+ vineyard samples yesterday and, for reds, I couldn’t even find one under 25 Brix right now,” Sjolund said, referring to a measure of sugar accumulation. Sjolund said that, to compensate for the higher sugars - and the potentially higher alcohol levels that would result – many winemakers will saignée their fermenting tanks, a process of bleeding off some of the juice. They will then add water back to bring down the alcohol.

While a common practice in warmer regions and in warmer vintages, Sjolund noted that this could be challenging when berries get dehydrated, as has been happening recently on Red Mountain. “You’re getting more sugar release from dehydrated berries,” she said. “So you think that you’re watering back to 24.5 Brix when in reality you might be watering back to 25.5 or 26. I think some people are going to have higher alcohols than they are going to anticipate.” 

Winemaker Trey Busch of Sleight of Hand Cellars agreed many winemakers would take the route Sjolund described. “We prefer to make the wine in the vineyard but in a warm vintage when sugars are going up so quickly and you’re waiting for flavors, you’re waiting for seed development, and you’re waiting for tannin development - and you’re dealing with high Brix - those are the things that you have to do,” he said. Busch noted, however, that if done properly, the concentration of the resulting wine is not affected while quality is improved.

“It’s definitely a winemaker’s kind of year,” Sjolund said. “It’s a great growing season in the sense that everything is getting ripe. But we’re going to have to work more with this ripeness to make sure we make a balanced product.”

While most people I spoke with reported higher sugar accumulations, in some areas, the results have been more variable. Maloney works with fruit from across the Columbia Valley. “Like last year, the excessive heat doesn’t seem to have as much impact on ripeness and timing of our warmer sites, but we are seeing higher Brix and lower acids in the cooler sites for this time of year than we would normally expect,” Maloney said. “Whatever normal means now is anyone’s guess.”

Wolfe also noted that the warm season has decreased differences between cooler and warmer areas. “Cooler sites, such as the Yakima Valley, are ripening at the same time as traditionally warmer sites, such as Horse Heaven Hills,” he said, noting that different varieties have shown different effects as well. “Bordeaux varieties, especially Cabernet Sauvignon, seem to be ripening sooner than usual compared to other varieties.”

Differences have also been reported from 2013 in cluster and berry size, with some reporting that they have seen smaller sizes and others larger. “Our own count at Seven Hills, we’re running 20 berries per cluster over last year,” said Marty Clubb of L’Ecole No 41. “We’re also - at least at Seven Hills - seeing berry sizes inflated about ten percent from last year.” Clubb, who attributed this largely to a good fruit set at bloom, said the result has been as much as a half ton more fruit per acre than originally forecast.

 On Red Mountain, however, Sjolund, said berry sizes have been somewhat smaller, at least in the vineyard samples she has been receiving. “The Cabernet berry sizes are small,” she said. “Compared to 2013, at this level of ripeness, I did not see the hardness of those berries like I’m seeing this year.” 

Despite the warmth of the year, many winemakers are pleased with how the growing season has progressed to date. “We are very excited about the quality of what we have so far,” Maloney said. “It looks like we’ve got some great conditions for the foreseeable future. We think we might be looking at another banner vintage.”

Picture of Red Mountain Merlot pumpover courtesy of Sleight of Hand Cellars (Follow on Facebook). 
Picture of the first rack and return of the year courtesy of Long Shadows (Follow on Facebook). 
Picture of Merlot bin courtesy of Robert Ramsay Cellars (Follow on Facebook). 

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