King Estate Winery and Vineyard, Eugene, Oregon by Richard Duval.

Talking with Oregon winegrowers, there was one word they consistently used to describe the state’s 2024 harvest: ideal. The result is expected to be exceptionally high quality wines across the board.

“The 2024 harvest was absolutely smashing when it comes to quality,” says Alex Sokol Blosser, president of Sokol Blosser in the Dundee Hills. “There’s balance in the wines, there’s flavor, there’s acid, there’s tannins, and there’s fruit.”

“The growing season was ideal, frankly,” says Gina Hennen, director of winemaking and viticulture at Adelsheim in the Chehalem Mountains. “I feel like we deserved it, if I’m being honest. There has been a string of pretty challenging harvests.”

“Lower stress growing season”

Indeed, recent years in Oregon have included wildfires (2020), a heat dome (2021), an April frost (2022), and warm temperatures (2023). By comparison, the 2024 growing season was relatively relaxed.

“It was one of the lower stress growing seasons and harvests that we’ve had,” says Brent Stone, co-CEO and winemaker at King Estate, located in the southern Willamette Valley. The winery farms a large estate vineyard and also works with more than 50 vineyard partners across the state.

From the start, the markers for the 2024 growing season were more aligned with long-term averages than with the recent warm years that Oregon and the broader West Coast have been experiencing. That continued all the way from bud break into harvest.

“At the winery, we had bud break on April 15^th. The average for the last 20 years was April 11^th,” says Ian Burch, at the time winemaker at Archery Summit in the Dundee Hills. (Burch left the winery at the end of 2024.) “Bloom, June 14^th, with the average for the last 20 years, June 13^th. Then veraison, August 16^th, in the last 20 years, August 17^th.”

“Average is outstanding”

Leah Adint, Erath

Temperatures cooled shortly after bud break. At the beginning of May, a storm dropped substantial precipitation. Temperatures then warmed up into the 80s. The result was increased vigor in the vines.

“We had explosive growth,” says Timothy Malone, head of winemaking and viticulture at J. Christopher and Appassionata in the Chehalem Mountains.

“Our team was working a lot of overtime in the spring, especially in May, June, and early July to handle vigor,” says winegrower Jesse Lange of Lange Estate in the Dundee Hills. The moisture and heat also led to other issues.

“We definitely had a high humidity year,” Lange says. “Mitigating that was a challenge.”

The weather was unsettled around bloom, with rain that led to shatter in some areas. However, few were complaining.

“Sometimes I love shatter,” says Leah Adint, head winemaker at Erath, which sources fruit from across Willamette Valley and also receives fruit from Southern Oregon. “It opens up the clusters a little bit.”

Overall, unlike recent years, temperatures continued to conform to long-term numbers. “April, May, and June, everything was dead-on average,” says Adint. “It’s one of those seasons where average is outstanding.”

Hot July into August yields to moderate temperatures

Interviews for this article were conducted in November and December 2024.

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