August in the Vineyard

In the Spring of 2022 Mother Nature was both kind and cruel. She brought the gift of abundant rainfall.  After years of drought, the wettest April on record.  

But she also sucked the warmth out of the Willamette Valley at mid-month.  Temperatures on Ribbon Ridge dropped to below 30ºF just as our tender buds were swelling and about to open.

For a time it looked like we’d lost half our Chardonnay and some lesser amount of Pinot Noir to frost.  Called the crop insurance company…photographed the empty canes…prepared for the worst.

Owner/Winemaker, Doug Tunnell, driving through the vineyard

But as the first months of summer rolled by the vines’ backup system deployed…secondary buds produced shoots and leaves and the tiny primordial clusters that turn into plump clusters for making wine. 

As of this writing, it appears we’ll have a fine harvest this fall. Because of the cold spring it will be late, very late by the standards of the last decade. We’ll be picking in October instead of August. There will be birds. There may be rain...

But more than one Willamette Valley winemaker claims the late years are the best and as I look back on the wines of 1999, 2010 and 2011.

I count myself among them.