2009 Vintage Overview

2009 Bordeaux-Styled Wines & Chapitre 3, Syrah

So much has been written about Washington’s 2009 vintage, the first of three roller-coaster years. For us there were three critical periods, the cool spring, a torrid heat streak mid-summer, and the October 10 deep freeze. At the end of the ride we felt like we lived a blessed life since we came through with stunning results. Spring delayed development and limited yields; summer temperatures built rich ferments and gave us our earliest harvest on record; and we picked our last grapes on October 8, two days before a devastating freeze pretty much stopped all grape development throughout the Columbia Valley. The wines show common threads of the vintage: full flavor, rich mid palates and a long-structured finish.

2009 Rhone-Inspired Wines

The 2009 growing season started cool for the second year in a row.  By mid-May, the season had recorded the lowest “heat accumulation” in the previous 10 years. The pendulum then swung back, and by mid-June, the season was the warmest in the prior decade. Oh, agriculture! What followed was a very hot summer, with some historic temperatures in July and August.

We were fortunate the heat came mid-season when it did, advancing ripening early on. Our last picking day for Betz Family was October 8, seven to ten days earlier than average, and we were glad: the night of October 10 temperatures plummeted for the earliest and deepest autumn frost that I can remember. The freeze caused widespread damage to the leaf canopies, and for most sites, ripening through photosynthesis was done for the year. We dodged a big one!