Washington Wine Grapes 2022 Pt 1
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with today’s Fruit Grower Report. The numbers are in for Washington’s 2022 wine grape harvest, and they’ve left a pretty broad smile across the face of the industry.
Chris Stone, Vice President of Marketing and Communications for the Washington State Wine Commission, says the data shows a 34% volume increase over 2021 …
STONE … “It was a really special year to be honest. We started off a little slow. Cool and wet in the spring and, you know, we, I would say probably, of course in a state this big you can’t generalize too much, but in “general” we were three to four weeks behind, you know, quote-unquote normal in terms of bud-break and all that getting kicked off for the year.”
From there, Stone says things just got better …
STONE … “Once it got started it was nice and smooth. We had a beautiful summer and the reality is fall, that kind of extended summer that stuck with us throughout September and October, was just an incredible blessing.”
Overall, Stone says it was kind of a quantity-quality two-fer …
STONE … “It led to, obviously, a larger crop, but just the overall quality was absolutely outstanding. The flavor development was crazy-good but without super-high sugar developments. You had a lot of just really beautiful, natural acid with relatively low PH numbers. So, just really a winemaker’s dream.”
Tune in tomorrow for more on a fantastic 2022 wine grape harvest and how the near perfect fall weather helped bring it all together.
