Washington grape growers are seeing smaller yields this year, but the quality is described as “through the roof.” The state wine commission says that weather definitely played a role.
According to Steve Warner, “We got off to a really good start. We were really excited about the ’21 vintage and then, you know, we hit that massive heat dome. First time I’d heard of a heat dome used in a sentence, but we, I think, had in some areas we had up to four days of temperatures approaching 118 degrees... That did have an effect, obviously, on berry size. It was, you know, one of the warmest if not the warmest growing seasons that we’ve had on record.”
He adds that the smaller berries tend to add to the quality of wine, and from what he has tasted, they are fantastic.
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