US: Northwest Grape Harvest Enters Homestretch

(Wines&Vines) - Oregon and Washington State may be neighbors, but this year’s grape harvest has arrived with significant differences on each side of the state line. With the harvest entering the homestretch, the Oregon Wine Board last week hailed a “miracle harvest” it expects may exceed previous records with respect to volume and fruit quality. The largest harvest ever recorded in Oregon occurred in 2009, when 40,200 tons of grapes were harvested; this year could exceed that. “The last two-weeks plus have been really outstanding,” Jesse Lange, general manager and winemaker at Lange Estate Winery in Dundee told Wines & Vines this morning. “It gave us the kind of miracle ending that we needed.” Lange has never picked grapes in November before, but with harvest wrapping up today at the winery’s 45 acres of estate vineyard, he admits feeling “stoked” about how the year has ended. It’s also testimony to just how far the Oregon industry has come over the past 30 years. Similar conditions to what Oregon winemakers were grappling with this year would have been a worse scenario in the 1980s.

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