US: Idaho Grape Harvest Nears Conclusion

While vintners from the Willamette to the Okanagan valleys are forecasting a stellar vintage, growers in Idaho are looking back on a challenging season as harvest winds down. Conditions in Idaho mirrored those across the Northwest, but many locals considered them highly unusual for the region, throwing expectations into disarray.

“It’s been a different year, definitely. Everything started out really late, and then a lot of the fruit we harvested came off a couple of weeks early,” said Patrick Williamson, manager at Williamson Orchards and Vineyards in Caldwell, Idaho, which typically produces 1,200 cases per year.

Returning to Idaho after six years away, during which time he saw grape harvests in Washington state and California, Williamson took the weather in stride as he reacclimatized to the state’s weather.

But not everyone saw the variations as normal. “The rest of my family would say otherwise,” he told Wines & Vines. “The freak monsoonal rain in September, and just how cold it was this past winter, the frost-freeze event we had around bud break, and then the hot summer.”

September’s rains caused much of the family’s Riesling crop to split, limiting the possibilities for a late-harvest wine. The grapes were instead harvested first, in mid-September, whereas normally the family’s Riesling grapes are harvested this week.

But this week, harvesters are focusing on late-maturing reds such as Sangiovese and Mourvedre, which needed the hang time to come into balance after a long, hot summer.

That being said, harvest could have a sweet conclusion: Williamson expects to pick some of the remaining Riesling for ice wine—weather permitting—during the next couple of weeks. “We’re hoping. It may take longer,” he said.