Better Late Than Never: The 2022 Vintage in Washington State

 BY ERIC GUIDO | DECEMBER 5, 2024

The 2022 vintage will not soon be forgotten in Washington State. A late season by every measure—flowering, veraison and harvest—the year was also incredibly stressful for a variety of reasons. I visited the state in early October of 2022, which typically would have been a horrible time for winemakers to welcome me into their tasting rooms. While I was planning the trip, several estates declined my appointment requests, assuming that they would be neck-deep in harvest. However, when I arrived, I encountered winery after winery waiting for their fruit to reach maturity on the vine. I found cellars full of empty fermentation tanks, with cellar hands repeatedly scrubbing and sanitizing machinery out of a combination of preparation and boredom. 

Many producers had never encountered a vintage like 2022. This is Washington State, where each season seems to be warmer than the previous one. Most winemakers here have spent the majority of their careers learning to deal with increasingly warm conditions, but this was something new. Many compare 2022 to 2011, which is the coldest growing season on record, but this was different. While 2022 started cold and wet, it was relatively warm through July and August, and as October progressed, the state even enjoyed an Indian summer. Anticipation was very high for what this relatively cool, extended growing season could mean for the wines, but there was also anxiety in the air. In the Pacific Northwest, the weather can go from sunny and warm to frost conditions overnight. Nail biting persisted as producers tried to gauge phenolic ripeness against the possibility of needing to pull in all of their fruit at a moment’s notice. Moreover, yields were generally high, and many worried about having the space to accommodate the fruit when it arrived at the winery. As it happened, the weather held out, and I presumed that the 2022s would be fascinating.  

Old Vine Merlot at the Leonetti Estate in October of 2022

Curiously, during my trip to the region this past October, I found something other than what I expected: inconsistency. One winemaker will tell you that Bordeaux varieties fared better than Rhône varieties, and the next will tell you the exact opposite. Some are honest about the challenges of the vintage, while others sugarcoat the situation. To be clear, 2022 is in no way a poor vintage, or a vintage to skip. I could easily rattle off 20 producers that excelled, compellingly marrying the season's conditions with the winemaker's style, but I also encountered several wines that pale in comparison to their usual selves. The wines are certainly more approachable than usual, generally elegant with soft tannins. The reality is that 2022 is a telling example of what the most talented winemakers and vineyard managers are capable of—wines that will make a fine addition to any vertical. It’s essential to dig deeper into the growing season to understand why this year didn’t uniformly yield the wines that both winemakers and I had hoped it would.

The 2022 vintage began with a snowy winter and frigid temperatures that lasted well into spring, coupled with regular precipitation. Steve Robertson of Delmas explains, “There was so much water in the soil when the vines woke up that if you were a producer that was irrigating, you were over-hydrating. The canopies were massive across the Walla Walla Valley, as were the berry and cluster sizes.” The cold spring conditions resulted in uneven fruit setting and prolonged flowering. Spray applications were necessary for dealing with mildew, and fruit set was abundant—the first real issue of 2022. Yields were much lower in 2020 and 2021. The 2020 vintage had problems with smoke, with many wineries forced to dump or declassify wines. Extremely warm and dry conditions in 2021 resulted in a 30% average reduction in quantity, though I received reports of much higher. Pleased with the larger yields of 2022, many growers let the fruit hang. Louis Skinner of Betz Winery comments, “Two thousand twenty-two was a year where we couldn’t be on autopilot. A lot of canopies needed to be repositioned or reduced, plus a larger crop…The only option was to lower the yield.”

Stress was high through the summer. Temperatures remained relatively normal, but the late start to the season had already taken its toll. Veraison took place weeks later than average. Worries set in about achieving phenolic ripeness before temperatures would naturally start to drop in the fall. The region saw its typical cooldown in early September, but very little fruit was ready for harvest. Winemaker Matías Kúsulas of Gard Vintners explains, “Usually, the problem in Washington State is sugar accumulation before phenolic ripeness, but that wasn’t an issue in 2022.” Fortunately, an Indian summer settled in and lasted into October, with only a few rain events and significant diurnal shifts of 40 to 50 degrees. The outlook suddenly seemed much more positive, but the trick was timing harvest to achieve ripe tannins while having ample resources to bring in an abundant amount of fruit in a compressed period of time. In the end, many wineries harvested in the third week of October, with one even reporting a final harvest on October 31. Wineries with estate vineyards or close relationships with growers had the best chances of success in 2022 because they retained the ability to harvest on their preferred schedule. Many winemakers without access to estate vineyards who desired to pick at a precise time could not do so because vineyard management teams had already scheduled other wineries for that date.