2000 Willamette Valley / Oregon Vintage

The Willamette Valley Wineries Association sums 2000 up in two words: almost perfect. The season started early at both bud break and bloom, and vineyards set a full crop, which growers then thinned back to the yields they wanted. Through the heart of summer the weather stayed quiet. Decanter records July and August as dry and cool, and credits those two months with letting the fruit ripen evenly and unusually well. There were no dramatics in either direction, no heat spikes on record in the sources and no soaking summer. Decanter reads the year as a relatively dry vintage overall. That pattern held into the fall, which is the part Oregon growers care about most. Harvest opened in the last week of September and ran to the last week of October, and across the whole of it only 1.1 inches of rain fell. Fruit came in totally ripe and without disease pressure. Ripeness was very good, acids moderate to good, and Pinot Noir color and extraction excellent, though the acids did not carry the firmness of the 1999s.

• Early bud break and early bloom set a full crop, honed to target yields by crop thinning
• Dry, cool July and August produced even and unusually good ripening, per Decanter
• Only 1.1 inches of rain fell across harvest
• Fruit arrived totally ripe with no disease pressure
• Harvest ran from the last week of September to the last week of October

The wines read as ripe but not heavy. Ripeness was very good with moderate to good acids, and the Pinot Noirs showed excellent color and extraction, with acids that were good without matching the firmness of 1999. The Willamette Valley Wineries Association frames 2000 as the third strong vintage in a row and as roughly an average of the two that came before it, landing on the phrase a pretty vintage. Decanter's read runs along the same line and goes a step further, suggesting the 2000 Pinot Noirs may represent Oregon at its typical best and combine some of the lush forward fruit and suppleness of 1998 with the structure and restraint that ran through the better 1999s. Decanter credited the wines with excellent aging ability at the time of writing.

• Very good ripeness with moderate to good acids across the valley
• Pinot Noir showed excellent color and extraction, with acids less firm than 1999
• WVWA reads 2000 as roughly an average of 1998 and 1999, a pretty vintage
• Decanter described the wines as combining 1998's lush forward fruit with 1999's structure and restraint, with excellent aging ability

Decanter called 2000 a benign year that handed no sub-region of the Willamette Valley an advantage over another, which is unusual in a valley where a wet fall or a heat spike normally sorts the sites quickly. Its list of the producers to look for in the vintage was Brick House, Beaux Freres, Archery Summit, Torii Mor and WillaKenzie.

• Decanter found no sub-regional advantage across the Willamette Valley in 2000
• Decanter's named producers for the vintage: Brick House, Beaux Freres, Archery Summit, Torii Mor and WillaKenzie