2000 Willamette Valley / Oregon Vintage

The Willamette Valley Wineries Association's vintage review calls the 2000 growing season almost perfect. The season started early at both bud break and bloom and set a full crop in the vineyards, which gave the chance to choose optimum yields precisely through crop thinning. July and August, the critical summer weeks, stayed dry and cool, and the fruit ripened evenly and unusually well. In Oregon, where rain in the spring or during harvest usually determines the quality of a vintage, 2000 stands as a relatively dry year. Harvest opened in the last week of September and ran to the last week of October, and only 1.1 inches of rain fell across it. 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 were not as firm as in 1999.

• Early bud break and early bloom set a full crop, with the chance to choose optimum yields through crop thinning
• Dry, cool July and August gave even and unusually good ripening
• Only 1.1 inches of rain fell during harvest
• Fruit arrived totally ripe with no disease pressure
• Harvest ran from the last week of September to the last week of October

Ripeness was very good with moderate to good acids, and the Pinot Noirs showed excellent color and extraction, with acids that were good but not as firm as in 1999. The Willamette Valley Wineries Association's review places 2000 third in a row and calls it an average of the prior two vintages' characteristics, "in a word, a 'pretty' vintage." Decanter wrote that the 2000 Pinot Noirs may represent Oregon at its typical best, with the best of them combining 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
• Pinot Noir showed excellent color and extraction, with acids less firm than in 1999

Decanter called 2000 a benign year that gave no advantage to one sub-region of the Willamette Valley over another, and named Brick House, Beaux Freres, Archery Summit, Torii Mor and WillaKenzie as the best producers of the vintage.

• Best producers named by Decanter: Brick House, Beaux Freres, Archery Summit, Torii Mor and WillaKenzie