2024 Willamette Valley / Oregon Vintage

The year opened with a hard event that rarely makes the summary write-ups: a severe January freeze reaching minus 4 degrees F that decimated primary buds at lower-elevation sites in parts of the Willamette Valley, trimming the crop before bud break. Winter and spring were then wetter than average, giving vines a moisture head start but setting up humidity-driven disease pressure later on. Ben Casteel of Bethel Heights summarized the year as warm and wet at all the wrong times, with lots of disease pressure. Bud break came on April 15 against a twenty-year average of April 11. Early May brought substantial precipitation after bud break, followed by warming into the 80s, with growers reporting explosive growth and high-humidity challenges. Bloom landed June 14 against a twenty-year average of June 13, and the Oregon Wine Board reported phenology across regions landing either right on average or within 1 to 4 days of the historical average everywhere. Rain during and around bloom did the crop-load work that thinning would otherwise have done. Alexana reported being stunned by the potential yield, saying it was too much, until bloom rain brought it down to more optimal levels, and Willamette Valley Vineyards separately reported that bloom rain lowered yields and lessened the need for fruit thinning. July is where the season got severe. A mid-month heat spike pushed temperatures past 100 degrees F, and one producer cited by the Oregon Wine Board reported ten days over 100 degrees F with a peak of 109. August then cooled sharply, with daytime temperatures sitting between 70 and 80 degrees F and dropping into the 50s at night, which pulled the year back from being a hot vintage. Late-summer rain in August, described as really rare for the month, rebuilt soil moisture reserves. Veraison came August 16 against a twenty-year average of August 17. September ran hot at both ends: the Oregon Wine Board described record-breaking heat early and late in the month, sandwiching a very cool period, and one mid-harvest account described a few days reaching 100 degrees F that gave sugars a boost, followed by mid-September cooling to nighttime lows in the 50s and daytime highs around 70. Harvest was the calmest part of the year. Fruit came in over roughly 40 days, with the first Pinot Noir picked the second week of September, apart from some earlier sparkling picks. Vinous reported nearly perfect weather after the September heat spike, which extended the season, and Jim Maresh of Arterberry Maresh harvested in the last week of October under what he described as perfect hang time conditions, a high of 70 degrees F with clear blue skies. The first cold snap of November marked the practical end of the hang-time window. No single valley-wide yield figure was established for 2024; accounts describe crop loads reduced by the January freeze and bloom rain, with the degree varying by site and producer.

• January freeze to minus 4 degrees F damaged primary buds at lower elevations before the season began
• Wetter-than-average winter and spring, with substantial early May rain and warming into the 80s driving explosive growth
• Bud break April 15 (20-year average April 11), bloom June 14 (June 13), veraison August 16 (August 17)
• Rain at bloom naturally reduced crop loads and lessened the need for fruit thinning
• Severe mid-July heat spike past 100 degrees F, with one producer reporting 10 days over 100 and a peak of 109
• August cooled sharply to 70s days and 50s nights, with rare August rain rebuilding soil moisture
• September brought record-breaking heat early and late, around a very cool middle
• Fruit came in over roughly 40 days, first Pinot Noir the second week of September, with picking running into the last week of October

Vinous called 2024 one of the strongest vintages of the last decade while explicitly declining to call it perfect or easy, framing it as a year of extremes, the January freeze, the July heat and August rain with its disease pressure, redeemed by an unusually fine and extended harvest window. The wines are described as cool-toned and neoclassical, with elevated acidity, bright lifted fruit and expressive floral aromatics. Vinous also flags real risk in the vintage: aggressive tannins, thick skins and uneven ripeness in lots that were not carefully sorted, so quality was not uniform across producers. Wine Spectator's Oregon vintage chart rates 2024 at 92 to 95 points and describes it as a warm year that yielded crowd-pleasing Pinot Noirs with good structure, as long as growers picked before things got too ripe. That warm-year framing sits in some tension with the ideal, on-schedule narrative carried by grower-aligned industry accounts, which lean toward describing 2024 as balanced and classic, with vibrant fruit, low alcohol and exceptional acidity. Stylistically, Vinous places 2024 closest to the slightly warmer 2008 and 2012 growing seasons, and is explicit that it is not a cold vintage in the mold of 2010 or 2011. Among named wines, Wine Spectator's top scorers for the vintage were Domaine Drouhin, for its Dundee Hills Edition Limitee, and Bergstrom, for two bottlings.

• Vinous: one of the strongest vintages of the last decade, but neither perfect nor easy
• Cool-toned and neoclassical, with elevated acidity, bright lifted fruit and floral aromatics
• Real risk of aggressive tannins, thick skins and uneven ripeness in less carefully sorted lots
• Wine Spectator rates the vintage 92 to 95 and frames it as a warm year rewarding growers who picked before overripeness
• Vinous places 2024 closest to the slightly warmer 2008 and 2012 growing seasons, and explicitly not to 2010 or 2011