Harvest 2009 in the Rattlesnake Hills
Those people who opposed the establishment of the Rattlesnake Hills AVA - including some people with PhDs who should know better - said that the proposed AVA was the same as Prosser Flats -aka the Yakima Valley. As you can see by the chart below, the Rattlesnake Hills AVA was warmer in 2009 than Red Mountain. As usual, it was much warmer than Prosser Flats (Yakima Valley).
Date | Washington AVA | AgWeatherNet Station | Cumulative GDD (°F) since April 1 | Cumulative Precipitation (in) since Jan 1 |
Oct 25 | Red Mountain | Benton City | 3010 | 3.29 |
Oct 25 | Wahluke Slope | Mattawa | 3091 | 5.89 |
Oct 25 | Horse Heaven Hills | Paterson | 3166 | 4.31 |
Oct 25 | Rattlesnake Hills | Outlook | 3068 | 4.04 |
Oct 25 | Walla Walla Valley | Walla Walla | 2843 | 13.27 |
Oct 25 | Yakima Valley | WSU-Prosser | 2658 | 3.97 |
Oct 25 | Puget Sound | WSU-Mt Vernon | 1633 | 18.15 |
Oct 25 | Columbia Gorge | Maryhill | 3253 | 8.09 |
Oct 25 | Lake Chelan | Chelan South | 3048 | 1.14 |
Oct 25 | Snipes Mountain | Port of Sunnyside | 2882 | 3.43 |
Last Updated: October 26, 2009 3:04 PM
We started out the year with a very cool month of May. Because of that, we at the Bonair Winery Estate Vineyards (Château Puryear Vineyard and Morrison Vineyard) dropped a lot of fruit early, thinking that this might be a repeat of 2008, an unusually cool year in Eastern Washington. The resulting light crop matured early with extreme quality. Everything we picked came off at about 26 brix. Flavors were outstanding because berry size was small. Due to the low rainfall this year, <5 inches, bunch rot in susceptible varieties like Riesling was non-existent.
My only complaint about this year with over 3000 degree days is that our fruit was more like Red Mountain than the characteristic Rattlesnake Hills. Usually Red Mountain gets sugar before ripeness, so 26 brix is a normal picking point. In the Rattlesnake Hills, we are usually ripe i.e. beyond vegetative flavors, at 24 brix, resulting in less alcoholic wines. Red Mountain is known for big powerful tannic reds and the Rattlesnake Hills produces more elegant classical, food-friendly reds. The Yakima Valley is known for vegetative reds from Bordeaux varieties. Syrah and Pinot Noir are more suited to this cool climate.
Unfortunately, all this hype about a great vintage will be forgotten, three years from now when the first red wines start to appear for sale.
I am a great fan of snakes especially rattlesnakes, they are so smart that we can’t even imagine about it. If you would know more about rattlesnakes and other snakes than you will amazed to know that snakes have so much in it like thermal sense, smelling power, nigh vision, etc and the spitted poison. People got scared of them but if you know full details about rattle snakes than most probably they will add another friend in their list.
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