This is taken from a great article by Andy Perdue, in Wine Press NW, about the climate for recent Washington and Oregon vintages. You can read that article here.
Washington State has seen three very challenging years in a row, for the first time since the 1970s. This wouldn't be unusual for the Willamette Valley, but in the desert of WA, the climate is consistently hot and dry for winegrapes, right? Not always.
2009: A great vintage for some WA plots, but an early freeze put an end to additional ripening at many vineyards. In Oregon, a very good year, following the great year of 2008.
2010: Springtime in the Evergreen State was cold, so buds broke late and the grapes stayed behind schedule all summer. Harvest ran late, which brings special issues to manage, but it was a happy ending with a record crop. Or so we thought, until a hard freeze before Thanksgiving decimated many vineyards which hadn't time to harden off for winter. (Let's face it, folks--vinifera vines are wussies compared to native American vines). The famed Horse Heaven Hills got it particularly hard. At Champoux Vineyard--where Quilceda Creek sourced some of its cabs--whole blocks of vines died.
In Oregon, it was a plague of starving birds which hit the vineyards during preharvest in 2010. The cold summer weather prevented the normal development of the quadrillions of blackberry vines upon which the birds had become so dependent. Over 20% of Oregon's grape crop was lost, and in some vineyards it was much, much higher than that.
2011: This vintage was worse than 2010, with an even colder Spring and later harvest.
But as we've seen so often in the past decade, WA and OR winemakers are really getting a handle on how to cope with weird weather. Wet years in the Willamette can still produce good Pinots, for example, and Oregon's whites from the cold years of '10 and '11 can be superb (some say the 2010 Pinots are, too). The application of science, in the field and the winery, can undo some of Nature's damage in the field. Washington's wines from those three trying years were still quite good, as evidenced by their professional scores.
So as 2012 approached there was not a little trepidation. And Spring was cool, with budding a bit late. But summer was grand, with heat units off the charts (OK, much higher than average) for the Willamette and a great growing season was had in both states. Record harvests strained all available tankspace. Too early to know for sure, but it appears 2012 will produce many great wines in the Pac NW.
