PORTLAND — Last year, the Oregon wine industry held its collective breath following an untimely spring frost that appeared to cause significant damage in vineyards statewide.

It started with a warmer-than-normal March prompting some vines to emerge rapidly from winter dormancy, particularly at lower elevations. Then came a hard freeze April 14-15, threatening to kill the vulnerable buds and wreck the 2022 vintage. 

Things certainly seemed dire early, said Patty Skinkis, professor and viticulture extension specialist for Oregon State University. Cooler weather lingered through April into May, slowing vine growth and causing growers to wonder if the plants had died.

“Just like you, we were panicked,” Skinkis said during her presentation Feb. 14 at the annual Oregon Wine Symposium in Portland.

Fearing major crop losses, Skinkis said vineyard managers contemplated reducing inputs to save money. 

But as it turned out, Skinkis said the vines did ultimately grow — a lot. 

Bloom came in late June and early July, accompanied by ideal weather and large grape clusters. Growers psyched out by the frost found themselves behind on shoot thinning and weed control, and Skinkis said the challenge became managing dense vineyard canopies.

“This is really what I believe led to a lot of our powdery mildew issues,” she said.

The key takeaway, Skinkis said, is that vines will grow, even in a frost year. She urged growers not to delay thinning and maintain their normal shoot density, which should be somewhere around 3-5 shoots per foot. 

“If we have a frost like this again, the lesson should be do not delay,” Skinkis said. 

Greg Jones, CEO of Abacela Winery near Roseburg and a wine climatologist, calculated the 2022 frost was a 1-in-30-year to 1-in-50-year occurrence.

Individually, he said the factors that led up the event — a warm and dry March, early bud break, cold and wet April and frost — are relatively common for the region statistically, although much rarer happening in combination.

Jones was a keynote speaker at the Wine Symposium, providing a climatology recap of 2022 and look ahead to 2023. 

Globally, Jones said 2022 was between the fifth- and seventh-warmest year on record. He expects 2023 will likely be as warm as the previous 10-year average.

Current conditions and forecast models favor cooler-than-average weather in the Pacific Northwest during the late winter through spring, and roughly average precipitation. He expects drought will ease somewhat through most of the region and Northern California.

The rest of California and the Great Basin, meanwhile, should lapse back into moderate to extreme drought through the summer, he said. 

“If you look at the dynamics and statistics, it’s the same as last year,” Jones said. “Our frost frequency in the spring, and severity, is much higher in the Pacific Northwest with these conditions we have currently, and are forecasted.” 

Skinkis said the impacts of the 2022 frost varied from vineyard to vineyard, and even within single vineyards. She said future frost years will require close attention to gauge this variation, and growers will need to be active sampling in the field to come up with an accurate crop estimate. 

“Think happy thoughts for 2023, but be prepared,” she said.