Abacela Vintage 2024 Summary

Weather and Climate

Overall, the 2024 vintage was warm and dry. During the spring temperatures were near average with very little concern about frost. The coldest night during the entire vintage occurred on March 8th, dipping just below 30 degrees. Given that vine growth had not started yet there was no concern for frost damage. The spring also started off quite dry, both at Abacela and around the region.

From April through June temperatures fluctuated like they normally do in the spring, with a cool period in early May that also brought the most significant rainfall during the spring (Figure 1). Mid-May and early June saw periods with temperatures reaching into the low 90s, while in between clouds and cooler onshore winds brought daytime highs down to the low 60s.

Figure 1 – Weather and phenological observations for Abacela during the 2024 vintage from March 1 through October 31. Daily maximum and minimum temperatures are shown in red and light blue, respectively, with extremes of days over 100°F or below 32°F indicated by the sun and ice crystal symbols. Daily precipitation is in a darker blue bar with days receiving greater than 0.5” of rain indicated with a raindrop. The weather data comes from our main weather station on Cobblestone Hill. The phenological events and days between events come from an eleven variety/block combination of Tempranillo, Syrah, Malbec, Merlot, and Albariño.

July saw an extreme heat period with temperatures above 90 degrees nearly every day from July 4 through July 20. The warmest days of July 5-9 saw temperatures ranging from 105-110 degrees every day, occurring across our multiple weather stations and temperature sensors (Figure 2). August ended up being an average month in terms of temperatures, but saw cool conditions early, quite warm during the middle of the month, and then very cool later in the month. There were also two fairly significant rain events in late August, especially the 0.66” of rain on August 23, the same day that Roseburg had an all time amount for that date.

Heading into ripening, September brought two additional extreme heat events. A run of very warm days near or over 100 degrees occurred during September 4-9 and a single day later in the month on the 24th with temperatures at all stations and sensors over 100 degrees (Figure 1). These warm extremes were the highest ever observed at Abacela during the month of September. The rest of September and October were both mild to seasonal for temperatures but quite dry, with little rain until the end of October.

The vintage ended up just slightly warmer than the average over the last 15 years. Growing degree-days during the 2024 vintage ended up at 2845 averaged across all stations and temperature sensors at Abacela. GDD for this vintage was more than average, but slightly less than the 2023 vintage and 2015, the warmest vintage to date at Abacela.

Phenology

Abacela tracks phenology, important grapevine growth stages, by block and variety each year. The longest term data that we have comes from eleven variety/block combinations which include Tempranillo, Syrah, Malbec, Merlot, and Albariño. These observations started in 1997 for Tempranillo and Syrah with the others added to the observations over time with all eleven combinations observed since 2010. From these eleven variety/block long term observations, the 2024 vintage phenology at Abacela is as follows and as shown in Figure 1:

• Bud break averaged April 10th (one day later than our long term average)
• Bloom averaged June 10th (2 days earlier than our long term average)
• Véraison averaged August 14th (4 days later than our long term average)
• Harvest averaged September 25th (tied the 2015 vintage for the earliest average for these blocks)

Intervals between events from the eleven variety/block long term observations, include:

• Bud break to bloom was 61 days (4 days shorter than our long term average)
• Bud break to véraison was 130 days (2 days longer than our long term average)
• Bud break to harvest was 167 days (13 days shorter than our long term average)
• Bloom to véraison was 70 days (7 days longer than our long term average)
• Bloom to harvest was 106 days (10 days shorter than our long term average)
• Véraison to harvest was 37 days (16 days shorter than our long term average)

All 17 varieties grown across our 25 blocks (Figure 2) are also monitored for phenology and provide a broad snapshot of vine growth and harvest timing. For our varieties, the 2024 vintage at Abacela saw the following:

Bud Break – Muscat on Grand Hill was first on March 28th while Listan Prieto was the latest on April 23rd. Tannat on Cross Block was April 18th, and a few Tempranillo blocks were on April 17th.

Bloom – Albariño across multiple blocks was earliest on June 6th, Tinta Amarela on Central and Grand Hill was also on June 6th. Listan Prieto was the latest to bloom, on June 14th with Syrah on Southeast block and Tempranillo on Fiesta Ridge on June 13th.

Véraison – Tempranillo on West Slope was earliest on August 9th with East Hill Tempranillo next on August 10th. Listan Prieto was the latest on September 2nd, Grenache (Alban) on West End block next on August 28th, and Touriga Nacional on Cross Block and Petit Verdot next on August 27th.

Harvest – started on September 14th with some Albariño, Tempranillo, and Malbec coming in and proceeded at a good pace over the next three weeks, ending with Listan Prieto harvested on October 14th.

Heat in July caused the vines to slow down to a crawl, making the bloom to véraison period one of the longest observed at Abacela. Heat in September, while having a significant effect on sunburn necrosis, accelerated the véraison to harvest period to the shortest ever observed at Abacela (37 days). Overall, the harvest period was not pressed due to weather, disease, and only slightly by birds.

Figure 2 - Locations of all weather stations, temperatures sensors, and soil moisture sensors across Abacela's 25 vineyard blocks.