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Sean P. Sullivan is the editor of Washington Wine Report and a contributing editor at Wine Enthusiast magazine, covering Washington and Idaho. He has been writing about and reviewing Washington wine since 2005.
Looking at the WSU link, aren't the GDDs somewhat counterintuitive for some of the regions? I always thought the Columbia Gorge and Ancient Lakes were supposed to be cool AVAs, yet the graph "Long-Term Average Cumulative GDD – All AVAs" shows that for both, they are above the Wahluke Slope?!?
ReplyDeleteAnon, that's a great question. The heat units that are tracked by WSU are very much dependent on where the sensors are placed. In the Columbia Gorge, for example, it's cooler and wetter to the west and considerably warmer and drier to the east. If the weather station is in the eastern section, it's going to look very much like the rest of the Columbia Valley. Similarly, some areas of the Wahluke Slope can actually be hotter than Red Mountain, though the weather stations displayed rarely reflect that. So I'd say take the measurements with a grain of salt. There's a lot of variability within each individual region.
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