(Wine-Searcher) - The ongoing drought hasn't fazed Washington winegrowers this season.

Most of the U.S. West Coast has been mired in a drought and record heat for more than two years. Fortunately for fans of Washington wine, no place is better prepared than a wine country that is already basically a desert. The drought doesn't seem to have slowed down the grapevines one bit.

Each of the last three years, Washington has set a record for the biggest harvest in its history. It's too early to tell if that will happen again in 2015, but we'll find out soon, because, just as in California, this may be Washington's earliest harvest season ever.

"Our start date is the earliest ever," said Doug Gore, executive vice president of vineyards, winery and operations for Ste. Michelle Wine Estates. "People say, things are so hot, that made harvest come early. That's not how it works. Our spring started earlier. Bud break and set started earlier. The whole calendar moved up. People ask 'How are you doing with the drought?' That's our normal."

In most years, some white grapes might be picked by the second week of September, but red grapes would still be on the vine. Not this year.

"We are probably 50 percent picked already for our little place," Bob Betz, owner/winemaker of Betz Family Winery, told Wine-Searcher. "We only make reds, so to pick grapes in August is unheard of. We brought in grapes on Aug. 26. It was Red Mountain fruit. We're pretty staggered by how good it is. Usually in a hot vintage I would have thought we might have gotten some raisined, overripe character. But it's really polished. The wines have really deep color, a lot of dry extract. Small berries, as you can imagine from a warmer vintage. We target about 1 gram per berry for Cabernet. We picked a vineyard today at 0.61 grams per berry."

Harvest would be even further along if not for an inch of rain that fell on Walla Walla Valley last Friday. Trey Busch, winemaker for Sleight of Hand Cellars, said that's good because it will slow down ripening in at least one area. Wineries with limited tank space sometimes have to do juggling acts when everything ripens at once.

"It's nice to get some more hangtime," Busch said. "It's been brutally hot. June was the hottest June on record in Washington state. July was up there. From a wine grape standpoint what I'm seeing is really small clusters. Really small berries. My guess is we're going to be dealing with some pretty big tannin this year. The early lots of Merlot that I've already brought in from sites that are typically softer in style are pretty big wines already. There's going to be a lot of tannin management. We're going to try not to overextract. And we'll try to make the best wines we can."