Amalie Robert Estate Vintage Update: 2017 Bud Break

Hello and Welcome, 

This is a 2017 Vintage Update: Bud Break 

Well, hello buddy! Welcome to vintage 2017! After what seemed to be an exceedingly wet, cold and perfectly miserable off season, the vines are back with fresh new buds for the 2017 vintage. Will it be an early harvest? Too soon to say, but these guys are hanging close by just in case.  

That’s the thing about harvest, not all of the harvesters have clippers and buckets…

And today we have a rare sneak peak at the numbers before the full April Climate update is published. But first, a little background on three important dates in the vineyard: Bud Break, Bloom and the Great Cluster Pluck.

Bud Break is the where it all begins for the vine. However, for the humans, we have been working on them since just after harvest. First are the primary cuts we make that allow us to pull last year’s shoots out of the trellis wires – out with old to make room for the new. Then we select a shoot to tie down on the wire and this will become the cane that sports about 12 to 16 buds.

Now after the buds emerge, they grow like crazy and it is our job to harness that growth in the physical implementation of a mental trellis construct. We employ three sets of wires to keep everything “in-line”, so to speak. Flowering starts the timer. In typical years, we need about 105 days from flowering to the Great Cluster Pluck, however these past few years just don’t quite fit that model. The statistical term for these outlying vintages would be “Sampling Error.”

But a lot can happen to befall our efforts between now and then. Not unlike the Jester (who acquired carnal knowledge of the Queen) that pleaded for his life in front of the King. He said he could teach the King’s horse to sing if the King would spare his life for one year. The most favorable outcomes for the Jester would be: The King could die, the horse could die, or the horse could learn how to sing. A lot can happen in a year.

Bud Break has been creeping later and later in the calendar over the last three years. In 2015 we saw the first buds emerge on March 24^th. Vintage 2016 buds came out on March 36^th, but keep in mind it was a leap year. And this year we saw the first intrepid buds emerge on Earth Day, March 53^rd.

Now, let’s have a look at when the vines flowered. The first flowers for 2015 were spotted on May 31^st and 2016 saw flowers on May 27^th. Even though bud break occurred earlier in 2015, the flowers appeared later. So, logically we can infer that the correlation between bud break and flowering is weak – at best. It all depends on Mother Nature’s mood for the next month or so. The warmer it is, the sooner we see flowers and the sooner we can identify a potential harvest date. Stay tuned…

Wait, is that singing in the background? Why yes, yes it could very well be!

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie