Hello and Welcome,
This is the final FLOG of the
2014 growing season. The 2014 growing season was somewhat akin to dropping a
snowball at the top of Mt.
Everest Willamette Valley
The following graphic depicts the
total growing season degree days since we have been “growing our own.” We
started out hot, gradually began to cool, got downright cold in 2010 and 2011,
and then we lit off on a tear for the last 3 vintages.
We will leave the whole global
warming v climate change quagmire for the next farmer. But we will say that you
can learn a lot just by putting your boots in the vineyard and paying attention
to how much sunscreen gets used. What we learned this year was to leave a few
extra wineberries on the vine and hedge a bit shorter canopy than usual. We
also left a few extra leaves in the fruit zone to prevent the harsh skin
tannins that can develop from overexposure. And when you get rain in September,
use it.
The real winner this year however,
was the Syrah. Ernie was out there ‘most every day after all the Pinot Noir and
Chardonnay was in. “Nope, not yet. Not ready,” he would mutter. Dena would
soothe him by saying, “Well, if they aren't ready then don’t pick them. Can you
go sweep up the front porch?”
Finally the weather began to turn
and like it or not it was going to be time, so get farming ready! The heat
units through mid-October registered 2,499 and we had accumulated 2.84 inches
of rain from mid-September through harvest for a growing season total of 9.63
inches. The heat and rain curves appeared to align and then Ernie had to admit
– it was time. We picked these 1,188 vines just as the harvest window was
closing on October 19th. Yes, that is a little Viognier to top it
off.
Could it be the best Syrah
vintage the Willamette
Valley
As the following graphic clearly
illustrates, we were battling high sugars before aroma and flavor development
was complete. Or were we?
We had a nice Dog Nose Spring
(cold and wet) that helped us stitch our new Wadenswil vines into the hill. To
the casual observer, it must seem that we are growing milk, but if you look at
the shipping manifest you will see that is a rootstock trial. Yep, that Ernie is
always trying to learn something. While the clone is all Wadenswil on top,
there are 4 different rootstocks grafted on the bottom. It will take a little
while, but we will see how the fruit turns out. If nothing else, it will
certainly help add a little complexity to the final blend.
Clue #1: Notice the
rainfall though July is 6.68 inches. We also had about 20 inches of rain from
January through March before the growing season even got started.
It usually happens in April or
May that Ernie is out there whipping up some dust and tilling in last years’
cover crops to provide nutrients for our vines. Nitrogen is a macronutrient
which means the vines need a fair bit of it. The thing is, Nitrogen gets
leached out of the soil profile with all of the winter rains. So if you don’t
add a little in the spring, the vines will not be very happy and there may not
be any fruit for you.
As always there is the easy way
and the Ernie way. The easy way is to add some chemical fertilizer to the soil.
The hard way is to drill in cover crops in the spring, till them in the fall, and
then drill in more cover crops for the winter. The Ernie way also has a very
beneficial impact in that it adds humus to the soil.
Clue #2: Humus
significantly influences the bulk density of soil and contributes to moisture
and nutrient retention.
As the vines responded to the
warming temperatures in May and June, we began weaving a web of catch wires to
contain their growth. Oh it is easy at first, with just maybe 10 to 12 inches
of growth they are easy to position in the first set of wires.
As we enter flowering in June the
vineyard smells of honeysuckle. With over 40,000 vines out there, it is pretty
intense. And so is the vine’s desire to outgrow the trellis. While we need to
measure to be sure, it is an agreed upon fact that those vines can add an inch
a day, or even more. The third wire is at 72 inches and they are all put up by
hand. Each vine’s shoots are positioned in their 3 inch wide by 4 foot long plane
with the sole purpose of collecting solar radiation. That’s what farmers do, we
are light harvesters. So, it seems, are these Ivanpah guys. But you have to admit,
wine is a lot more fun.
Then before you know it, it is
hedging time. After all the wires are up it is time to hedge our bets. What is
the rest of the growing season going to be like? All we know for sure is that
there will be sun, heat, cold, rain, wind, some rot, and birds. Get the
proportions and timing right and that’s a pretty nice bottle of wine you’ve got
yourself there. While we can have an impact in the vineyard, we really have no
control. So we plan for the worst and hope for the best.
Clue #3: Hedge a short
canopy in warm years to reduce the vine’s water usage and slow down the sugar
accumulation.
The hedger is one helluva piece
of equipment. Like any true piece of farming equipment, it only does one thing,
but it does it well. Ernie’s hedger has several pitch adjustments and a height
adjustment. Some hedgers are mounted on a tractor at a fixed height. Others are
on two feet.
This adjustment comes in quite
handy in years like 2010 and 2011 when we needed all of the energy we could
harvest from the sun. But in years like 2013 and 2014 we want a shorter canopy.
A short canopy will remove more leaves from the vine. This has the immediate
effect of reducing photosynthesis and slowing sugar accumulation.
The leaves also transpire a
tremendous amount of water through stomata on the leaf’s underside. This has the effect of cooling the leaf, and
as you would imagine the hotter the day, the more moisture is liberated from
the soil through the leaf back into the heavens. In 2014, we didn’t see that
much rain to replenish the soil from July through mid-September. We didn’t
really need, or want those extra leaves in 2014.
Clue #4: The shorter the
grass is mown, the less water it will use.
In addition to the nutrients we
grow as cover crops, every other row is planted to grass. We have a strain
called Tall Fescue and it is as tough a grass as you could want in the tractor
rows. But its roots go deep to help it survive a dry summer and there is some
competition with the vines.
The vine’s leaves can exert a
tremendous vacuum on the roots to pull water from the soil. This is their main
competitive advantage against the grass. We tilt the playing field as well by
mowing the grass to within an inch of its roots to minimize its water usage. And
we do it at the same time as we are hedging! Now that is really something in
farming – doing two tasks in a single vineyard pass. Why that saves Ernie 3
days of his life on each of 3 passes and a fair few gallons of diesel to boot!
Axiom #1: There can be no
doubt that great wines are the result of a winegrowers’ astute and timely response
to the given year’s growing conditions, and a little luck.
After the vines have had their
third, and in some cases fourth hedge, it is time to hurry up and wait for
harvest. August is the time of year when Ernie gets down and dirty with the
tractors – it is oil changing time. There is a whole checklist. Check the
tires, change the battery, replace a clutch, this is widely understood to be
the gestalt of farming.
It is not more than a little
different from his college days of tuning a huge Holley 4 barrel carburetor, setting
a dual point distributor and adjusting the valves on a high compression,
over-bored small block Chevy roller motor. Back up onto a sidewalk, remove the
exhaust caps and it was off to the strip. A 7,500 rpm redline and 4.11 gears will
move you along pretty quickly and about 12 seconds later, at 130 miles per hour,
you cross the 1,320 foot line – a quarter mile.
Well, today there are no
carburetors to tune (a lost art anyway), the tractors don’t have distributors
to set and Ernie can cover a quarter mile in about 7.5 minutes. But tires seem
to last a lot longer on the farm…
Clue #5: Timing is
everything in farming.
The ideal last act of farming for
the season is harvest, and if the timing works out we can drill in the fall
cover crop first. 2014 was such a year. We had over an inch of rain in
mid-September to soften up the soils. Ernie had the crawler and rototiller
ready to go and waiting for such an opportunity. By daybreak that morning he
was on it! The soil turned up like fresh double chocolate brownies and that
aroma of freshly tilled, high humus content soil just makes you giddy – giddy
up!
Giddy up! Because you know that
the seed drill has to get out there before the next wave of heat steals all of
that wonderful soil moisture. And that is what “back to back” means in the
vineyard business. Open up the soil, drill your cover crop in and protect the
soil moisture from evaporation. The rototiller is the key to this operation. It
breaks the capillary action of water so that it cannot transpire to the
surface. Ergo, we keep it for the vines. Good timing. We now have about 20
acres worth of Oats and Peas that will provide nutrients (and humus) for our
vines in the spring.
Clue #6: Good things come
to those who wait, but not to those who wait too late.
Sure enough, it happened in
September. Pinot Noir started making its way up from southern Oregon to waiting wineries in the North. A
little warmer they are and when it is time, the vines will not be denied.
We kept an eye on the Granddaddy
walnut tree and it was unyielding. We were testing sugars, acids, flavor, and color
and found that while many vineyards had picked, it was not our time.
Oh you noticed that, eh? Yes, we
care a great deal about the color of juice samples. Color is another indicator that
the wineberries are ready to release not only color, but all of that elegant
aroma and flavor we have been nurturing all season long. Light colored juice
means not so much. However, by waiting too late we run the race against too
much sugar accumulation.
This gave us pause to reflect on
what we had and had not done during the growing season. The fact that we could
hang our fruit a little longer than others to achieve aroma and flavor
development was a vindication that we had done something right. Or that two (or
more) wrong things may in fact make a right thing. Either way we held fast, as
if tied up to the mast.
The rains that doomed the press
potential of the 2007 vintage arrived, and we were glad to have them. This
water was immediately, if not instantaneously, sucked up by anything that had a
root in the ground – including our vines. And here is that 2007 vintage graphic
for your viewing pleasure.
Then it was time and the
controlled chaos known as “The Great Cluster Pluck of 2014” began, as it always
does, in “Earnest.” Monday, September 29, 2014 was the day and the yield was
about 15 tons. Harvest operations continued through October 19th
when we brought in the buxom berries of block 13. Home at last.
The 2014 vintage will be
remembered as the (lucky) 13th harvest at Amalie Robert Estate. We
farmed our vines to the best of our abilities with an eye toward elegance,
finesse and a true representation of the vintage on our site. Wines true to the
soil, wines true to the vintage. ®
Kindest Regards,
Dena and Ernie
BONUS Material: Check out our
Twitter account to read our daily harvest tweets. https://twitter.com/AmalieRobert
