Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: 2016 May

Hello and Welcome,

This is the Climate Update for May 2016 from Amalie Robert Estate.

The big news for the month of May is that the vines produced flowers on May 27^th. This is a necessary precursor to harvest, however it does not guarantee we will have a harvest. That depends on Mother Nature’s mood during the bloom period. Alternatively, if the vines do not produce flowers, there will be no harvest regardless of the weather during bloom. Logic, while somewhat inconvenient, is your friend. But there is more, oh so much more, to the month of May for the Willamette Valley wine berry grower. Let’s digress, shall we?

Starting at the bottom, we have a lovely spread of cover crops this year. Ernie was able to decode the Spring rain pattern and get those seeds drilled in between the cloudbursts. What we see here are very happy little plants that will fix nitrogen, help condition our soil, provide pollen (protein) for our carnivorous insect friends, seeds for the Quail and then become food for our vines this fall. It’s now legal to grow your own in Oregon, but we have been using cover crops to feed our vines, bugs and birds since the turn of the century.

Moving on up about 34 inches we have our first set of catch wires clipped into place. This is a beautiful thing and the basis for a Vertical Shoot Positioned trellis system. The first set of wires is the most important set of wires as they dictate how the shoots and follow-on clusters will be oriented. We want them separated to promote good airflow that will allow for the evaporation of the morning dew that could allow mildew to take hold. We demand few things from the vines, but discipline in the canopy is one of them.

And just when you think you are ahead of the curve, it is time for the second set of wires to be raised. As we move further into the growing season, the weather generally improves. Warmer temperatures mean the vines grow faster. And that means the shoots get longer – Right Farmin’ Now! If we run the numbers on 45,000 vines with 16 shoots each, assuming a growth rate of an inch per day that would give us about 60,000 lineal feet of growth per day! That’s what we’re talking about! Canopy management is a job done by hand, and that’s a lotta hand “work.”

And somebody has to cut the frickin’ grass. Every other row in the vineyard has Tall Fescue as a permanent cover. This allows Ernie to get through the field in case of a wet and sloppy harvest. But the grass responds to the heat and available soil moisture just like the vines do. Going back to our handy dandy slide rule, we see that 45,000 vines work out to be about 90,000 lineal feet of vineyard rows to mow. Why that’s just about 17 miles worth of driving, at about 2.5 miles per hour. How was your day, honey?

Of course, hot and dry vintages need short grass to preserve soil moisture so there are a couple more mowing passes than what we would see in a wet vintage where we are letting the grass grow tall to deplete excess soil moisture. That’s the thing about viticulture, you gotta pay attention.

But relief is coming into view as Ernie gets ready for his first hedge. Oh sure, the vines have had their way with us up until now, but “The Enforcer” will soon be on the scene. We just need to get that third wire up and clipped into place first…

In light of the recent increase in Internet spamming of business phone numbers, we would like to share our new phone number with everyone. It is the square root of 25,389,796,008,272,100,000. Feel free to leave a message if you like.

And, quite conveniently, here are the numbers for May. While April was one for the record books, May gave us all kinds of fits and starts. We had high temperatures, low temperatures, wind, rain and why the hail was that ice falling out of the sky? It was like how April should have been, but wasn’t.

For the month of May, 2016, we logged 277 degree days with a high temperature of 87.4 and a low temperature of 38.0 degrees Fahrenheit. This provides a May to date growing season total of 441.9 degree days, compared with 287.4 degree days for 2015. The historical May to date growing season degree days are contrasted below:

Rainfall for the month of May totaled 0.77 inches and included a little hail. Fortunately, the hail was before the vines flowered and it was not forceful enough to do significant damage to the new shoots. Rainfall for the month of April has been revised up from 1.57 inches to 3.14 inches and that provides a May to date growing season total of 3.91 inches.

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Vintage Update: 2016 Flowers and Tight Asstd. Wines

Hello and Welcome,  

The heady scent of pollination is in the air at Amalie Robert Estate. 

We are going to get it on, now! Actually, it will be the vines that will be getting their wine berries on over the next few days, right at the end of their collective pedicels. Here’s how they do it.

First the protective cap, or Calyptra, is cut off from the vascular tissue at the pedicel. As the cap dries up and falls away, the flower is exposed. Pollen grains from the Anther find their way into the Stigma, just as they have for centuries. Wine berries are self pollinating, so the only variable here is Mother Nature.

And it just so happens we are in for a nice warm dry spell which should see uniform pollination and a whole lot of it. This is better than the alternative, at least from a wine growing point of view.

We spied the first flower on the first vine on Friday, May 27^th (Julian calendar day 148) in a lovely little block of Pommard clone Pinot Noir grafted onto our beloved 5C rootstock. 5C is the most deeply rooted of all the rootstocks we grow. It most closely resembles the rooting proclivities of own rooted vines.

This is “YUGE!” as a dry farmed vineyard. We like deep rooting rootstocks that can tap into the last of the available soil moisture at the end of the growing season. Because, as everyone knows, irrigation cheats you out of the true character of the vintage.

So, now we have the answer to the first riddle of the 2016 growing season: When are we going to harvest? The answer is “it depends.” But we should certainly have a harvest window starting to open around Julian calendar day 253. In typical Oregon vintages, we need about 105 days from flowering to develop expressive aroma and flavor before The Great Cluster Pluck.

However, any and all manner of atrocities may befall us on the road to harvest. We could even get schlonged. Or it could be nice all the way through, just don’t bet the farm on it. And bear in mind, this is a leap year - it’s “YUGE!”

As summer descends upon us, we would like to remind everyone that we grow and produce an assortment of wines including White, Blanc and Rosé for your enjoyment. All of these wines are fermented in stainless steel and provide a crisp and tight finish.

Collectively, when short on space, we refer to them as our “Tight Asstd. Wines.”

Varietally speaking, we offer the 2015 Her Silhouette Chardonnay and 2014 Our Muse Viognier.

Stylistically, we offer a Blanc de Noir wine, 2015 Bellpine Pearl and our dry Rosé is the 2015 Pinot in Pink Rosé of Pinot Noir.

Follow this link to shop for some Tight Asstd. Wines.

SWAC (Sealed With A Cork.)

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie