Introduction

Winemaking: The Continuation of Terroir by Other Means.®

Welcome to the Amalie Robert Estate Farming Blog, aka FLOG. By subscribing, you will receive regular FLOGGINGS throughout the growing season. The FLOGGING will begin with the Spring Cellar Report in April. FLOGGINGS will continue each month and detail how the vintage is shaping up. You may also be FLOGGED directly after the big Cluster Pluck with the yearly Harvest After Action Report. Subscribe now and let the FLOGGINGS begin!

Rusty

"This is one of the Willamette Valley’s most distinguished wineries, but not one that is widely known."

- Rusty Gaffney, PinotFile - September 2016

Josh

"Dena Drews and Ernie Pink have been quietly producing some of Oregon's most elegant and perfumed Pinots since the 2004 vintage. Their 30-acre vineyard outside the town of Dallas, abutting the famed Freedom Hill vineyard where Drews and Pink live, is painstakingly farmed and yields are kept low so production of these wines is limited. Winemaking includes abundant use of whole clusters, which is no doubt responsible for the wines' exotic bouquets and sneaky structure…"

- Josh Raynolds, Vinous - October 2015

David

"...Dallas growers Dena Drews and Ernie Pink... showed me this July three of their reserve bottlings and thereby altered my perception of their endeavors. Since these are produced in only one- or two-barrel quantities, they offer an extreme instance of a phenomenon encountered at numerous Willamette addresses, whose really exciting releases are extremely limited. But they also testify, importantly, to what is possible; and what’s possible from this site in these hands revealed itself to be extraordinary!... And what a Syrah!"

- David Schildknecht, The Wine Advocate - October 2013

Wine & Spirits

"Finding that their whole-cluster tannins take some time to integrate, Pink and Drews hold their wines in barrel for up to 18 months - so Amalie Robert is just releasing its 2008s. And what a stellar group of wines: Bright and tart, they possess both transparency and substance, emphasizing notes of rosehips and sandalwood as much as red berries. The pinot noirs alone would likely have earned Amalie Robert a top 100 nod this year. But the winery also produces cool-climate syrah that rivals the best examples from the Sonoma Coast. And the 2009 Heirloom Cameo, their first attempt at a barrel-fermented chardonnay, turned out to be one of our favorite Oregon chardonnays of the year. Ten vintages in, Amalie Robert has hit its stride."

- Luke Sykora, Wine & Spirits Magazine – September 2011

Copyright

© 2005 – 2021 Amalie Robert Estate, LLC

Sunday, August 6, 2017

Amalie Robert Estate Vintage Update: 2017 Pinot Noir In Flagrante!

Hello and Welcome, 

We just saw our first legitimate “Blazing” pink wine berries that signal The Great Cluster Pluck of 2017 is no longer just an abstract notion, it’s really gonna happen! Sure they are small, but there are enough ¼ pound clusters out there to make up about 75 tons. Yeah, that’s about 600,000 clusters of wine berries. So, ah, what are you doing the first couple weeks of Octo-Vember?

But there was also some “Fake News.” Every once in a while some mauve colored wine berries catch your eye and you think, wow they are really starting to color up quick. Of course we are talking about Pinot Noir, not Chardonnay. Mauve colored Chardonnay is what we see at the end of the season with just a Mother’s touch of Botrytis.

These dark wine berries are “push outs” or in today’s vernacular “Fake News.” This is how it happens. As the wine berries on the cluster start to increase in size, there is just not enough room on the stem to hold them all. Eventually, a set of 5 or 6 wine berries get pushed away from the stem by the other wine berries and they break the vascular connection to the stem. When that happens, they desiccate and turn purple. Their development is arrested at that point and they will never ripen. While this is an unfortunate event, it is not uncommon. Nothing personal, just farming.

Now consider that other vine fruit that everyone who doesn’t read our FLOG thinks is a vegetable. The ubiquitous tomato can be separated from the mother vine and the fruit will ripen up just fine. Not so with wine berries. Once you cut them, you own them and they will not continue to develop aroma and flavor or sugar for that matter. So we invest a little extra time to be sure. Think twice and cut once.

The first real blazing wine berry was spotted on Julian Calendar day 218 in block 25, which is Dijon clone 777 grafted onto 44-53 rootstock (August 6th, 2017.) This is a couple weeks later than the past three inferno-like vintages. However, August 2017 has crossed the 104 degree line more than once. We think this was the coaxing these wine berries needed to show “a little skin.”

Kindest Regards,


Dena & Ernie

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