Hello and Welcome,
This is an Amalie Robert
Estate Climate Update: May 2020. A FLOG communication from Dena and Ernie. Amalie Robert
Willamette Valley Pinot Noir.
May was a Dr. Seuss type
month. First it was hot and then it was not. There was no rain and then it
rained a lot. In farming you get what you get and that’s what we got!
April was the month where
Ernie focused on preparing the vineyard floor for vintage 2020. The vines
noticed the tilled soil and welcomed the newly germinated cover crop. Freshly
cycled nutrients and frequent showers made an abundance of nutrients available
to our vines. And now they are on a tear!
Our vines have just explosive
growth early in the season. Our job is to capture that growth, in an orderly
fashion, with three sets of trellis wires. At the end of the growing season, we
want good separation of the clusters of wine berries to minimize the chance for
mildew or bunch rot to take hold. And here is how we do it - by hand.
The first activity to clean
off all of the excess new growth early in the season. “Nip it in the bud” is
the colloquial phrase. This means to remove excess or poorly positioned shoots
before they can tap into the vines limited spring resources. We are looking for
about 15 growing points on any given vine. The vines are survivors and they
will start the year off with maybe 30 growing points, including the shin
kickers at 3 inches off the ground. Our goal is to focus the vine’s energy in
those 15 growing points that will bear the best quality wine berries. Their
next stop is the winery where we will ferment the sugar out of them!
This brief video will give you
an idea of how we do shoot thinning, taking us from 30 down to about 15 shoots.
You can check out several other exciting videos (viticulturally speaking) on
our YouTube channel.
The freshly germinated cover
crop also has a role to play this month, Buckwheat in particular. This little
plant has superpowers. The first of which is that it will flower about 3 weeks
after it germinates. This is quick in the plant kingdom. The flowers provide
pollen for our army of beneficial insects. Beneficial insects are the insects
that eat the nasty-bad insects that like to feed on our vines. Ladybugs and earwigs
are good. Cane borers and some mites are bad, but they taste good, apparently.
Buckwheat flowers provide protein, in the form of pollen, for our army of beneficial
insects when they can’t find any nasty-bad insects to vanquish.
The alternative is what is
known as a completely “clean cultivated” vineyard floor. That means each row is
barren earth. No life-giving pollen or places for your beneficial insects to
hunt down those nasty-bad insects. The reasoning behind clean cultivation, such
that it is, is that there will be more water available to the vine roots.
Maybe, but this is Oregon and it does rain here spring and fall. Speaking of
which, has anyone tried a 2007 vintage Pinot Noir lately? Just sublime…
Either way, we like the little
ecosystem we have created for our “first responders”. And the cover crop and
grass help maintain a healthy soil high in humus – good for the worms. It also
informs the vine that if it really wants water, it needs to send those roots
deep. And that is the ultimate advantage of old vines, deep, deep roots. Assuming
you chose the right rootstock to begin with.
Ok, let’s change our view to
38 inches above the vineyard floor. That is where the canopy management action
was happening in May. Our first of three sets of trellis wires are positioned
at 8 inches above our 30 inches fruiting wire. Ultimately, the vines will top
out at 90 inches above the vineyard floor. That gives us a 60 inch tall canopy
– or active solar array as Ernie thinks of it. Our job is to get those 15 shoots
contained within those wires and clipped into place.
You are all accustomed to the
climate numbers Ernie has been tracking since we established the vineyard at
Amalie Robert Estate, but he has a whole other set of workbooks that track oh
so much more. There are 49 blocks planted on the property, 42 of them are
numbered and 7 of them have their own alpha-numeric nomenclature. Odd for
computer science people we know, but it is better than using binary or
hexadecimal ordering – which we could do.
Ernie has been tracking
vineyard activities for quite some time. In the case of this first set of
wires, it took 568.53 hours to raise wires and tuck in all (mostly) of the vine’s
shoots. That comes in at about 39.864 seconds per vine times 51,343 fruiting
vines. That’s good news because it is a full 3 seconds faster than the trailing
4 year average! It took Einstein a while, but he finally came around to the “time
is money” axiom, just after he finished the theory of relativity.
Ernie still hasn’t finished his
book “Negotiated Reality – My Turn in the Barrel”. But thanks to the inherently
unique nature of the wine business, he has an abundance of source material to
pull from.
Now we thought it would be
interesting to present some vine association graphics. This is what your wine
looks like in the vineyard right about now, and what it is going to look like
in a year or so.
First up is Chardonnay.
Then Pinot Meunier.
To complete the Champagne
Deconstructed theme, we have Pinot Noir.
Here is our Syrah.
And our Viognier.
Lastly, a cluster of what will
become wine berries. Bonus points available if you can accurately identify the variety.
After all those pictures, we
get to some numbers. The month of May contributed 257.4 Degree Days to vintage
2020, bringing us to a grand total to date of 390.9 degree days.
The high temperature for the
30 day period was 88.9 degrees and the low temperature was 37.4 degrees. The
first half of the month was cooler registering 111.6 Degree Days, however the
second half of the month recorded the low temperature.
The second half of the month
registered 145.8 Degree Days and recorded the high temperature. Rainfall was 3.76 inches for the month providing
a growing season to date total of 5.09 inches and is significantly more than
the 1.33 inches recorded in April. Maybe that explains why Ernie is spending so
much time mowing the grass.
Next up in June we will have countless
flowers in the vineyard and the second set of trellis wires up. A little
farther down the road, The Great Cluster Pluck will visit itself upon us in
about 120 days. But until then, these little blighters are starting to make
themselves known and will be doing their best to keep us entertained. Despite
what you may have heard, these are considered nasty-bad insects.
iPinot COVID-19 Pivot Pricing is
now in effect at $120 on six bottles with domestic ground shipping included.
Just click on the Big Blue Button to browse available vintages or collect them
all!
Note: You will not need a promo
code to activate pricing. The pricing will automatically adjust when you select
six bottles of iPinot and there is no further discount on iPinot. The shipping
will be adjusted upon confirmation of your order. This is our contribution to
the human condition, yours and ours. If you have any questions or need
assistance, please E-mail Dena at Cuvee@amalierobert.com.
Kindest Regards,
Dena & Ernie
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