Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: July 2020 and Wadenswil Extravaganza Weekend!

Hello and Welcome,
 
This is an Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: July 2020 and Wadenswil Extravaganza Weekend! A FLOG communication from @AmalieRobert Dena and Ernie. Amalie Robert Willamette Valley Pinot Noir.
 


Make the journey to see Dena and Ernie Saturday & Sunday, August 8 & 9 from 10 am to 3 pm by appointment. We are tasting Wadenswil Clone Pinot Noir! Join us outside with a commanding view of the vines and soaring red-tailed hawks under the protective cover of our swanky new shade canopy. We have hand sanitizer available and will be starting off with 2018 Pinot in Pink lip sanitizer that has a very high percentage of Wadenswil Clone. And while we are outside, masks are optional. You just never know who (or what) you might see.
 

When two worlds collide.

The red-tailed hawks have been screeching and racing through the afternoon skies. They have been surveying our handiwork in the vines and performing a vital vineyard task. They are helping to control the fur bearing rodent population. Here we see the “intended”. The California ground squirrel (Spermophilus beecheyi) in the erect posture. So, if we happen to not see any soaring red-tailed hawks this weekend, it could be because these two species have had their worlds collide. Wouldn’t that be something to see?
 
And Dena has rounded up twice the number of usual yellow jacket suspects. She loaded the traps (packed them full of salmon scraps) and let Nature take its course. Along with the care and feeding of our red-tailed hawks, this is another example of a biological control in the vineyard.
 
We got the hint, delivered somewhat delicately and in other cases not so much. Maybe it’s because Ernie is always on about sedimentary soils and Wadenswil Clone 2A. Maybe because there are few places in the Willamette Valley that can bring the best out of this Swiss clone of Pinot Noir. Maybe it’s because his socks are too tight.
 
Whatever the reason, this weekend is your opportunity to taste select vintages of Amalie Robert Estate Grown Wadenswil Clone Pinot Noir. These wines are typically 2 barrel selections each vintage that produce about 48 cases. With our Wadenswil Clone program we are very much trying to show you something that is “True to soil and true to the vintage”.
 
If you need to brush up on your Wadenswil, you can check out our feature page and read the “Interview with a Clone: Wadenswil 2A” right here. Accept no substitutes.
http://www.amalierobert.com/wadenswil-clone.html
 
Our Wadenswil Extravaganza tasting will be the following selections:
2018 Pinot in Pink Rosé
2011 Wadenswil Clone Pinot Noir
2012 Wadenswil Clone Pinot Noir
2013 Wadenswil Clone Pinot Noir
2016 Wadenswil Clone Pinot Noir
2015 Heirloom Cameo Chardonnay
 
The tasting fee is $15 with a new Riedel tasting glass and $10 is refundable on any two bottle purchase per person. You may also opt for a new Riedel Burgundy glass for $25 and $10 is refundable on any two bottle purchase per person. The now christened Amalie Robert Riedel glass is yours to keep. You may also opt to bring your own glasses and the glass purchase will be waived.
 
We also recognize it may not be possible to co-locate with us this weekend. Perhaps a phobia is responsible. Claustrophobia is the fear of confined spaces. Acute anxiety caused by flying is called aerophobia. Combine these two phobias with mysophobia, the pathological fear of contamination and germs and we have the trifecta that is disabling the air travel industry. Fortunately, wine can co-locate to you.
 
You can reach Dena by email at Cuvee@amalierobert.com and by phone at 503-88-CUVEE (503-882-8833) to schedule your appointment, or to place an order if you cannot join us.
 
Click on the Big Blue Button to make a selection from Amalie Robert Direct and we can hold your order until a temperature appropriate shipping window opens. Please note, we can also schedule delivery to a UPS or FedEx pick up location. Pretty handy if you have Vestiphobia, and do not want people dressed in uniforms coming to your door and interacting with your own individual environment.
 

 
July was one for the record books with the following footnote: We recorded a low temperature of 45.1 degrees and a high temperature of 102.7 degrees and made all the stops along the way. But overall July was pretty kind to the Willamette Valley winegrower.
 
The winegrower’s equipment however, manifested its inherent agrarian vagaries. In fact, Ernie had to perform Tractor Bypass Surgery on one machine. The machine can now maintain cooling fluid integrity and that allows Ernie to pivot his attention to the hedger. Here we see the main “lift cylinder” with a freshly corrupted seal, which is just weeping tractor fluid. Remember these words: Unfortunate, but not uncommon.
 

 
The main lift cylinder allows Ernie to dial in the height of the canopy to maximize the ripening potential from each vintage. Remember those leaves are really just a great big solar array. The taller it is, the more energy for the vines to ripen their seeds. And develop aroma and flavor, which is what we really care about. Hot vintages get short canopies, where it is important to not trim off the tops of the posts. If we ever have another cool vintage, we will hedge a tall canopy.
 
Do you want to take the top or the bottom? As we can see from this Accuweather graphic, there was a considerable amount of variation in the high temperatures for the month of July represented by the top trend line. The low temperatures were fairly well centered around the average as we see from the bottom trend line. Sometimes they have a rhythm and move in unison, sometimes not.
 

 
When we calculate Degree Days we break the month down into 12 minute intervals, or 3,600 data points per 30 day period. Any data point above 50 degrees adds to the Degree Day accumulation. Anything below, does not. As Yoda once said, “You do, or you do not”. He could have been a galactic winegrower. Maybe he was on Mars, probably Riesling or Gewurztraminer. We will see what the latest mission reveals. The Perseverance is cruising at 24,600 MPH on its 300 million mile mission to Mars. That’s about a 12,000-hour trip (1.4 years), one way. Hope they greased all the zerks before they left. https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/
 
So logically, if we have the top raging out of control with 100+ degree temperatures and the bottom dropping below 50 degrees every night, this would seem to be a moderate vintage from a Degree Day point of view. The vines of course would be scorched and tell a dramatically different story. Conversely, if most of the growing season saw temperatures top out in the mid 90’s with low temperatures covering the 40 to 60 degree territory, with a cooling breeze in the evening, that would be a sublime vintage. One quite worthy of our best effort in the vineyard and stewardship in the winery. And it is most definitely about time we had one of those vintages come around.
 
Well, the vineyard is all hedged up with two passes completed. The first pass trims the growing tips off of the dominate shoot. That allows the rest of the shoots to start growing like crazy. And that is when the second pass starts to get everyone’s attention. Our goal is to get the vines to stop growing more leaves and re-direct their energy to ripening their seeds. And in the process building aroma and flavor.
 

Growing like crazy again after the 1^st pass of hedging!

 

Trimmed and now we have their attention after the 2^nd pass of hedging.

 

Speaking of aroma and flavor, we are also shaping the texture of our wines. We do this by pulling leaves out of the fruit zone to expose our wine berries to the sun. But not too much. That silky seductive midpalate sensation we love in our Pinot Noirs comes from leaving a little more shade on our fruit. That was the field work for July. So far so good. August brings with it little pink berries and we start “thinning the herd”.

 

As they say, the Devil is in the details. So, let’s have a look at him.

 

As previously reported, the high for the month was 102.7 degrees recorded on July 26, at 5:36 pm, with the low temperature registering 45.1 degrees recorded on July 3, at 5:00 am. Degree Days for the month of July totaled 505.4. This brings the vintage 2020 growing Degree Day total to 1,237.5.

 

 

There were clouds, but no rain. Also, we did have Comet NEOWISE whiz by during the second half of the month. On July 23^rd, they say the comet was a scant 64 million miles from Earth. Hell, harvest is closer than that and coming up quick!

 

The outlook for the remainder of Vintage 2020 is coming into view. And our view is that the weather will continue to moderate and provide a nice bit of hang time for our mid to low-yield vintage. That is direct from the farming farmer that farms our farm. You can take that to the bank, and for an additional $2 supplement, you can get a cup of farming coffee. Not great coffee, but it will get the job done. But the cup might leak on your new shoes. Unfortunate, but not uncommon.

 

You can reach Dena by email at Cuvee@amalierobert.com and by phone at 503-88-CUVEE (503-882-8833) to schedule your appointment, or to place an order if you cannot join us.

 

Kindest Regards,

 

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Update: Open House July 25-26 & Tractor Bypass Surgery

Hello and Welcome, 

  

This is an Amalie Robert Estate Update: Open House and Tractor Bypass Surgery. A FLOG communication from Dena and Ernie. Amalie Robert Willamette Valley Pinot Noir. 

  

Please join Dena and Ernie for our next Open House on Saturday, July 25 & Sunday, July 26, from 10 am to 3 pm by appointment. An Evite will arrive shortly to schedule your preferred tasting day and time. You may also reach Dena by email at Cuvee@amalierobert.com and by phone at 503-88-CUVEE (503-882-8833) to schedule your appointment, or to place an order if you cannot join us.

Well, we have turned the corner in the vineyard. Our three sets of catch wires are up and clipped into place, the first hedge is completed, and the vineyard crew has done their best at removing the proper amount of leaf coverage to just partially expose our wine berries. We wouldn’t want to show too much skin this early in the game. The fruit set looks to be light, but the numbers are not yet in.

Vineyard inspector number 527, without an appointment, ready for a little outdoor tasting @AmalieRobert

Open air outdoor wine tastings are happening from 10 am to 3 pm each and every weekend now through Labor Day. Make an appointment and come on by, you just don’t know who you might see. Here is the tasting protocol under the new shade canopy overlooking 35 acres of Amalie Robert Estate Vines.

Upon arrival you will be offered your choice of barrel station. Each barrel station is at least 6 feet away from any other barrel station and is equipped with a bottle of sanitizer to be used on your hands. Lip sanitizer, by definition, is part of the tasting program.

Your barrel station will include a new Amalie Robert Riedel glass (they make these just for us) for each person in your party and an unopened bottle of water that you may share among your party to rinse your new stemware. There will also be a double-sided all-in-one tasting program and order form. We may also include some laminated marketing SWAG that is sanitized before and after your tasting appointment. The tasting fee is $15 with the Riedel tasting glass and $10 is refundable on any two bottle purchase per person. You may also opt for the Riedel Burgundy glass for $25 and $10 is refundable on any two bottle purchase per person. The now christened Amalie Robert Riedel glass is yours to keep and may be rinsed again.

We understand travel is somewhat of a challenge this year. If you find that you cannot make it to the vineyard, let us pack up a little of our terroir and ship it to you, weather permitting. Use the Big Blue Button to pre-order for pick up, or to place an order for shipping.

If you are spending some quality time watching films, may we suggest some timeless classics such as the Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot series, or maybe the ever-thrilling Alfred Hitchcock or the short lived original Star Trek series. All very Pinot family friendly.

Now if you find yourself at the corner of confused and bewildered, you may have just crossed the border into the Twilight Zone. Or our local Safeway, where you can find the depleted shelves being restocked with never before seen products, such as this.

And so now that the vineyard is cruising on autopilot, you are probably wondering what Ernie is doing with all his spare time between now and harvest. Well, let’s just say he is keeping himself amused.

Has this ever happened to you? You sit down to peruse the daily inoculum of mayhem from your E-mail productivity program and it shows you nothing. Your first clue that something has gone awry is that you are using software written by the world’s second greatest marketing company, whose stock symbol is MSFT. The first greatest marketing company is, of course, Lionel Trains.

You click the little blue button with your pointing device (whose idea was originally stolen from Digital Equipment Company) and a medium sized blue screen appears that informs you that your (MSFT annuity based revenue stream) E-mail program is starting. Then the screen disappears, and that’s all you get. Sweet F@ck All, is the phrase Ernie picked up in MSFT Ireland.

Standard operating procedure is to shut down, pour another cup of morning accelerant and start up again. Rinse and repeat - same result. At this point you realize you are not the only person to have had this problem, just the latest one. Off to the wonderful word of web browsing to see just how bad this problem is, and how one might once again gain access to one’s E-mail file – in a timely manner.

Fortunately, this problem is unfortunate, but not uncommon. A quick little diagnosis reveals you may start the offending program in safe mode with this run command: Outlook /safe. You will notice there is a space in this command. Must be a typo, Ernie thought. Nope, it’s there on purpose. Remember, first and foremost, this is a marketing company.

And lo and behold Outlook starts in safe mode and right there in front of you are all of your E-mails and subfolders containing even more E-mails! And a history of every E-mail you have ever sent, just in case. Now the fix here is simplicity itself, just disable the add-in (that added itself in) that is causing Outlook to not start up on its own. Right, what’s a cubit?

Yeah, don’t hold your breath. After disemboweling the Outlook program, and rebooting each and every time, still no joy. “Aye captain, I’ve got some bad news for yea. I am afraid it is time to eject the warp core.” No, there is an even easier and faster solution that Ernie picked up working at MSFT. You quite simply and with great pleasure, uninstall the offending program! It is really simple and quite gratifying. Another half cup of mid-morning accelerant and a high fiber bran muffin is your reward as you watch the little blue bar get longer and longer as your Intel Core i7, 7th Gen x86 based processor vanquishes the malignant software. Now we are making an impact!

By the way, when are we moving off the x86 architecture? We really should be 4 valves per cylinder, direct injection twin turbos by now. Or hydrogen power, or warp drive.

Next up, install a clean, uncorrupted version of the offending software. A quick download is the norm, but here in the middle of nowhere with nowhere internet service, we have some time to bake a fresh batch of high fiber bran muffins. A quick reboot, and there it is. Everything is back to “new-normal” and you may resume your early afternoon onboarding of mayhem. Maybe time to back-up your files.

And then it hits you. It’s tractor maintenance week at Uncle Ernie’s work farm. Three Italian tractors, one German rototiller, one French hedger, one Canadian sprayer and an Irish-American mower. This year, we have a nice little crop of issues that really should have been non-issues except for the fact that the Italians seem to have lost a few pages in translation getting to ISO 9000.

After 20 years that overly tight zip tie finally cut through a heater hose going to the cab in the tractor in which Ernie spends a significant amount of quality time spraying the vineyard. No big deal you think, we really do not need heat in the cab this time of year, and besides the air conditioning was just repaired.

Tractor bypass surgery

Except for the fact that the heater hose is connected to the water pump which is connected to the radiator which cools the 100 horsepower diesel engine that powers the whole shebang. Lose all of the coolant and what you have left is a really big paperweight stuck in the middle of 35 acres of vines. At least the wheel studs are tight this year.

And then there is the ever-expanding puddle of transmission oil dripping off of the muffler mounted directly below the transmission. No matter how you spin that, it does not come out well. There is a single oil line coming from the engine compartment disappearing underneath the cab, behind the interior panels and reappearing just before the rear axle.

Turns out we have a metal clamp, without a protective rubber gromet, that secures this metal oil line to the transmission housing. And get this, there is a whole bundle of electrical wires zip tied to that metal oil line! Much like the Grinch, you can only put up with this for so long before metal fatigue becomes a rupture. What could this possibly operate? Doesn’t really matter, it is an oil leak that leaks on the muffler. You don’t have to be a winemaker to realize oil dripping on a hot muffler is not a sustainable condition. What is it with the Italians and their zip ties?

You know, these cell phones have incredible cameras these days. Who remembers The Eastman Kodak Company? A picture may well be worth a 1,000 words but sending off an image to the engineers who designed the equipment is priceless. And much less is lost in translation, even with the Canadians, eh?

Here we have a chain drive pump with an idler bearing. A classic and farmer tested design that has not evolved much, if at all since it was invented. And if it works, you don’t get to fix it - yet. But if the idler bearing is wearing out in less than 1 season, you cannot escape the conclusion, and $107 plus freight, that something is askew. And in this case it is the out of alignment lower pump drive sprocket “walking” its way back along the input shaft where it will meet certain doom when the chain comes in contact with the frame. This is a priority one repair, as in do it right farming now. Yabba Dabba Do It Now!

What the engineer sees

What the winegrower sees

Leverage. When you have applied the maximum amount of force with the hammers you have and are not making an impact, you need leverage. Leverage in the form of a 4 foot bar and your best hammer not so gently coaxing this sprocket back to its original factory installed position. Hence, we apply the principle E=mc2 where the mass does not change, however it does absorb significant energy. And over time, directly applied energy slowly realigns the lower pump drive sprocket with the upper sprocket, thus extending the life of said idler bearing. You learn Einstein’s theory of relativity in school, but applied percussive maintenance is learned on the job. Please refer to page 118 of the May issue of Modern Agrarian.

And of course, there are the standard oil, lube and filter chores for 5 diesel powered machines. Nice to see a pack of field mice thought the air cleaner was a good place to build a nest. Top off the radiator, check the tires and don’t forget to grease the zerks. They really appreciate it. And so, that is what gets Ernie out of bed in the morning, albeit very cautiously. Almost as much fun as opening E-mail…

But the vines sure look nice!

You can reach Dena by email at Cuvee@amalierobert.com and by phone at 503-88-CUVEE (503-882-8833) to schedule your appointment, or to place an order if you cannot join us.

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie