Amalie Robert Estate: 2021 February Pre-Vintage Pruning Update

Hello and Welcome, 

 

It is the dormant season in wine country. The first day of spring is not until March 20^th, but believe it or not, it is coming up fast. Witness the daffodils and crocus in the garden providing the early, wonderfully colorful signs of agricultural life below ground. This is their one time a year to “rise and shine” brightening up our disposition. And they are certainly a most welcome development, especially this year. 

A FLOG communication (Farming bLOG) by Dena & Ernie from Amalie Robert Estate. Oregon Willamette Valley Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Have a look and see what we see on Instagram @AmalieRobert Estate.



The vines may appear dormant, but that’s just a disguise. There is plenty of work being done inside the vine and below ground in the root zone. Their big day is bud break, and they are making all of the necessary preparations for the big reveal. And just like you toiling in your garden, it is our job to get our garden, the “vine-yard” ready to grow. We will begin with what we can see, and that is the transformation from last year’s canopy to a new start for vintage 2021.

Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells and one farming eggplant!

A new start, how refreshing. Wouldn’t it be nice to wake up one morning and find the to-do list from yesterday is gone? Just GONE! Or the first day back from vacation (or staycation to the back garden, or vine-yard as the case may be) and you find that your E-mail file has been corrupted. No old E-mails. No new E-mails, No follow-up E-mails. No back-ups and no farming E-mail whatsoever! NONE! Well if you were a vine, spring is just like that. No hold over from the past vintage to distract you or keep you from your dedicated purpose – which is to ripen your seeds and reproduce! If only…

They cannot do it alone. Actually they can, they are self-pollinating. But if left on their own, they just sprawl all over the ground. Not an ideal situation to produce top quality wine, which is our dedicated purpose.

So we have implemented a Vertical Shoot Positioning trellis system in which to manage their development during the growing season. During a typical harvest, sans smoke taint, we denude the vines of their wine berries and ferment the sugar out of them. What is leftover is the vertically “hand positioned” shoots of the prior vintage.

Vertical Shoot Position Trellis with Catch Clip.

Out with the old, in with the new growth. In preparation for vintage 2021 we have 4 “by hand” vine related tasks to complete: Removing the trellis wire catch clips, about 14 seconds per plant, making the primary pruning cuts separating last year’s cane from the trunk, about 30 seconds per plant, pulling the brush out of the trellis wires which is the physical equivalent to punch down in the winery, about 32 seconds per plant. And finally wrapping a new cane on the fruiting wire that will bear vintage 2021 wine berries, about 70 seconds per plant. This last task involves the use of a very low-tech bread twist-tie. Remember those? And then we wait (fixing whatever it is that still needs to be fixed) just as patiently as farmers do, for bud break.

Primary Cut Separating Last Year's Cane from the Trunk.
 

Brush Pulled Out of Trellis Wires.
 

New Cane for 2021 Wrapped on the Fruiting Wire and Tied with a Green Twist-tie.
 

In the vineyard it is true - No passengers, all crew. Ernie works in a little tractor time between the rain showers when he can. His job is to mow up all the canes from last year along with the tall fescue (Hey that’s grass, buddy). This mix of browns and greens puts the worms and soil microbes back to work returning nutrients to our sedimentary Bellpine soil. Everybody and everything has a job to do. It takes about 3 tractor passes with the flail mower to fully mulch last year’s canes into the vineyard floor. About once every 2-3 weeks or so is good timing due to the grass’s unrelenting spring growth rate.

Canes Ready for Ernie to Mow.

Rust on the tractor never sleeps and our army of beneficial insects never get a day off. There are good bugs and there are bad bugs. Good bugs eat the bad bugs that want to eat our vines. Good bugs are the ever-voracious ladybug, earwig, various and assorted spiders, and the praying mantis. The praying mantis is a special case. If you see a piece of straw fluttering in the breeze, watch where it lands. It could very well be a praying mantis. They are said to be good luck in a vineyard, unless you are trying to mate with one.

The NUMBER ONE bad bug is the Willamette spider mite. A subspecies of spider mites, this particular mite feeds off the vascular tissue of the leaves, thus draining the life force of the vine. The leaves turn rust colored and significantly reduce photosynthetic output. The antidote, other than the previously listed good bugs, is the Predatory mite.

Live Predatory Mites. Get them on AMAZON. Sold in lots of 2,000, more or less…

Fun Fact: Until relatively recently in the evolution of the human condition, leeches were thought by some practitioners to provide medicinal benefits. We now know that not to be true. Wine may or may not provide medicinal benefits, but from a chemistry point of view, it is a solution.

Here is the odd thing, both mites co-exist simultaneously among the vines. They both winter over in the bark of the trunks and just before bud break, they emerge to feed. The Willamette mite tries to eat the buds before they can burst forth with new life. If there is a significant population and they succeed in devouring all of the buds on a new cane, the vine could die. The Predatory mite is our first line of defense against this unwanted activity. But nobody batts a thousand.

What does that mean, and why should I care? This is an excellent time to point out that we do not use insecticides in the vineyard. Some wine growing regions are more prone to insect pressure than others. Due to our reasonable cold winters, the most harmful species cannot overwinter. The yellowjacket (and its natural predator, the flame thrower) is an unfortunate exception. While some chemical companies offer products to eradicate bad mites, and it is tempting to consider, these products are effective against all mites – the good, the bad and well they are all kinda ugly. So we let nature take its course. Each year we see some damage, sometimes more in a very hot and dry vintage.

And if you happen to see a dirt clod that just flew away, well then it wasn’t really a dirt clod after all but maybe a well camouflaged small raptor harvesting up a vineyard vole. Voles, along with pocket gophers do their business underground. By that we mean they are feasting on the vine’s roots. Very bad, very very bad!

The vine has no natural defense against such an unprovoked attack. But the aerial squadron of raptors that we have fostered provide a first line of defense. From the Enterprise class red-tailed hawk, through the mid-range Cooper’s and sharp-shinned hawks down to the Kestrel, they all contribute to the overall vineyard health, and get fed doing it – so they can reproduce!

It’s a bug’s life. The good bugs are out there 24x7 and are constantly “harvesting” bad bugs. When they can’t find bad bugs (protein), they are on the hunt for pollen. Pollen is their vegan solution to protein. And that is where our cover crops from last fall come into play.

We plant winter peas and cereal rye to hold the soil during the rainy season and also set nitrogen for the vines. Cereal rye takes up nitrogen and stores it for the spring when it is turned back into the soil as natural fertilizer. Winter peas are just that, they flower and produce pea pods during the cold winter months. Somewhere along the way, their program got messed up. But that is good for us and our battalion of vineyard insects.

Thinking and drinking. About now your left brain is running the vineyard pruning numbers and trying to determine how long it takes to get 55,000 vines ready for vintage 2021. And your right brain is ready for a little more wine. If you need some live Predatory mites for YOUR garden, you can order those from Amazon. No kidding!

PRO Tip: If you have wine in a cup and pretend to blow on it during your online audio video streaming (Zoom or DUO) session, people may think it is a cup of hot tea. Either way, tea or wine, it is a “best practice” to wear pants, in case you spill and need to stand up in a hurry. What you do on your personal time is your business.

The total elapsed time to complete the “by hand” vineyard pruning at Amalie Robert Estate is about 2,300 human hours. This estimate is based on a 4 year moving average that takes into account the vintage and crew variances in the vineyard. And while this is good to know, it is certainly only one piece of the puzzle. To put that in perspective, 2,300 human hours is 8 hours per day for 286 working days. A typical work year is 40 hours a week for 52 weeks, 2,080 hours. Now we are getting somewhere.

Pay it forward. Pruning can start as soon as all of the leaves have senesced and fallen to the vineyard floor where they will become nutrients for the next vintage. The primary pruning cuts can happen independently of the other 3 tasks. However, the other three tasks of removing catch clips, pulling last year’s canes from the trellis and then wrapping a new cane on the fruiting wire must occur in sequence. The proof of such is left as an exercise for the reader.

So, logically, we have one very well experienced and trusted person making all of the primary pruning cuts in the vineyard. We also have a small, but dedicated vineyard crew following in sequence performing the remaining tasks. Ernie’s contribution is to source 55,000 green twist ties. Dena orders diesel for the tractor. We have already covered the raptor, insect and cover crop contributions.

Now the big question – how many calendar days do we need in order to get 286 working days? In a typical office environment, this is 5 working days for every 7 calendar days, excluding holidays, sick days, snow days, vacation days and now COVID-19 days. The working days are then factored by adding humans to reduce the elapsed number of days available to accomplish the work in the time allotted. And after all of that, it’s still farming and we will still be behind.

Agricultural work is a very unique proposition. Most of the time we work when we need to and other times we work when environmental conditions allow. Clearly one supersedes the other. While not a daily occurrence in the Willamette Valley, we do see snow and freezing temperatures that are not safe vineyard working conditions. This reduces the potential number of work days by an unknown factor.

Growing icicles – February 2021

Not to mention we are in a rural area where snow removal equipment is heard in the distance, but not seen in practice. So, not only being able to work, but being able to get to work are all part of the solution matrix. And of course, we have COVID-19 to deal with, just like every other community in the world. While not at all like taking the subway to go work in an office building, at the end of the day the results are not dissimilar. Except, you cannot do vineyard work from home. But you can get that back garden ready for springtime entertaining!

And pruning needs to be completed before the vines wake up and open their new little buds to greet vintage 2021. While this is not a fixed date, it usually occurs around the 15^th of April plus or minus a week or maybe two. Kind of like Easter, it varies from year to year.

 

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate: 2021 The Feast of St. Valentine's Day Survival Guide

Hello and Welcome, 

We have a VERY SPECIAL gift to celebrate in the year 2021 and that is Valentine’s Day is on a Sunday! Instead of a hustle and bustle last minute event, you have ALL DAY to celebrate! And we have a few tips and ideas to share on how to do just that. Our first suggestion is to not lose your head. 

 

A FLOG communication (Farming bLOG) by Dena & Ernie from Amalie Robert Estate. Oregon Willamette Valley Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Have a look and see what we see on Instagram @AmalieRobert Estate. 

 

The feast of St. Valentine of February 14 was first established in 496 AD by Pope Gelasius I, who included Valentine among all those "... whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God." And this is the very reason that prior to 2021, indoor dining on February 14^th was so very popular. This year, indoor dining will still be popular, just that it will be in-house indoor dining. 

 

Well, some of those acts of Valentine were also known to Claudius the Cruel of Rome. Sometime around the year 270 AD, Claudius the Cruel was in the conquering business and to be successful, he needed a strong army. However, he was having a difficult time finding volunteers for his campaigns. He reasoned that the young men of Rome were unwilling to join his army due to the strong attachment to their loved ones. A reasonable conclusion to be sure.

 

Claudius chose to rectify this problem by banning all marriages and engagements in Rome. While somewhat of a non sequitur, still that did not send the young men of Rome flocking to join with him. After some time, Claudius discovered he had a priest undermining his efforts. It was in fact true that the soon to be martyred St. Valentine was continuing to perform marriages.

 

Certainly not an indecisive man, Claudius ordered Valentine arrested and put to death. But not before being beaten with clubs, stoned (in the historical sense) and then decapitated. This last step was most likely meant to send a strong message that further activity of this nature would be frowned upon.

 

While awaiting his fate, Valentine is rumored to have written a farewell note. The note was to the jailer’s daughter which had looked after him during his brief incarceration. Kind of a pre-Stockholm Syndrome sort of relationship it would seem. He signed the note “From Your Valentine.” That phrase is in common use today and now you know where it may have originated.

 

 

Valentine was put to death on February 14^th in the year 270 AD. But it seems Claudius could not let him go, as is evidenced by him keeping Valentine’s head. Eventually, St. Valentine's remains were deposited in St Anton's Church, Madrid, where they have lain since the late 1700’s. They were a present from the Pope to King Carlos IV and have been displayed publicly since 1984. Please let this bit of history inform your gift giving choices this Valentine’s Day.

 

 

Roses are red, Violets are purple

You are so sweet, and so is maple surple!

 

Being Sunday and all, your feast of St. Valentine’s Day begins with brunch! Brunch is that luxurious word that means so many things that are just inherently understood. Leisure on display with a late alarm, deliciously sweet and savory pastries, fresh fruits, eggs extraordinaire and perhaps a glass of Champagne to greet the afternoon. And most of all, a little gift tucked into the mid-morning rapture. Choose wisely.

 

 

Somewhere along the way, Ernie picked up a set of heart shaped ramekins. These are the perfect vessels to deliver a bouffant “egg extraordinaire.” This will take a little forethought and some advance preparation. As this is an annual event, you will have time. Since there is no such thing as left-over hash browns, roast a couple extra “creamer” red potatoes the night before and retrieve them while they are still a bit firm.

 

Here we go. In a medium skillet, add a dollop of duck fat, butter or olive oil. (Note: Lipitor is now widely available in generic form with little or no co-pay.) Cube the potatoes in ¼ inch squares and add them to the pan over medium heat. Add your intended’s choice of preferred omelet vegetables diced small, such as peppers, onions and mushrooms. Add a dash of smoked HOT paprika for color and heat. Turn, flip or mix to cook evenly, but not overly so. Is that a Champagne pop I heard? No? Why not?

 

While this mixture is heating, grab a mason jar with a sealing ring and lid. Crack 2 eggs, sans shell, and add a dollop of sour cream. Ernie likes to add some broccoli bits at this stage, but YOU certainly do not have to. Attach the sealing apparatus and pretend you are making an evening martini. Any more than 30 seconds though and the show gets kinda boring.

 

Remove the ramekins from the preheated oven. Split the potato and vegetable mixture evenly between the two ramekins, paying special attention that the are only about 75% full. The reason for this will become important soon. But don’t worry if they are too full, that is what’s known as a self-correcting situation.

 

Give your mason jar a final shake and then pour the contents all over the first ramekin. Crack another pair of eggs, shake and repeat. Top with a little freshly cracked black pepper and a dusting of paprika for color. Return to the oven and bake at 325 until you have achieved maximum bouffant! When they are bouff’d to your satisfaction, set them on a cooling rack for about 10 minutes before separating. This will take a total of about 30-45 minutes or so.

 

Everyone has moved on from the orange juice, so now would be a good time to sample the Champagne and prepare your desired breakfast animals (in whatever form they may take.) Fresh local fruits may be hard to find, so adopt a tropical locale with mangos, pineapple, strawberries and whatever else you can fit into a Champagne flute. Remember, fresh fruit is good for you and Champagne is the perfect delivery beverage.

 

And now the moment of truth - A card and a small gift. If executed properly, now might be the right time for a “nap” before dinner…

 

 

A Valentine’s Feast with the Hers and His Reserves – Amalie’s Cuvée and Estate Selection.

 

After having skillfully delivered brunch and engaging in a leisurely afternoon activity, thoughts turn to the Valentine’s Day dinner. Our suggestion for this menu is to stick with the tried-and-true cool climate varietals of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

 

Let’s Get Started. Smoked salmon, either hard smoked Alaskan salmon or lox style Atlantic salmon lend their charms to garlic parmesan crostini with fresh dill aioli and capers. Add a little soft blue cheese and things get a little funky-good as the salt from the cheese works its magic on the acid in the wine. This course pairs nicely with a BFC such as the Heirloom Cameo Chardonnay. Alternatively, a more steely interpretation of Chardonnay, the Dijon Clones, brings a little more focus and acidity to the event. This is a “hands-on” course, and we find that if you can eat it with your fingers, it just tastes better. The candles are a nice touch.

 

The Hers course is stuffed quail. There are all manner of combinations to choose from here, but there are three key components to any good stuffing. The first is the enticement and we like chanterelle or morel mushrooms for this. The next is the bitter green such as spinach or anything along those lines, maybe even kale. And we need a binder to hold this all together such as quinoa or polenta. A little manchego in the mix helps hold it all together and can dual as a snacking cheese. Munge all of that together with an optional egg, and you are ready to stuff the birds. Treat them to an olive oil spritz and a dusting of paprika on the way to the oven.

 

Amalie’s Cuvée is a natural pairing for this dish. You can trust that we have run repeated and replicated trials. Each and every vintage we put to the test comes through with flying colors. Amalie’s Cuvée is Dena’s barrel selection from our 35 acre estate vineyard that she helped plant back at the turn of the century. That should tell you two things. First thing is she has met the farming challenge head-on, and second, she knows where the Pommard is planted.

 

Yep, she is a Pommard girl – and you could be too! Every vintage we taste the wines in barrel to sort out who gets what. Each day that we taste, we focus on one of the three main clones we grow: Dijon clones, Pommard clone or Wadenswil clone. When it is all said and done, Pommard is the dominate clone in her blend with a little Dijon clone for texture and some Wadenswil clone to bring out her wild side. And its personal, Amalie is her middle name.

 

The His course is Steak Diane (from the Goddess of the hunt of Roman mythology.) While the preparation remains mostly the same, the protein can vary widely from beef to venison or buffalo. Since Ernie grew up in Montana where the buffalo roam, we are going to go with buffalo.

 

The advance ingredient preparation for Steak Diane allows for a table side implementation. A bit of strut, pomp and circumstance if you will. That being said, open flame in a confined space can have immediate and long-lasting consequences. Marriage proposals get delivered this way. Diana was also goddess of the moon. Recognize and respect that this is pretty powerful stuff we are offering up here.

 

Estate Selection is a masculine wine in touch with its feminine side, which is why it is the perfect pairing for Steak Diane, and candlelit settings. Ernie favors the wild side of Pinot Noir and that comes from his errant youth. Wadenswil clone provides that “color outside the lines” type palate profile. However as time has taken its toll, Ernie discovered the soothing nature that a little Pommard clone can offer. Add a little Dijon clone 667, which is the black sheep of the Dijon clone family, and that is a good first step in the blending trials. Of course, Dena has VETO power. So you know if the blend made it to the bottle, it has her stamp of approval. She is also the one person who runs the corker. We don’t get anywhere without her say so.

 

Chardonnay is not just for brunch in your Champagne. The variety that started the morning festivities, may also be the segue to the rest of your evening. We are talking about the once in a lifetime wine Pabuk’s Gift Late Harvest (Botrytis) Chardonnay.

 

This is going to take a little more than a little effort, so you may want to get started right away. The easy pairing is a blue cheese such as Stilton, or our preference Shropshire. But there is so much more that this wine has to offer.

 

Think goat cheese. Now think patisserie. Now put that together and start imagining goat cheese cheesecake with seared pineapple topping. Or a goat cheese flan on a cinnamon graham crust topped with Seville orange marmalade. People eat with their eyes first so your presentation and delivery, along with that very romantic card that you didn’t forget, are paramount.

 

While making this wine, Ernie implored the help of Dick Erath. The 2013 vintage provided the naturally occurring environmental factors to make an ethereal late harvest wine. Never before, and hopefully never again, will those growing conditions be repeated. With Dick as his conspiring winemaker, Ernie forged ahead with harvesting desiccated Chardonnay berries from the vines in November. Once in the press, it was a tough shlog, as raisins don’t put out a lot of juice. Undaunted he continued, as fools press on where angels fear to tread.

 

The juice was 44 Brix, for those who keep track. Ernie had experienced some out of this world Trockenbeerenauslese wines and they typically run in the 10% alcohol range. That was good enough for him and he arrested the fermentation with dry ice. Yeast don’t really care for that and they kinda packed it in right then and there. All went pretty well and soon it was time to bottle.

 

So Dick made the trek back to the winery with his girlfriend to see how Ernie’s effort had turned out. The look and smell of the wine passed muster and then everyone took a sip. Dick appeared pleasantly surprised and his girlfriend was complimentary. Ernie was beaming as his conspiring winemaker and early mentor had given him the nod for an effort that was far from guaranteed to succeed.

 

Dick then tilted his head and with a twinkle in his eye, looked at Ernie, then his girlfriend and said, “You know, this is the kind of wine that can be applied topically and removed orally.” And so, it is. Good luck Mr. and Mrs. Gorsky.

 

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie