Amalie Robert Estate Vintage Update: 2021 Pinot Noir in Flagrante!

 Hello and Welcome Dena, 

 

I See You! 

What you see here is Pinot Noir in Flagrante! The first blazing berry of vintage 2021 appeared on July 28th. This exemplar is Pommard Clone grafted onto Ernie’s esteemed 5C rootstock. With 5C being so deep rooted, it is a juxtaposition to see this clone and rootstock combination showing color so early. Once again this year, it seems like too much, too soon. What ever happened to waiting until August 15th like we used to do? Those days are gone, my friend.

 

 
Winemaking: The Continuation of Terroir by Other Means. ®

 

A FLOG communication (Farming bLOG) by Dena & Ernie from Amalie Robert Estate. Oregon Willamette Valley Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Have a look and see what we see on Instagram @AmalieRobert Estate. We are posting on Facebook and LinkedIn. Check us out if you can. We can use all the likes we can get…

Will you be in our area? Amalie Robert Estate is open by appointment for vineyard tours and tastings. Select your preferred day and time with the Big Red Button.

 

 

 

It’s not exactly Mai Tai’s and Yahtzee this year.

 

So here we are staring down the phaser of vintage 2021. What to do? Is it set to stun? As a dry farmed vineyard, what can we do?

 

The chance of vintage extending rains in August is not zero, but it is so close to zero that, well yeah, it is in fact zero.

 

September can bring rainfall, like the record setting rains the first week of vintage 2019. But it is still July. The battle may be lost by then.

 

What we did, and did again, and then for a 3rd time this year, was hedge a short canopy. A shorter canopy has fewer leaves. Instead of being 7.5 feet tall, we are closer to 6.5 feet tall. Hedging off that upper story of leaves provides two benefits and a BONUS!

 

Ernie Hedging a Short Canopy.

The first benefit is the vine will be using less water. On the backside of each leaf are stomates. These stomates open and release water vapor to cool the leaf. Since we are missing about 2.5 cubic feet of leaves, we are saving that water for the vines to cool the remaining leaves.

 

The BONUS is that the vine will be less likely to translocate water from the wine berry to the leaves for cooling. This phenomenon comes into play when we evaluate sugar concentrations. The less water inside the wine berry, the higher the concentration of sugar.

 

The higher concentration of sugar means higher alcohol potential, or dare we say, leaving residual sugar in the wine. So the decision is often made to avoid residual sugar and cluster pluck early - before aroma and flavor can fully develop. Look for another high volume Rosé vintage if this weather pattern keeps up.

 

Hedged as Short as Possible without Hitting the Post!

The second benefit is that with fewer leaves in the upper canopy, the vine is building less sugar inside the wine berries. All other things being equal (which never occurs in farming) the vines with the fewer leaves will build less sugar and have a lower alcohol potential. We are not saying this was the best option, just the only option.

 

 
Smoke gets in your eyes… and lungs.
 

Wildfires continue to ravage the West Coast from Canada through to Southern California. Smoke is entering the atmosphere and being distributed hither and yon. We have seen this movie before, and it doesn’t end well. And it is only July. The dry months of August and September are yet to come.

 

This graphic is the Air Quality Index. You can click on the link and enter your zip code for current air quality conditions and forecasts. The colors represent air quality with green being excellent, orange being poor and red to purple being unhealthy. The numbers represent the air quality, with anything above 50 being poor air quality. Not advisable to be outdoors working or maybe harvesting.

 

Our wine producing, and neighboring state to the south has been in the thick of this “no win scenario” for several years now. It is real. It can be devastating and is deadly. It is a test of character we wish to avoid. The Kobayashi Maru “no-win” scenario as explained by Spock:

 

"The purpose is to experience fear; fear in the face of certain death, to accept that fear and maintain control of one's self and one's crew. This is a quality expected in every Starfleet captain."

– Spock, 2258 (Star Trek)

 

 

Recently, and 2020 specifically, the Willamette Valley has been the recipient of wildfires and the resulting airborne pollution. Sure, the sunrises are pretty, and sunsets are nice with a glass of Rosé. But the atmosphere is starting to look like the wash water wrung from a pair of well loved farming socks. Fortunately, the aroma has yet to catch up with the view.

 

Smoke Entering the Willamette Valley from the Southeast.

And here is the view as of July 28th, mid-afternoon facing southeast (with an Air Quality Index of 37) from the top of the vineyard at Amalie Robert Estate. Add in some high winds to the intensifying drought conditions and that 410,000 acre Bootleg fire to the south starts to become a little more real. Not to mention the evolving scene in California.

 

The Jet Stream will be the joker in this deck. Film @ 11…
 
Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Situational Review: The Mid-July Stretch and Lag Phase

Hello and Welcome, 

  

After June’s month end record heat wave, July seems downright pleasant. High temperatures in the upper 80’s mostly, though trending down to the upper 70’s and nighttime temperatures dipping into the 40’s. Our humidity remains in check at about 40% during the day and 90% overnight. No matter, the vines are executing their preordained program. They are just taking a little more time getting it done. That and they are getting older, just like the rest of us.

 

 

THE BIG PICTURE 

 

As we welcome more visitors to the property, we are reminded that not everyone reading this FLOG has 36 acres of vineyard for a backyard - but we do. So, we thought it might be nice to introduce you to THE BIG PICTURE. If you are planning a trip to Wine Country, you can see it all when you get here. Until then, here is a view of the “back 40”.

 

We are farming the dream, so you don’t have to. Click on the image to view the "Back 40" panorama.

 

 

Winemaking: The Continuation of Terroir by Other Means. ®

 

A FLOG communication (Farming bLOG) by Dena & Ernie from Amalie Robert Estate. Oregon Willamette Valley Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Have a look and see what we see on Instagram @AmalieRobert Estate. We are posting on Facebook and LinkedIn. Check us out if you can. We can use all the likes we can get…

 

Will you be in our area? Amalie Robert Estate is open all summer by appointment for vineyard tours and tastings. Select your preferred day and time with the Big Red Button.

 

 

Fire Update
 

We will be monitoring the West Coast fire situation as we head into the hot and dry days leading up to harvest. Here is a current image of the Oregon wildfire scene.

 

The largest fire by far in Oregon right now is the Bootleg fire (fire number 210321) located near the border with California. The fire was reported on July 12^th and as of July 19^th has burned over 400,000 acres. For comparative purposes, the state of Rhode Island is 776,900 acres.

 

 

This chart shows how Vintage 2021 compares to the past four vintages of wildfires. The state of Connecticut is 3.548 million acres and that is pretty close to our year-to-date average acres burned. How many Connecticut’s do we have left to burn? How much greenhouse gas and carbon are being released into the atmosphere? Maybe it’s time West Coast forest management became part of the national debate.

 

 

This graphic shows the Air Quality Index for the Northeast region. The smoke causing the unhealthy air quality is from the West Coast wildfires over 2,500 miles away. With all of that particulate in the atmosphere, someone could make the case for global dimm(witt)ing. We may be going to hell in a handbasket, but at least we’re enjoying the ride.

 

 
Lag Phase and Situational Review
 

The month of July appears seemingly out of nowhere after the flurry of activity in June known as canopy management. Unprecedented growth from rain and excessive heat in June had to be contained in 3 sets of trellis catch wires. Then and only then was Ernie able to execute his first hedge. Some blocks, being above average, earned a pre-hedge before the main hedge. Then there is the obligatory re-hedge.

 

Ernie Getting His Hedge on in the Terraced Rows of the Back 40.
 

And the hedging’s will continue until the vines realize it is time to stop growing more leaves and then direct their energy to ripening their seeds. And in so doing develop stunning aroma and flavor in our wine berries. They want to ripen seeds to reproduce; we just want to make the wine! A means to an end to be sure.

 

 

But it takes a while for the vines to grow more leaves for Ernie to hedge off. So, we take a week or so to give them some time to grow and focus on updating our own situational awareness. You should see what it looks like from here…

 

Hedging the Vines, Back to Front.
 

For the vines, they call this period “lag phase”. Lag phase is an important time in the development of this year’s wine berries. But like skeet shooting low house 6, you need to be paying attention or you will miss it. Lag phase helps the humans figure out about how many tons of wine berries will be waiting for them at the start of The Great Cluster Pluck. This is good to know IN ADVANCE.

 

You know the vines have entered lag phase when the seeds begin to “harden off”. After bloom when the wine berries are first formed, the cells are dividing like rabbits and the tissue is very soft. After the cell division is complete, the next step is enhancing cell wall integrity and growing the cells – including the seeds.

 

At the very center of a pollinated wine berry is a seed. More specifically in wine berries there are pairs of seeds – usually two pairs, but sometimes only one. This is often the result of the weather conditions during bloom. Warm sunny weather favors two pairs of seeds, where cool and rainy weather can create a single pair. The other alternative is no seeds because the flower did not pollinate, and you have no wine berry to ferment the sugar out of.

 

This year, we seem to have a mix of all three scenarios. More of a casual observation at this point as the vines are taking their time entering lag phase. We have not sampled the vineyard and performed the 4 sig-fig analysis and statistical evaluations – yet. But like Yogi Barra said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.”

 

We have clusters with fewer than the historical “average” number of wine berries. This means a greater percentage of flowers did not pollinate this year compared to the average over the past 30 years. For the flowers that did pollinate, we see a wide range in the mix of the two pairs of seeds v the one pair of seeds wine berries.

 

Pinot Noir Cluster, Berry with 2 Pairs of Seeds, Berry with 1 Pair of Seeds.
 

Once the seeds begin to harden off, the vines have by definition entered lag phase. Then it is time to sample the vineyard. We do this by selecting a random set of vines, we count the number of clusters on the vine and write that number down. Then we clip one off and put it in a bucket. Move on to the next random vine and repeat.

 

When the sample collection is done, we weigh the clusters and divide by the number of clusters weighed. This is the fun part – getting weighed. The average weight of the clusters at lag phase will double when we cluster pluck them. So if we have a cluster that weighs 55 grams at lag phase, it should weigh 110 grams at harvest. That would mean an average size Pinot Noir cluster where it takes 4 of them to make a pound.

 

Luck favors the prepared mind. Based on our informal observation, we will be lucky to see our FINAL cluster weights in the 100 gram category. More likely it seems that it may take five or even six clusters to make a pound. The marketing people will tell you that it is a short crop of exceptional quality. And of course, it will be…

 

 
What does this mean and why should I care?
 

Growing two vintages on the same cluster. From a winemaking perspective, wine berries with a single pair of seeds are significantly smaller and will build sugar faster than wine berries with two pairs of seeds. This comes into play when sampling for harvest.

 

There are at least three conditions for harvest that must all signal “GO TIME!” The first and foremost is aroma and flavor. If it doesn’t taste good on the vine, the chance of an ethereal Pinot Noir in the bottle is pretty remote.

 

Clusters Protected from the Sun to Preserve Aroma and Flavor.
 

The second attribute is the chemistry, specifically sugar concentration and acidity measured as pH. Optimal sugar concentrations at harvest are measured using Brix. A range of 21 to 24 Brix will yield a final alcohol potential of 12.6 to 14.4% alcohol. Here is where the single seed pair berries come into focus.

 

If the mix of wine berries on a cluster have a high percentage of single seed wine berries, the sugar concentration will read very high. However, the wine berries with two pairs of seeds are not as mature and they will show a very high concentration of acid, and underripe flavors. This is good to know, but fortunately it is not something we need to problematize today.

 

And the third attribute is scheduling a harvest crew. It is important to remember, there are only so many skilled labor hands to go around. And those skilled labor hands are connected to lungs that will need clean, smoke free air to breath. Just like every other living thing on the planet.

 
Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Climate Update: June Vintage 2021, Why Is It SO FARMING HOT!?

Hello and Welcome, 

  

This is the Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: June Vintage 2021, Why is it SO FARMING HOT!?

 

The vineyard at Amalie Robert Estate has experienced a wide range of events this month including, but not limited to: record breaking heat, a full spread assault of frozen ice pellets (what the hail!?), all three sets of catch wires coming up and clipped into position and Ernie out there hedging the vine’s shoot tips off. Growing low alcohol wines means growing a short canopy - especially in a hot vintage.

Precision farming, Ernie hedging a short canopy.

A Willamette Valley Harvest isn’t here yet. We estimate Julian calendar day 257 (September 14th), but it’s starting to come into view. You can check out our harvest video courtesy of VineStories.

 
 
Winemaking: The Continuation of Terroir by Other Means. ®
 

A FLOG communication (Farming bLOG) by Dena & Ernie from Amalie Robert Estate. Oregon Willamette Valley Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Have a look and see what we see on Instagram @AmalieRobert Estate. We are posting on Facebook and LinkedIn. Check us out if you can. We can use all the likes we can get…

 

June is Dena’s birthday month. She is a Gemini and provides a calming force to the Taurus in her life. The Pommard clone of Pinot Noir is her thing, and Amalie’s Cuvée is her jam. A 300 case production means just 12 lucky barrels find their way into her final blend. Bottled unfined and unfiltered. A wine that is just about as natural as the day is long.

 

Do YOU like Pommard? Or Wadenswil? Will you be in our area? Do you want to experience Amalie Robert Pinot Noir? Or maybe Syrah? Amalie Robert Estate is open all summer by appointment for vineyard tours and tastings. Click on the map for driving directions and select your preferred day and time with the Big Red Button.

 

Why is it SO FARMING HOT!?
 

The June month-end heat wave has sent past records into the dust bin of history. At the Amalie Robert Estate vineyard in Dallas, (Oregon not Texas) Monday morning, June 28^th saw a blazing 97 degrees - at 9:00 am! And finished the day with a high temperature of 118. That was after a record high on Sunday of 113 (low of 86) and 109 for Saturday. Friday was the lead up with a mere 100 and Thursday started the show with a paltry 98. And there was a strong, recirculating breeze acting like a convection oven for any living creature exposed to the elements. The average wind speed during this event was 3.7 miles per hour, with gusts reaching 11.8 miles per hour. With a relative humidity of 25%, our 118-degree temperature had a heat index of over 130 degrees. It is OFF the chart!

 

 

Why, you may ask. Why is it SO FARMING HOT!? Well, we will tell you why. In a word, or two, it is the Jet Stream. A high-pressure dome set itself up over the Seattle area. This allowed an ABUNDANCE OF HOT AIR from the states to our south to come into the northwest. That airflow established a circular flow all around the Pacific Northwest including Canada. And it’s not even an ELECTION YEAR…

 

 

The Jet Stream circulating HOT AIR into the Willamette Valley.

 

This breeze kept recirculating the hot air coming north, thus preventing any cool air to come south from the Gulf of Alaska. The middle of the country was subject to the cooling effect of cold Canadian air. The result was unprecedented, prolonged and excessive heat throughout the wine growing area of the Willamette Valley.

 

Forget Climate Change. Somebody has got to straighten out the Jet Stream!

 

And aren’t you just a little bit curious how your region stacks up to the Willamette Valley? This graphic shows the real-time temperatures for the entire United States. Alaska and Hawaii seem to have gone missing. That’s where we would be, if we were to be somewhere other than here.

 

That is Portland registering 111 degrees, as of Monday, June 28^th.

 

 

Where there is FIRE, there is SMOKE.

 

FIRE – it’s a four-letter word, and one that is generally unwelcome in the vineyard environment. And then we move onto the 5 letter words like SMOKE and TAINT. These are completely unacceptable. The excessive heat in the areas around the Willamette Valley is of concern. There are wildfires burning now and we are monitoring that situation. You can read our position on the ill-fated Vintage 2020 here. A post-preview of coming attractions? We hope not.

 

The closest fire to us is designated S-503. It is burning south of Mount Hood and due east of the aptly named town of Woodburn. This is northeast of us by about 100 miles. Apparently, there are still some trees left there that were not burned last year. They say lightning never strikes twice; we say don’t bet on it and NOAA agrees. The Empire State building is hit by lightning about 25 times each year. Those folks at the Boston Fire Department (BFD) know how to handle this type of situation. Maybe give them a call…

 

 

So, what are we doing about it?

 

We are taking it as it comes, as that is really your only option as a winegrower. That and a couple of hotel nights with air conditioning. Field labor stops when the temperatures become unsafe. Ernie can run the tractors, hedging early in the morning, but excessive heat is not good for the equipment, or the equipment operator. The excessive heat does provide a good opportunity to finish up the annual equipment maintenance down in the cool, below ground level shop. The flail mower took out a bearing this month, and what a helluva bearing it is!

 

Replaced the flail mower bearing, it was all farmed out.

The vines, however, are making the most of their unsupervised time. Typically, vines do not get much done when the temperature drops below 50 degrees at night. That is why the evening cooldowns are such an important climatic attribute of winegrowing in the Willamette Valley. Cool evening temperatures prevent the vines from quickly building excess sugars before aroma and flavor can develop.

 

The BIG picture at Amalie Robert Estate.

Not this week. Like a kid set loose in a candy store, those vines are growing at a record pace. Over 2.5 inches of rain early in the month, during bloom, is enabling their growth. The evening temperatures in the mid-70’s and above allow for a 24 hour growth cycle. There is no evening cooldown to apply the brakes. The other side of the coin is that at temperatures above 100 degrees the vines call it quits. The leaves turn away from the sun and the vines go into their form of a lockdown. The end of June brought with it over 38 continuously unbearable hours of temperatures maintaining 70 to 115+ degrees.

 

 
What Does This Mean and Why Should I Care?


Leaves in the fruit zone shading the newly formed wine berries.

What we did not do. We did NOT pull leaves out of the fruit zone that shade the newly formed wine berries. Pulling leaves out of the fruit zone is a standard viticultural practice intended to reduce the incidence of powdery mildew and our old friend botrytis. Thanks to botrytis we were able to produce a once in a lifetime wine, Pakuk’s Gift Late Harvest Chardonnay.

 

But botrytis is not the intent. The case for removing leaves is to allow early morning sun exposure on the wine berries to evaporate the moisture from the morning dew that may foster powdery mildew and botrytis development. All well and good, in moderation.

 

The case against removing leaves is that excessive sun exposure can form aggressive tannins in the skins or in the most extreme case - sunburn. This leads to a very harsh finish in the wine. Not attractive in a silky-smooth Amalie Robert Pinot Noir.

 

Timing is key. Often times leaves are removed from the fruit zone right after flowering. This is done for one of two reasons: one is dogmatic as in “we have always done it that way.” The other is because the vineyard is situated in an area with high humidity, or restricted cold air drainage. Actually a third reason for early leaf removal can be because that is when a field crew was available. The world may run on Dunkin, but vineyards run on field labor. And diesel.

A view from the Chief Farming Officer's seat, moving ahead and looking behind.

Extended periods of high humidity foster powdery mildew and botrytis infections – both of these pathogens need moisture to grow. What’s done is done. Woe betide you if those leaves were removed before this excessive heat and sun exposure event. The decision to remove leaves early in the growing season may become evident in wine marked by excessively harsh tannins. Leaves are your friends, leave them be. They have a job to do. Thank them.

 

 
Numbers: The Dichotomy of Farming.
 

As we look back at the month, we find the view from the Independence Hotel to be similar to the view we had here during the ice storm in March. What a messed up year we have in 2021.

 

The vineyard encased in ice after Ice Storm 2021.

As we see from this monthly graphic, we began June on a high note of 97, then cooled where our high temperatures just hit the mid-60’s. (what a time that was) and dipped into the 40’s at night. And then the sweltering set upon us.

 

Bear in mind these temperatures are recorded at a nearby weather station. What we see on a nice south facing slope at 485 to 640 feet elevation is another matter.

 

Vineyards are typically planted on elevated south, southeast or southwest facing slopes for two reasons. The first is so that cold air does not pool overnight and frost out your efforts.

 

The second reason is that south facing aspects have a greater “angel of incidence” to the sun. The angel of incidence is the angle at which the slope receives the sun’s rays, with 90% being the maximum. The greater the slope, the more solar radiation is received. The vast majority of the vineyard at Amalie Robert Estate faces due south with a 10-15 percent slope. As the Earth tilts toward the sun, our angle of incidence is very high during June. This maximizes our solar radiation potential.

 

And let us not forget the longest day of the year was just last week! Actually, the length of the day remains constant, it is the hours of sunshine that change.

 

On Monday, June 28^th we received 15 hours and 33 minutes of sunshine. Our high of the day was 118 and our low was 86 degrees. By contrast the shortest period of daylight hours in 2021 will be December 20^th, 8 hours and 46 minutes.

 

We recorded 532 Degree Days for the month of June, Vintage 2021. The first half of the month accounted for 177 Degree Days and the second half exactly doubled the first with 355 Degree Days. That in of itself is an anomaly. The high temperature for the month was 118.0 degrees recorded on Monday, June 28^th at 1:18 pm. Again, an odd semblance of numbers. The low temperature was 39.2 degrees recorded on June 9^th at 5:36 am. The June high and low temperatures span a 79 degree difference. Vintage 2021 growing season to-date Degree Days stand at 1,040 through June. And that is a number most everyone is familiar with.

 

We had both forms of moisture during the month of June - Rain AND Hail. As June began to reveal itself, we were treated to a pleasant first week. Then the honeymoon was over and we were abruptly pelted by a full spread of high velocity ice pellets. It was a hail of a lot of fun… Good times in the month of JUNE! But these were pea sized hail, not the Texas kind. Texas recently recorded a hailstone that weighed in at 1.25 POUNDS. Now that can do a hail of a lot of damage!

 

Rainfall recorded in June is 2.55 inches bring the growing season April through June total to 3.56 inches. Based on the heat and resulting rapid vine growth, we can say with confidence that the June rainfall is now long gone.

 

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie