Hello and Welcome,
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.
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.
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
12th and as of July 19th 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
No comments:
Post a Comment