Amalie Robert Estate Harvest After Action Report: Vintage 2020 Creates a Vacuum & Our Vintage Statement

Hello and Welcome, 
  
This is the Amalie Robert Estate Harvest After Action Report: Vintage 2020 Creates a Vacuum and Our Vintage Statement. A FLOG communication (Farming bLOG) from Dena & Ernie @AmalieRobert. Oregon Willamette Valley Pinot Noir. 
 

 
There will certainly be less top tier, premium wine produced in fire and smoke affected areas of the West Coast winegrowing regions this year. This will impact several sectors of the wine trade from vineyard owners and harvest workers, wineries and their suppliers including barrel coopers and glass vendors, all wine distribution channels, Federal and State excise taxes, and of course the people that ultimately enable the entire wine industry - the wine consumer. Something for everyone really (except the fruit flies), misery loves company. Quite a vacuum indeed, or you could say it sucks.
 

Every vintage is a battlefield from the agrarian point of view. The off season starts when harvest is finished. This time is dedicated to renewing the vineyard floor with winter cover crops and vine pruning to greet the new vintage come spring. Meanwhile, below ground are the pocket gophers and voles trying to eat the roots off our vines and girdle their trunks. And of course, the weeds grow all winter long slowly sapping whatever nutrients they can get from the vines’ root zone. In addition to lifting the morning fog, that is how winegrowers start the vintage.
 

Farm equipment is and has always been the product of necessity and invention. This conjures up images of baling wire and duct tape, along with this phrase, “If it looks stupid, but it works, it’s not stupid.” Whatever it takes to get ‘er done then get back to the barn and fix it up for the next day. The off season sees a fair bit of repairs and maintenance from the astute winegrower to prevent downtime during the growing season when there simply is “no extra time.” The concept is akin to “no extra money” which becomes relevant when the tractor repair bill shows up.
 

Ah, but sometime in April spring springs and the vines wake up. Then it is a race to put up catch wires to control the explosive growth of leaves and shoots that the vines will need to ripen their seeds and reproduce. Yes, it is all about them. Spring into summer is the time the vines need a helping hand getting all of this done. Vineyard laborers spend about 3 to 4 minutes per vine over the course of 3 visits spanning about 5 weeks. Yes, Pinot Noir vines are high maintenance.
 

 

June brings us flowering. This is the first real sign that the vintage is in play. Depending on the weather, the flowers will pollinate and turn into wine berries. The warmer and dryer the weather, all things being equal, the better chance the flowers will become wine berries. And wine berries are self-pollinating. They do not need bees or other insects to complete their task. They just need a few days of mildly warm weather, a little breeze and be left alone to do their thing. Kind of like they are taking a vacation in the middle of the growing season. And they get an extra day every 4 years to do it.
 

Mildew. Reminds us of Newman from Seinfeld. Even sounds the same – Mildew meet Newman. Here is the first clue that Mother Nature is having you on. Mildew affects grape vine tissues including the shoots, leaves and wee little wine berries. When the temperature and humidity are just right gazillions of little spores are released into the atmosphere from last year’s mildew colonies. This opening salvo starts around May and continues through August.
 
These spores land on the vines’ shoots, leaves and wine berries and do their level best to establish new colonies. Why do they do this? So they can reproduce and make even more spores. An active mildew infection is not a trivial event. It arrests the wine berry development preventing it from developing aroma and flavor. Left unchecked, mildew will render your wineberries null and void when it comes to the winemaking process. A mildew infection has a tendency to focus the mind.
 

Then along comes August, a turning point in the vintage when the wineberries start to change color from green to mauve to purple, or as we like to call it Pinot Noir en Flagrante. Assuming this is not Botrytis and you have fought back the aforementioned (and uncovered) perils, the birds begin to arrive bringing with them all of their friends and relations. We have bioacoustic controls to deter these winged pests by attracting raptors into OUR environment to interact with THEIR environment. It is a lovely thing to see when these two worlds collide. For the more exposed parts of the vineyard, we go old school and deploy nets.
 

Then we enter September, the wait and worry phase of the winegrowing program. The wine berries have not yet developed the aroma, flavor and texture necessary to be cluster plucked. So, we have to wait for that and worry we will not be affected by some plague or pestilence before we can cluster pluck our bounty. This worry is usually concentrated around Mother Nature’s precipitation schedule, which she refuses to confirm until the night before - usually. If you want a harvest crew, they need confirmation 48 hours in advance - always.
 
 
Life is a Beachie Creek fire. And that was our “AH HA” moment when we knew all was for naught. In the finance world, it is known as a sunk cost. That investment of time, money and intellectual capital is gone. Experience is what you get, when you don’t get what you want.
 
In gambling, which is like farming, you can go “double or nothing.” In farming, you pivot from The Great Cluster Pluck to winter pruning. But since the vines still have all of their leaves (and most of their fruit) you have to wait for it.

The concept in play for vintage 2020 is nonconforming goods. In a manufacturing environment, you order parts or pre-made assemblies from your suppliers. Upon delivery, the parts are inspected to verify they comply with the purchase order specifications. If they do, they are accepted into the production process flow. If they do not, they are rejected as nonconforming goods.
 
Most folks have ordered something online over the past few months – maybe even wine. From time to time, there is a mispick in the warehouse. You ordered red towels to go with your kitchen décor, but when you opened the box, you discovered they sent blue ones. Your options are to remodel your kitchen to accommodate the blue towels or reject them and reorder the red ones.
 
This applies to several industries including the beleaguered restaurants coping with COVID-19. In the farm to table world (which we whole heartedly support), if the tomatoes are underripe at the farmers’ market, then the BLTs are going to have cucumbers or avocados that day, not tomatoes.
 

Yes, we did make wine. And yes, it smells fine, mostly. Does it have smoke taint? Certainly. Much like the other affliction that is a worldwide phenomenon, you could have it and be asymptomatic. Then one day, you have all of the symptoms. Smoke taint can be masked in a young wine, only to express itself as the wine matures in barrel or bottle. You can treat smoke tainted wine before bottling, there are companies that do that. Then maybe a dilution approach is the answer by blending the affected wine into exceptionally large lots of a “red blend.” A ubiquitous category, at best.
 
A product recall is the logistical equivalent to the software “edit undo” function and can significantly impact a brand’s reputation. Two examples come to mind on how to execute a product recall. The first is from the hi-tech world when Intel discovered a flaw in their Pentium chip and handled it poorly. The second is when the makers of Tylenol discovered someone had tampered with their product in a retail environment and handled it exceptionally well.
 
In vintage 2020 a recalled wine means someone knew, or should have known, of a tainted product and went forward with a release. The Ford Pinto is a case in point of what NOT to do when in doubt. They chose very poorly and achieved a catastrophic result.
 
And yes, we considered other options to convert wine berries into alcohol. Mostly at increased costs with little to no expectation of finding a market for whatever alcohol-based product you have produced. But is it wine? By definition it could be. Or it could be distilled into a smoky brandy. Highly unlikely to give Lagavulin a run for its money. Scotch is a peaty smoky experience - on purpose. We concluded that perhaps this vintage is destined for its last best social purpose as hand sanitizer.
 

Cuvée de Bovine. But maybe the step just before the last best social purpose of a fermented alcohol product is food. We found a rancher who was interested in a little Pinot Noir for his herd. Well, why not? Maybe someday a nice dish of beef bourguignon will find its way onto our dinner table.

Click on the Cows to watch Beef Bourguignon on the Hoof.

 

 

 

 

Amalie Robert Estate Vintage 2020 Statement.

 

We have chosen to involuntarily withdraw from vintage 2020. We live on our vineyard property and bore firsthand witness to the smoke event that spanned September 7^th though the 16^th. The intensity, duration and physical impact on our vines is undeniable.

 

Our underlying philosophy is to express the purity of our site through the unique characteristics of the vintage. We ferment with whole clusters, indigenous yeast and barrel age our wines for 18-24 months. We bottle without the addition of fining agents such as egg whites and we do not filter or otherwise manipulate our wines before bottling. We are 100% estate grown.

 

These traditional wine making fundamentals have stood the test of time well before we founded Amalie Robert Estate. They have also served us well for the past 20 years. When we release a bottle of wine you can depend upon our stewardship of the land from vine to bottle and commitment to excellence.

 

To make smoke taint free wine in vintage 2020 by following our guiding principles was simply not possible. We knew there was no pathway to release a premium quality wine under our name.

 

These are our choices, and they are the right choices for us. We have high hopes that these fires and the devastation they have caused will provide a strong impetus to better manage our natural resources, including the life sustaining air that all earthbound plants and animals require.

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

 

You can read our real time wildfire updates posted to our FLOG (Farming bLOG) here:

September 11, 2020: Special Update: Oregon Wildfires and Potential Harvest Impacts

September 22, 2020: Special Update: Oregon Wildfires II and Wine Implications

October 20, 2020: Amalie RobertEstate Official Statement on Vintage 2020

Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: June 2020 and Salud Pinot Noir Auction

Hello and Welcome, 

  

This is an Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: June 2020 and Salud Pinot Noir Auction. A FLOG communication from Dena and Ernie. Amalie Robert Willamette Valley Pinot Noir. 

  

iPinot COVID-19 Pivot Pricing is still in effect at $120 on six bottles with domestic ground shipping included. Just click on the Big Blue Button to browse available vintages and collect your favorite! 

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.

You don’t have to be crazy to grow Pinot Noir, but it helps. June has been quite the rollercoaster, but all in all we will log it as a positive in the vineyard journal. Cool and rainy was the beginning and the end of the month. The midsection was pleasant and sunny. This vintage is not quite sure who it wants to be. Not too much to complain about here at the vineyard though – not too much heat, or rain or pestilence upon the land, just yet.

Speaking of pestilence, we have a COVID-19 update. We opened the winery to outside tasting for one day last month. We are not going to name names, but you know who you are. Thank you for joining us. All went well and we learned what worked and what we could improve upon.

For the month of July, the winery will be open by appointment for personalized tastings. We will also have Saturday and Sunday weekend hours of 10 am to 3 pm for wine tasting and call ahead wine order pick up. We ask that you contact Dena at Cuvee@amalierobert.com to reserve your time. If you can’t join us, we can arrange shipping on your behalf. And we have upped our game with insulated shippers to extend our reach.

We have adopted the following outside tasting protocol. Upon arrival you will be offered your choice of barrel station under our new sun shade canopy. 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 tasting 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 $20 with $15 refundable on any two bottle purchase per person. The now christened Amalie Robert Riedel tasting glass is yours to keep and may be rinsed again.

Vineyard tours are available based on Ernie’s availability. Lately the tractors have sprung some very interesting leaks in some not so easily accessible places. Nonetheless, the vines are on their trajectory to ripeness and we would like to show them off. They have just been freshly hedged and look quite smart. Our rows are socially distant accessible at 90 inches apart. So, either dress for a walk in the vineyard to see the vines or bring your overalls for an “under the tractor” exposé. Yes, there is a difference between 4 millimeters and 3/16”.

The Amex Shop Small promotion is in effect. Amalie Robert Estate is a Shop Small business. The promotion is good for the entire month of July, August and into September. A qualified purchase of $10 or more will earn you a statement credit of $5. And you can use this offer up to 10 times. Please visit the American Express site for more details and to enroll your card. Do it today, don’t delay or you may miss the boat!

  

Now the fun stuff.

Miles and miles of hi-tensile trellis wires. We run three sets and the goal is to capture the vines’ growth at the most opportune time. Of course, the vines are keen to our plan. Some shoots grow quickly as if to escape our grasp. Others more slowly as if lying in wait to set upon us when we least expect it. Remind you of anyone? Perhaps someone with just three fingers?

Wouldn’t it be nice if Wile E. Coyote were to show up with one of his ACME products that self-installed trellis wires. Wouldn’t that be something? From the Jet-Propelled Pogo Stick to the Dehydrated Boulders, the ACME mail order catalog was his go-to source for new and innovative products. Makes you wonder what shipping costs would be on a box of dehydrated boulders. And hey, can you throw in a couple of supernovas? Kinda like Cracker Jacks. You can view the entire ACME catalog offering here.

Well, that’s not how it works. A crew of 5 highly trained and specialized vineyard workers are responsible for raising our trellis wires in vintage 2020. Oh sure, we have a coyote come through the vineyard from time to time. Not all that wily looking, mostly just trying to sniff out members of the Rodentia class of varmints. However, the bobcat that comes through block 14 always seems to have a purpose, a look of intention. He or She has the face of a Bengal tiger and we enjoy observing this cat from the safety of our kitchen.

The first set of trellis wires comes up when we have about 12 inches of growth, mostly. Just before we finish that set, the next set of wires at about 40 inches are ready to come up. About this time, Ernie is mounting the hedger on his pearl essence, powder blue Landini Rex 100 GT. (It’s Italian, what can we say.) And the third set of wires is where you discover the labor pool you have is about 4 hands short of what you needed to finish on time. At the end, the shoots are out of control and now they have the leverage. It is not a pretty sight. Total time to raise three sets of catch wires is 99,902 minutes, or about 117.178 seconds per vine. Just about the amount of time you need for the 2-minute warning.

But the hedger, aka The Enforcer, comes onto the scene right behind that third set of wires. What was all chaos and confusion is now rigidly enforced discipline. Any shoot caught outside the confines of the trellis wire will be summarily “removed”. And much like the wire regime, there will be a second and third hedging pass that is just as strict. If we have excessive soil moisture that encourages more growth, there is the option of a fourth hedge. It keeps Ernie off the streets, but it would sure be fun to run the Landini Rex 100 GT with hedger blades slashing up and down I-5 during rush hour!

It’s that time of year for the Summertime ¡Salud! Pinot Noir Auction. This year brings the COVID-19 edition where all bidding and virtual tasting for that matter, will occur online. If you want to see what you look like during a ZOOM virtual tasting, just position yourself in front of a mirror. Your backdrop may give away more than you know. We recommend the red SOLO cup for a spit cup. Much better than the glass alternative.

Amalie Robert Estate has been a contributing member of the Vintners Circle since 2006. The top 35 like-minded Oregon wineries produce a special cuvée just for the ¡Salud! mission. There are only 5 cases produced from each winery, and the only way to get one is to be a successful bidder at ¡Salud!

You can preview the auction lots here. Note we are number 3 of 35 wineries on offer this year.

The ¡Salud! mission is a good way to give back into the community that makes world Class Oregon Pinot Noir a reality. To learn more about the ¡Salud! mission and register to bid, please visit their website at  website here: http://saludauction.org/mission/ As noted above, those trellis wires do not raise themselves. But Ernie does have a call into the ACME company. No word back as of yet.

The numbers. While he does have the X and Y axis correctly identified, he is missing the Z axis – Speed. Trajectory, as Wile E. Coyote never seems to recall, is dependent upon thrust, or speed. In the vineyard construct, our Z axis is heat units. The hotter it is the faster the wine berries build sugar. Heat units are not just a reflection of the high temperature of the day. The vines are out there 24 x 7 and experience the cool nights as well as the warm days. And Ernie’s 3,600 data points per 30-day period approximate the curve quite accurately, every 12 minutes. Yeah, he’s got some kinda spreadsheet for that.

 

The month of June accumulated 341.2 Degree Days bringing vintage 2020 to a growing season total of 732.1 Degree Days. The first half of the month provided 122.6 Degree Days and 0.98 inches of rain. The second half of the month added 218.6 Degree Days and 0.59 inches of rain. The grass noticed the rain and Ernie got an unexpected extra mowing pass. The high temperature for the month was 89.6 degrees recorded on June 23^rd at 2:36 pm. The low temperature was 38.1 recorded June 4^th at 12:36 am.

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Update: Repositioning iPinot in the Time of COVID-19

Hello and Welcome, 

  

This is an Amalie Robert Estate Update: Repositioning iPinot in the Time of COVID-19. A FLOG Communication from Dena and Ernie. Willamette Valley Pinot Noir from Amalie Robert Estate. 

  

“May you live in interesting times” is an English expression that is often used in irony. In that, quality of life is usually better in uninteresting times of status quo versus the disruption and unrest our country is currently experiencing. Air travel is a case in point where an interesting flight is often less safe than an uninteresting flight. Surely, we are leading interesting lives in the time of COVID-19. We hope you are safe and well. We are tucked into the vineyard and winery like ticks on a hound dog.

Plenty of room for distancing @AmalieRobert Estate.

COVID-19 has provided many people, including us, an opportunity to focus and pay close attention to what really is important. This graphic helps explain the relative importance of several factors impacting the human condition during COVID-19. Some items are relatively unaffected, such as the need for a cup of freshly brewed morning accelerant. What may have changed is the source from where this beverage is derived. The term “Homebrew” has taken on a new significance.

We see the need for a vehicle or mundane daily activities such as shaving to be of less importance. This may in fact be dependent on other factors, such as one’s employment status or location of said employment. Daily grooming habits represent a slippery slope as we will see next as we examine sweatpants and internet usage.

Correlation and causation are unreliable bedfellows. As we can see from the graphic, both the use of the internet and choice of sweatpants are highly favored. That does not necessarily mean one is dependent upon the other. However, both could be dependent upon the social expectations in play during traditional work hours or ZOOM calls. (I would stand up but I am wearing sweatpants, or no pants at all!) Or maybe surfing the internet is more enjoyable in sweatpants. Clearly, wearing sweatpants does not create a desire to surf the internet. While correlated, causation is difficult to prove with a high level of confidence.

And then there is the panic mode shopping, also called pantry stuffing. Toilet paper was the first item in this category to gain notoriety. Daily grooming habits can ebb and flow from day to day, but personal hygiene is a different matter. Next came hand sanitizer followed by masks, sneeze guards and disposable gloves. As time goes by, these items will return to their normal level of importance, however there will always be an extra roll or two tucked in behind the bath towels, just in case.

And that brings us to the Adult Recreational Beverage category. As the yellow line on the chart indicates, right about the start of March there was a steep and sustained level of importance placed in this category. At times we can look to social influencers, such as Martha Stewart, to impact behaviors and trends. They can add a level of comfort in knowing you are not the only one enjoying an Adult Recreational Beverage, or two. The real difference is that you had the presence of mind to discontinue internet activities during the social hour.

Repositioning iPinot for the New Normal - the COVID-19 Pivot. Our reading of the tea leaves is that the impacts of COVID-19 are going to have a half life that lasts quite some time.

iPinot is reserve quality barrels of Pinot Noir selected for our “Hers and His Reserves”, Amalie’s Cuvée and Estate Selection. Once the final “Hers and His Reserve” wines are blended, we have a few extra reserve quality barrels of wine to blend. We blend these barrels of wine together to create iPinot - a reserve level wine without the reserve level price.

We introduced iPinot to the marketplace in two ways. The first is from Amalie Robert Direct. We sell this Pinot Noir via internet distribution everywhere it is legal for us to do so. You might be surprised to learn that there are still a few states that do not allow their citizens to receive wine shipments directly from wineries. Currently, these states are Delaware, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Utah.

The second way to experience iPinot, until COVID-19, was as a “by the glass” offering at select restaurants. Our goal in offering iPinot for a glass pour program was to build brand awareness for Amalie Robert. The restaurant landscape has since changed, significantly. And no one really knows when or how the restaurant business is coming back. People must feel comfortable in the presence of other, unknown people in a somewhat confined space.

There are a lot of moving parts throughout the country and local ordinances play a significant role. However, our goal remains the same. We intend to continue offering a compelling wine that represents an excellent value and that wine is iPinot Pinot Noir.

And now, instead of enjoying a glass “out” at a fine dining establishment, you can enjoy a glass “in” at your very own fine dining establishment. Or maybe it is Tuesday night book club and a glass of iPinot. Then there is Wine Wednesday with Martha and the girls – you can even post to social media. Thursday is the unofficial start to the weekend, and iPinot fits that bill quite nicely.

Starting today, and for the foreseeable future, we are offering iPinot at $120 on six bottles or more 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

Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: May 2020

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.

Click to watch the Shoot Thinning video at Amalie Robert Estate

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