Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: July 2021

Hello and Welcome, 

 
This is the Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: July 2021. 
 

As most of you know, the west coast is experiencing a record drought, the forests are on fire and our Willamette Valley Pinot Noir is turning color two weeks early. And that was only July! We just can’t wait to experience August and September. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. 

Pommard Clone Pinot Noir sporting a NEW look!

In our 60 acres of Willamette Valley wine country, July was mostly a pleasant month with “abnormalities” here and there – that’s why it is called farming. We were able to keep pace with the explosive vine growth and rescue one of Ernie’s Italian Stallions from block 29. Most of the heavy lifting is complete, and we now await The Great Cluster Pluck to visit itself upon us.

 

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… Want to learn more about Amalie Robert? Take the Tour!

Will you be in our area enjoying the Dog Days of Summer? Amalie Robert Estate is open by appointment for vineyard tours and tastings. And dogs are always welcome visitors! Select your preferred day and time with the Big Red Button.

 

Have you ever wondered how some places got their names? Consider Greenland and Iceland, they are complete misnomers. While the O.K. Corral sounds just fine, it was located in Tombstone Arizona. This is actually not too far from Deadwood where Ernie gets his old barrels. He checks for lead slugs before filling them. And then their is Broken Spoke, located just downstream from Poison Well.

Or Italian tractors with names like LanDIni which sounds a lot like LamBORgini, but alas it is not the same. Ernie decided early on that his life would be simpler if all of his machines were of the same manufacturer. This makes sense if you think about maintenance and the ability to swap parts across platforms if needed. But choose wisely as the problems of one are likely to crop up on the other two. At least it won’t be a surprise – the second time.

 

 

Has this ever happened to you? You are driving down the road, staying in your lane and digging on the radio. Then you hear that highway start to whine and you know that left rear tire is about to go. So you just limp on down the shoulder on the rim until you get to the Dew Drop Inn.

 

Has this ever happened to you - twice?

Well, if you are hedging along in block 29, and all 5 spokes of your LanDIni wheel snap off the hub, your choices are significantly more limited. And it’s not a whine that you hear, it is a thump-thump-thump that you feel as the right front hub is now bouncing off the wheel, sans spokes.

Well, first things first and power everything down including the flail mower and 10 hedger blades spinning at a bazillion rpm. The tractor fits between the rows just fine – most of the time, but there is little room for the suicide doors to open and let the operator exit the cab. After some effort, Ernie managed to get out and around to the hedger side of the machine. And just as sure as shishito peppers, all five spokes were broken off the hub. The wheel studs were still torqued into place – learned that lesson last time, and each one was holding a piece of the corresponding broken spoke. Isn't that something...

 

The Italian Stallion with hedger, disabled in block 29.

It took Ernie a few minutes to fully appreciate the gravity of the situation. As in how to get the tractor out of the middle of the vineyard on just three wheels. And the fact that the hedger was hanging off the same side of the tractor as the broken spokes, significantly altering the center of gravity of the entire machine. And the overall lay of the land which was sloping toward the hedger, further adding load to the dysfunctional right front hub. And not to mention the tractor was oriented downhill, adding even more load to the front axle of the disabled machine.

Once most of these thoughts coalesced in his mind, he turned to the nearest vine and articulately explained the situation in excruciating detail – using no uncertain terms. Expletives were not deleted. Their indeed may well be a tapestry of obscenity still hanging over Ralphie’s house, but we can assure you that vine will never be the same. Then a quick look at the time revealed it to be EXACTLY beer-thirty. It was a brisk walk back to the house.

 

After lying awake all night, Ernie devised a plan that may lift the right side of the tractor to allow the wheel and broken spokes to be safely removed. Alternatively, the tractor might just take a shine to the next row and tip over. Too soon to tell.

 

Dena accompanied Ernie along with a passel full of jacks, boards, blocks, sockets, wrenches and whatever else he could conjure up to block 29. The good news is that the machine was still there. And that was also the bad news. It was not a dream.

 
LanDIni hub, sans wheel.

Having had to perform a similar rescue on the other wheel driven LanDIni tractor a few years back, Ernie had some experience to guide him. As longtime readers of the FLOG know, experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.

 

First off a section of 2x8 board was placed under the axle, then the 2 ton floor jack went on top of that, just in case the jack sank into the soil. A fixed height jack stand went under the axle just in case the whole damn thing went south. Then slowly and very gingerly, Ernie began to work the jack.

 

Some encouragement was taken from the fact that the axle started to raise, and just on one side – the intended side. Soon Ernie was able to remove the wheel studs, broken spoke bits and then the broken wheel. Dena was there to collect and catalog all of the bits and pieces. She also had 9-1-1 on speed dial.

 

Riding with the King. Ray King that is, of King’s Industries. Ray is a genius in his chosen profession. Ernie knows this because he was able to fix the last TWO LanDIni wheel failures. Experience isn’t such a bad thing after all. Sure enough, Ray applied his talents and in less than 24 hours, Ernie had a viable wheel.

 

The Ray King Special - Better than new!

R&R stands for remove and replace. So, it was back up to block 29 with a repaired wheel and all the bits and pieces from the day before. First raise up the axle and then slowly position the wheel. Dena expertly applied WD-40 to the wheel studs, (new) lock washers and nuts. Ernie lined everything up and inserted the studs through the wheel spoke into the hub and threaded the nuts onto the backside. Hey, this could work!

And then we arrived at the moment of truth. Would the repaired wheel hold? What if it didn’t? Only one way to find out. Ernie fired up the machine (it started on the first try), activated the hedger and SLOWLY drove down the row. Dena was a few rows over and ahead observing.

 

Everything held. Ernie went down to the shop to put the final torque on the wheel studs, then it was back to work. There are four front LanDIni wheels that seem to lack structural integrity. Ray King has fixed 3 of them. Just one left. That’s Italian roulette, in the farming idiom.

 
 
Veraison Comes Early to the Willamette Valley.
 

Based on the growing season to date, it was not unexpected to see our first blazing Willamette Valley Pinot Noir berry on July 28^th. The average date for this sort of behavior is August 15^th, but we haven’t seen anything like that since vintages 2010 and 2011. While everyone knows it was hot in June and now again in July, the underreported story is the nighttime temperatures.

 

The vines get most of their work done during the daylight hours absorbing Photosynthetic Active Radiation (PAR) and turning that (along with carbon dioxide) into energy (glucose) which is stored in the leaves. The leaves release oxygen as a byproduct – and what a very important byproduct that is. This cycle is more commonly known as photosynthesis. But this is only half of the story.

 

One of these things is not like the others!

Energy stored in the leaves is like money in the bank. It is nice to have but the vine needs to spend that energy on the rest of the plant. And most of that work happens at night when the sun is down. The vascular tissue translocates the energy from the storage cells in the leaves to the rest of the vine and wine berries. But it only can do this with temperatures above 50 degree’s, more or less.

 

If it is too cold, the leaves cannot fully discharge their storage cells overnight. That means the next morning the vine has a reduced photosynthesis potential because some of their storage cells are still full from the previous day. Reducing the photosynthesis potential for the next day slows the ripening curve allowing for aroma and flavor development before building excess sugar concentrations. Let’s have a look at the June and July nighttime temperatures.

 

June 2021 temperature graph Willamette Valley, Dallas, Oregon.
 

The solid blue line at the bottom represents the daily historical average nighttime temperature for the month of June. As we can see toward the end of the month the ACTUAL LOW temperatures were nearly equal to the historical AVERAGE HIGH temperatures. This means the vines were getting all of their energy out of the leaves for the next morning. And yes the scale is correct. Our high temperature in June was 118 degrees.

 

July 2021 temperature graph Willamette Valley, Dallas, Oregon.
 

July continued the above historical average nighttime temperatures early on and then again at the end of the month. A bit of relief mid-month, but still, the nighttime temperatures are significantly above the historical average. High temperatures during the day and night means the vine is running WFO (as in “to run at full throttle with uncaring abandon”) and advancing the ripening curve. The best we can hope for is cool August nights. Yeah, Fuggitaboutit already.

 

And guess what helps foster increased nighttime temperatures. It’s our newfound companion “particulate matter” in the atmosphere. Like maybe smoke from a distant fire, or not so distant fire. From here, it’s looking like another early cluster pluck. But wait! There is more.

 

A plume of smoke from the not distant enough Bruler fire.

Available Soil Moisture, get it while you can.
 

“And its dry as a popcorn fart,” said Pierre. No rain since the beginning of June and none in sight until maybe mid to late September. We are not the dust bowl, but it is considered a drought. We are not saying that it can’t rain, just that it won’t rain. So now two factors move to the forefront of the chess board - canopy management and rootstock choice. Unwelcome hot August winds from the east that desiccate the wine berries are just a given for this kind of vintage.

 

After dealing with the excessive heat of the past few vintages, Ernie adopted the shorter canopy principle. The idea is that alcohol is grown at the top of the canopy. The more leaves up there, the higher sugar concentration in the wine berry, and that means more alcohol potential in the wine. So, off with their heads! We used to grow a 7.5 foot canopy, but now we just go to 6.5 feet.

 

Rootstocks are the part of the grafted vine that grow underground and supply all of the available soil moisture to the other half of the vine that grows the wine berries. And rootstocks are like dogs. There are all kinds of different dogs for all kinds of different people. Somme rootstocks have roots that do not grow very deep, it’s just how the way they are. Kinda like the legs on a basset hound – that’s all the more they got.

 

Rootstock rooting depth comparison.

Rootstocks are usually sorted out by how deep their roots grow. Deeper roots mean more access to water late in the season when rain is not forth coming. Vine A has a very shallow rooting habit, while vine C is considered to be very deep rooting. Many vineyards are planted on shallow rooting rootstocks to advance the ripening window. These decisions were made decades ago when the the growing conditions were significantly different than what we are experiencing today.

And in vintage 2021 if this is you, then you are screwed. Unless you have irrigation. But even then, as soon as you turn off the water, better be ready to harvest. Fortunately, Ernie discarded conventional wisdom and most of the vines at Amalie Robert Estate are grafted onto deep rooting rootstocks like 5C. But this year in some of our shallow soils, even 5C is feeling the burn.

 

As we close in on a harvest window, the vine itself becomes our worst enemy. The vine has seen this movie before, genetically speaking. It knows the wine berries are an annual crop, but the vine must endure year to year. And it knows that if the roots fail to bring up moisture to the leaves, it can always raid the water from inside the wine berry through the vascular tissue.

 

This is called desiccation. It can happen from the unfriendly hot east winds in August. And it can happen from the vine’s own survival mode. Either way, water leaves the wine berry and that increases the concentration of sugar. The higher the sugar concentration, the higher the alcohol potential, or leave the wine sweet. Aroma and flavor continue to wait out the clock, but the high sugar concentrations force a premature cluster pluck.

 
 
What Does This Mean and Why Should I Care?
 

The nighttime temperatures are propelling the vines to advance ripening and bring the harvest window forward. It is as if they are experiencing a warmer growing region. Can you say Paso Robles? These are not classic Willamette Valley Pinot Noir growing conditions.

 

The growing conditions we are experiencing are changing the ripening curve. Specifically, this means wine berries accumulating sugars in a shorter time period. Vines accumulate sugar in the wine berries as a function of heat, or degree days. The hotter it is, especially at night, the less time they need.

 

Remember, they are on a path to ripen seeds and develop a nice purple sugar packet around them that a bird or raccoon can see and then eat. The seeds are then deposited far and away, and the vine has accomplished its primary mission – to become fruitful and reproduce.

 

Aroma and flavor are more dependent on time on the vine. A longer, cooler growing season typically yields lower alcohol potential and more elegant aromas and flavors. That is why Willamette Valley Pinot Noir is its own thing. It has its unique terroir driven signature.

 

The wine will be good. The wine will reflect the vintage and its growing conditions. And that pretty much describes our first trademarked piece of intellectual property. “Wines true to the soil, wines true to the vintage.”®

 
 
The Numbers.
 

The month of July recorded a blistering 618 Degree Days. The high temperature for the month was 103.5 degrees recorded on July 30^th at 5:12 pm and the low temperature was 47.3 degrees recorded July 15^th at 5:30 am. The 20 year average July Degree Day accumulation for the vineyard at Amalie Robert Estate is 539 Degree Days. A trace of rain fell on July 31^st - blink and you would have missed it.

 

 

Total growing season Degree Days through July now stand at 1,658. This is the hottest growing season we have ever experienced. The first runner up is vintage 2015 with 1,431 Degree Days followed by 2018 at 1,395 Degree Days. The 20 year average growing season Degree Days accumulation through July for the vineyard at Amalie Robert Estate is 1,144 Degree Days.

 

 

Please note, the TOTAL Degree Day accumulation for vintage 2010 was only 1,722 Degree Days. Alternatively, vintage 2003 added approximately 1,300 Degree Days during the months of August and September for a vintage total of 2,699 Degree Days.

We are reminded of the unique perspective George Carlin presented when describing baseball and football.  “Baseball has no time limit: we don't know when it's gonna end - might have extra innings. Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we've got to go to sudden death.” – George Carlin

 

In our winegrowing idiom, baseball represents the growing season and heat accumulation – we don’t know when it’s gonna end. Football is all about harvest. Once those wine berries are cut from the mother vine, that’s the end of the growing season game.

 
Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Vintage 2021: Preview Part II - You Don't Have to be Crazy to Grow Pinot Noir, But It Helps!

Hello and Welcome, 

  

Spring bulbs and their moment in the sun.

Are we there yet? Almost. It won’t be long now. The first day of spring is March 20^th. Mother Nature gave us a shot across the bow with a wonderful spring collage of blooming bulbs. What she meant was “Finish your pruning. Right Faming Now!” She has a schedule to keep. You don’t have to be crazy to grow Pinot Noir, but it helps. Just ask the cherry trees. They know we are about there.

 

Here is a shout out for Susan R Lin. Susan is a long time FLOG reader and has recently been named Master of Wine by the Institute of Masters of Wine. She is now one of 56 Masters of Wine in the US, and one of 418 worldwide. And you are going to LOVE her research paper (the third and final stage of the exam), where she explored classical music and champagne perception. We imagine these to be rosé champagnes, or perhaps wines with a strong Pinot Meunier component. Congratulations Susan!

 

Tied down and ready to grow!

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. We are ramping up on FaceBook! (If you don’t like us, we don’t wanna know…)

 

But is has been cold at night. Remarkably cold after our Ice Storm episode. But we do have the trellis repaired and the new vines are in the ground. Most of the downed trees and branches have been cleaned up, but not all of them. There are a few limbs “in waiting” so we are careful to look up as we walk under them. Farming, it’s what we do when we are not growing wine.

 

 

Click on the image to see Ernie on the crawler.

The chisel plow on tracks. Ernie was out on his crawler this week with the chisel plow opening up the vineyard floor for its much-anticipated spring cover crop of buckwheat and vetch. It is his open-air machine that he uses in the spring. He calls it his roadster for the vineyard. There is nothing quite like the smell of freshly turned soil in the morning.

 

Freshly tilled soil in the morning.

The benefit of a machine on tracks is that it spreads the tractor weight out over a larger surface area than 4 tires. The result is less pressure on the soil to avoid compaction. Compaction happens when a downward force compresses and collapses the soil’s air channels thus ruining the soil structure. Vine roots, worms and a whole host of other soil organisms and microorganisms depend on some air in the soil. Compaction is bad, very very bad!

 

Soil aerated by Ernie with the chisel plow.

A properly aerated soil is similar to a meringue. A compacted soil is more like a nougat. Compacted soils hold very little water as we move into the dry summer months. Vines growing in compacted soils will just look at you in disgust as early September rolls around. They will have desiccating wine berries because there is no soil moisture. They know what you did in the spring before they woke up. They are not happy, and when they are not happy, you will not be happy.

 

Freshy chisel plowed rows under the watchful gaze of Mt Jefferson. Smells nice!

 

Busting up any compaction.

Now, consider the chisel plow. This thankless implement opens the soil to improve life for the subterranean soil organisms and microorganisms. It busts up any compaction from the prior year and creates new chambers to hold air and soil moisture. It is also one helluva root pruning device. The benefit to that is no shallow roots. We want deep, deep roots to colonize the soil and extract as much magic as possible for our Estate grown wines.

 

And that is the focus of this FLOG, growing wine. In the Adult Recreational Beverage world, wine is unique in that it is the WINEGROWER that determines the alcohol content. Beer and distilled spirits each in their own way are free to determine the alcohol content of the finished product. Beers can run the gamut from low alcohol summer beers to full-on Doppel Bocks that make it really difficult to stand up and focus after a pint. Whiskey, Bourbon, and Scotch can be 90 proof or cask strength. Ever Clear is made from grain and is bottled at 60%, 75.5%, 94.5% and 95% alcohol by volume - that’s 190 proof! (Don’t ask how Ernie knows this.) The barley, wheat or rye grain were all grown the same.

 

Not so with wine. The Holy Grail of winegrowing is to harvest wine berries at the peak of flavor for the intended wine style with the appropriate level of alcohol potential, aka our old friends Fructose and Glucose. The ideal scenario is that aroma, flavor, texture and tannin are all maturing in step with sugar accumulation. Sugar accumulation is a function of heat during the growing season. Apparently, Mother Nature has not been kept in the loop these last few years…

 

Welcome to Murphy’s world. We stopped counting when we got to a million things that can go wrong in any given vintage. The vagaries of agriculture, and farm equipment in particular, are well documented throughout human history. Fire, smoke, plague and pestilence are all familiar bedfellows to agriculture. And as if right on cue, Brood X cicada nymphs (The Great Eastern Brood) is making its way to the surface right now, en masse. It’s just once every 17 years, but when it happens it covers 15 states!

 

Sunday, March 14^th was national Pi (3.14) day. Wednesday, March 17^th is St. Patrick’s Day. We would like to point out that Shepard’s Pie is no more of a pie than a cow pie is a pie. Go for the real thing. A nice cherry or peach pie. You will be glad you did!

 

Click on the image to learn about M.C. Escher 

Right, back on point. We know that for Pinot Noir we need 105 days from flowering to fully developed aroma, flavor, texture and tannin. At least we used to know that. And we used to grow a full canopy to achieve compete ripeness in each and every vintage. The world has changed, and we have changed with it.

 

It’s all because of Viognier. That wine berry has a proclivity to produce sugar way in advance of developing aroma and flavor. Aroma and flavor is the whole point of growing Viognier. While we just grow 3 rows of Viognier, this issue has gnawed on Ernie for quite some time.

 

Assuming you are doing the right things with the vineyard floor, such as improving soil structure with cover crops, avoiding compaction and keeping the grass cut short to preserve soil moisture, there are only two places to make adjustments. The canopy and the crop load.

 

Let’s focus on the canopy. The two areas in play are the fruit zone and the top of the canopy. The fruit zone is really important as that is where all the aroma, flavor, texture and tannin are shaped during the growing season. Depending on the variety and the use of whole clusters, we are taking or leaving leaves in the fruit zone to achieve our desired results in the bottle.

 

Dijon Clone Chardonnay ripening in the sun.

Chardonnay and Syrah for example have most of their leaves removed in the fruit zone. This allows for a full expression of those two wines. Pinot Meunier and Noir suffer from overexposure and they can lose their sublime, elegant character so we remove very few leaves.

 

Fermenting with whole clusters also adds texture and tannin structure. Shaded Pinot Noir fermented with whole clusters gives us the sexy midpalate we desire with elegant stem tannins that will soften during bottle maturation. Syrah is our firebrand that sees full-on sun exposure and a significant portion of whole clusters during fermentation. This creates a 25+ year wine, if done properly.

 

Removal of leaves in the fruit zone lowers the alcohol potential. Conversely, if very few leaves are taken due to stylistic choice, alcohol potential is higher. That takes us to the top of the canopy to dial in our alcohol potential.

 

Our vineyard construct is 7.5 feet for Ernie and his now vintage tractors to drive, and 4 feet between each vine. A perfect sunlight capturing ratio is 1:1 for row width to row height. So, mathematically a 7.5 foot row spacing means a 7.5 foot tall canopy will maximize sun exposure. But does that make the best wine? In a cold vintage such as 2011, yes, it is very helpful. But those days are long gone.

 

1967 Dodge Charger. 

A hemispherical combustion chamber typically has a better volumetric efficiency than a more common wedge combustion chamber. But all that extra horsepower is not really very helpful if it is converted into tire smoke. We need to match horsepower potential to our available traction.

 

So, there is the fly in the ointment, as they say. What we have learned is that our leaf removal program in the fruit zone is sacrosanct to our interpretation of the world’s greatest wines. If you mess with too much or too little sun exposure on the wine berries, the wine will not be what you want it to be.

 

Our key to moderating alcohol potential lies at the top of the canopy, assuming all other viticultural inputs including soil moisture preservation (and rootstock choice) are done correctly. Ernie’s hedger is fully adjustable and can cut a canopy to over 7.5 feet tall or as low as 6 feet. He can’t cut any lower than that, because that is how tall the posts are. Most of them anyway, he has been “involuntarily adjusting” the height on a few of them.

 

Of course, the first vineyard hedge happens mid-season so we don’t really know where we are going to end up. This is what it looks like for now, and that is where we are headed. Vintage 2021 will most certainly be the vintage of the year. Oh, look at the time, its 4:26…

 

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Vintage 2021: A Year in Preview

Hello and Welcome, 

 

As the taint of vintage 2020 slowly begins to dissipate, we turn to face the opportunities and challenges that await us in vintage 2021. But as we do, there is value in applying the lessons of vintages past as we look to Vintage 2021: A Year in Preview. 

 

In other words, as we approach the other end of the tunnel it is nice to know what is making that light. “This year can’t be any worse than last year,” said no farmer ever. A FLOG communication (Farming bLOG) by Dena & Ernie from Amalie Robert Estate. Willamette Valley Oregon Pinot Noir. Have a look and see what we see on Instagram @AmalieRobert. 

 

Sunrise harvest morning, vintage 2015.

First Quarter: January through March - Rain and Renewal. The 30 year average annual rainfall is about 45 inches at our 35 acre vineyard. That rainfall starts around harvest time with a shower here or there, and then really gets with the program from November through March. So, you may want to know just much rain is that? How do you put that in perspective? How do I impress my friends and persuade my boss to give me a raise?

 

Just ask a farmer. An inch of rain over a single acre of ground is 27,154 gallons and weighs 113 tons. Here at the farm, a five minute shower uses about 10 to 25 gallons. However at Ernie’s age, the time is reduced, as is his use of shampoo. Your mileage may vary, but over time the curve skews downward. And speaking of downward, all of those cover crop seeds of rye grain and winter peas are just laying there in the soil soaking it all up. That’s their job, to develop fibrous roots that will hold the soil onto the hill during the winter months. And to fix nitrogen to feed our vines come springtime. More on that in the second quarter.

 

35 acres of producing vines and there's Ernie right in the middle.

 

So logically, a 35 acre vineyard that receives 45 inches of rain per year is getting 42,767,550 gallons of rainwater, weighing in at 177,485 tons. And at a vine spacing of 7.5’ for the tractor and 4’ between vines yielding a vine density of 1,452 vines per acre, each vine receives 841 gallons of rainwater each year. And that is enough for 35 to 84 showers a year, average about 60.

 

And we are dry farmed, meaning the only irrigation our vines receive is from Mother Nature. So you could say that our vines get about 60 “human equivalent” showers a year, where humans are more likely to get around 360 showers per year. To summarize, an inch of rain is about 20 gallons of water per vine. See if that little kernel of wine knowledge doesn’t make you the popular one.

 

This is also the time for renewal. More commonly known as pruning. The idea is to get the vines ready to bear fruit and ripen their seeds without succumbing to mildew or bunch rot. And it is a nasty time of year with the wind and driving rain soaking the vineyard workers to the core.

 

Intelligence and experience is needed to prune the vines properly. A properly pruned vine is a joy to work and a pleasure to the eye during the canopy management portion of the winegrowing program. If you mess up pruning and make the wrong cuts, you get to live with those decisions all year long right up through harvest. This is just the opposite of a bad haircut that will grow out. Not that it really bothers you, as it’s everyone else that has to look at it. No, you get to live with bad pruning decisions all year, and potentially impacting the follow-on year.

 

It takes about 15 pruning cuts per vine to remove last year’s canopy growth and tie down a single cane for the new growing season. Multiplied by 50 some thousand vines, that is about 750 thousand pruning cuts – by hand. We understand carpal tunnel syndrome is real. But you may want to think twice before you accept a thumb wrestle challenge from a professional vineyard worker. Maybe just a handshake will do. Or the newfangled elbow bump…

 

The vineyard before pruning.

We have a brief set of videos on the renewal process. The first step is to remove the little catch clips that hold last year’s perfectly positioned shoots into three sets of catch wires. Each vine gets about 5 of these across the three wires. They go on in the spring and come off in the winter. By hand.

 

Click on the picture or this link to see catch clip removal. (10 seconds)

The next phase is to make the primary cuts. This is where we determine which canes will stay for the new growing season, and which ones will be returned to the vineyard floor. Ernie mows these with the tall grass, thereby returning the nutrients to the soil. Waste not want not.

 

Click on the picture or this link to see primary cuts. (21 seconds)

Then there is the arduous task of pulling the brush from the canopy. There is a lot of talk about drones and self-driving tractors in the field. What we really need is an automated solution to this task.

 

Click on the picture or this link to see brush pull. (22 seconds)

And finally, we have a new cane to tie down to the wire. This single cane carries all the vines hopes, dreams and aspirations to ripen their seeds and reproduce in vintage 2021. They don’t know we are making wine. It’s our little secret.

 

Click on the picture or this link to see tie down. (34 seconds)

Meanwhile, Ernie is in the tractor shop changing oil, repairing this AND that, torqueing lug nuts and generally getting ready for the growing season. The best kind of tractor to have is the one that starts when you want it to. Ernie sees to that this time of year. It’s called percussive maintenance. In extreme cases it can lead to new equipment purchases with the section 179 deduction. And potentially a visit to the ER, with a moderate co-pay.

 

Remember, 2021 started on a FRIDAY! Is this going to be a great year, or what?

 

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Culinary Inclinations Series Part IV: Rhône Inspires with Black Cod Palmiers and Rack of Spring Lamb

Hello and Welcome, 

 

It’s spring lamb season somewhere. And thanks to the invention of vacuum packaging and cold chain logistics, it can be spring lamb season, right here, right now! This is the fourth segment in our Culinary Inclinations Series: Rhône Inspires with Black Cod Palmiers and Rack of Spring Lamb. A FLOG communication (Farming bLOG) from Dena & Ernie @AmalieRobert Estate. Willamette Valley Oregon Pinot Noir. 

 

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the lower 48 in particular, we have just had an election. And pretty soon they are going to tell us who won. Not all of the races everywhere of course, but most of them. Enough to get an idea of what the next couple of years might look like. The judiciary is engaged as is “de rigueur” and the electorate is warming up for January 5^th. If you live in Georgia, you don’t need us to tell you that the circus has come to town. They are all there, with lawyers in tow.

 

We are blessed to have the Christmas holiday during the winter solstice. Not so for the folks Down Under. “Chrissy” as it is known, arrives with a sleigh full of gifts in the middle of the summer. It’s shrimps on the barbie and a pint of lager!

 

To celebrate the holidays, some choose to bring the great outdoors indoors. This often takes the form of a fir, pine or spruce tree. And depending on where said tree is in its lifecycle, it could be a beautifully adorned festive tree with lights and ornaments, or a more practical yuletide log. Either way, it is nice to curl up next to your implementation of the holiday tree with a glass of wine and a nice book or FLOG post as the case may be today.

 

He who travels fastest, travels alone. And that is how Santa gets everything delivered in one night. Of course, he has several time zones strategically mapped out and works both sides of the equator at the same time. By now, you would have to believe Rudolph has the route down cold. You can even track him on Google while they track you! And check out all of the cool games.

This would seem to be the perfect segue to delve into Viognier. That beautifully textured, heady white wine from the Northern Rhône Valley that Ernie grows right here in block 12, all 297 vines worth. Block 12, as you might imagine is planted east of, and adjacent to, the Syrah block, which is lucky block 13.

 

All told this is 1,485 vines, about 1.02 acres worth of Northern Rhône inspired viticulture. These vines are surrounded by the most coveted Wadenswil clone Pinot Noir to the north in block 21 and to the east in block 10. Covering the southern flank is Dijon clone 115 and looking to the west, it is Pommard clone that provides cover from the late afternoon sun.

 

But that was not the original plan. Ernie had those vines penciled in “way the hell and gone” on the other side of the field. Fortunately, and just before it was mostly too late, Dick Erath showed Ernie the error in this thinking.

 

We didn’t have to dig up that many vines, but that is how you “move” a vineyard block. Once that chore was completed, Ernie promptly invested in a new thinking cap. Dena picked it out. It has a nice pattern but not too flashy. It fits pretty snug and has a side binder to lock it in place. That’s just in case it were to slip off as we approach a critical decision point. Farming thinking caps are different. They just are…

 

In the winery, we abbreviate Our Muse Viognier as VIOGxx where the xx reflects the vintage. So for the latest release of Viognier we have VIOG19. This is not to be confused with the COVID19 vaccine that just is being released nationwide. However, we do share the same shipping lanes, and they are about to get really busy. So if you are thinking about holiday gift giving, it’s time for you to get busy. Or your gift giving options could be less than optimal.

 

VIOG19 and smoked black cod palmiers. Our interpretation of this culinary inclination is a savory. We consider a puff pastry to be the perfect delivery vehicle for exquisite smoked black cod and herbed goat cheese.

 

This is a sheet of thawed puff pastry shmeared with herbed goat cheese and then topped with smoked black cod. Alternatively, you could use lox style smoked salmon on one side. You then roll the opposing sides to the center, much like an ancient scroll. A quick brush of egg wash, slice them about 3/8” of an inch thick, then a run through the oven with a fresh sprig of rosemary at the very end, and out they come just as pretty as you please.

 

And you can accessorize! A creamy cucumber dill sauce served chilled adds sophistication from the “afternoon high tea” theme. Pesto is a classic accoutrement, however we are not so keen on pine nuts. Our interpretation of this classic substitutes almonds, and we add sun dried tomatoes including a little of the olive oil to the mix. And then there is aioli, lots and lots of ways to go and none of them are wrong. To round out the colors we suggest a roasted red pepper and garlic aioli. Yes, that should do it, very nice indeed!

 

A note on serving Viognier. We often find Viogner to have a very narrow serving temperature range. Slightly cooler than Pinot Noir, but not so cool as to lose the scintillating aromas that only Viognier can provide. We suggest starting off cool and letting the wine warm in your glass until you achieve maximum olfactory and frontal lobe satisfaction. You will know it when you find it. “Oh, did I say that out loud?” Yeah, that happens…

 

As your guests are polishing off the palmier plate, quite literally, and have found your last stashed bottle of Our Muse Viognier, it is time to move onto the main course. Lamb rack, or crown roast of lamb for a much more stunning presentation, and Satisfaction Syrah. Often times dressing can be made and cooked separately or in the middle of the roast. We prefer cooking any dressing separately, to ensure the correct temperatures of both dishes are achieved at the proper time. Otherwise, one is left cold, waiting for the other to finish.

One of your first decisions in approaching this culinary inclination is whether to decant the wine, and if so when to do it? Whether you are contemplating our Satisfaction or Top Barrel Syrah, we encourage decanting this wine before serving. And more importantly, here is why.

 

Wine decanting and whole cluster fermentation. The decision to decant a wine is really all about exposing the wine to air to allow it to evolve into a more enjoyable experience. In most dining situations, air is defined as 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and 1% of the stuff that is most likely going to get us all. Let’s concern ourselves with the 21%.

 

During the winemaking process, we limit the amount of air exposure in our wines. Once fermentation is complete, the wines have a high concentration of carbon dioxide. This is a preservative, and over time this will dissipate. Sulfur dioxide is also a preservative that will dissipate over time and is added to the wine as it matures in barrel. And we do not transfer or rack our wines from barrel to barrel. In the case of our Syrah, once the barrels are filled, that is their home for the next two and half years until we gently transfer the wine to tank and use gravity to bottle – no pumping.

 

That means your bottle of Amalie Robert Syrah has had very little air exposure. In fact, the only air exposure would have come through that wee little piece of tree bark we use as the cork. And that is by design, we use natural corks precisely because we want that air exchange. While each cork is unique in its air exchange properties, we do know that some oxygen is getting through the cork and interacting with the wine. As air interacts with the wine, its first target is tannin. Oxygen degrades (softens) tannin.

 

Here is where it gets interesting. Whole cluster fermentations add tannins to the wines from the stems. Stem tannin is different from skin tannin and that’s the only way to get stem tannin - from the stems. And we ferment Syrah with whole clusters. A whole lot of whole clusters, about half the fruit in the fermenter is still attached to the stem. Add about five to seven years in the bottle and that little bit of air that has been slowly softening those stem tannins, has evolved them into spice and texture and length of finish. No other winemaking technique can provide such pleasure, but you have to wait for it to happen in the bottle.

 

So we say: Hell yes, decant that wine! But do it gently. We recommend sitting the bottle upright for at least 24 hours in a slightly cool area. Pour the wine from the bottle down the side of the decanter trying not to splash the wine. Toward the end of the pour look down through the neck of the bottle for sediment and stop pouring if it becomes excessive. It is harmless, but will make the wine appear cloudy in your glass.

 

Now you must wait, or plan ahead and decant so the wine is ready when the crown roast and dressing are ready. A good place to start is about an hour before serving time. You can stopper the decanter or use cling wrap to close off the top. There is plenty of air in the decanter to achieve the desired result. They design them that way. Of course, periodic sampling is in order. Be diligent as time permits.

 

By now your lamb should be making its way to the carving station. If it is an herb encrusted rack of lamb, it should be looking something like this.

 

Roast winter squash, garlic braised broccolini and sautéed Chanterelle or Morel mushrooms are at the ready. The cheese course should be out of the refrigerator and prepared for service.

 

Internal temperature is another point of contention among diners. When is it done? How much is too much? What if it is still moving? Here is a handy visual aid to give you a guide to internal temperatures. While this is handy to look at, it is the texture of the meat that is most affected by temperature. That and let the roast set on the carvery for at least 5-10 minutes before carving.

 

Final Note: We have taken up the practice of washing the dishes and rinsing the stemware the night of, and then washing the stemware the following morning. We find we get more uses from the stemware this way. 

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate: iPinot Holiday Gift Giving!

iPinot Holiday Gift Giving! This is a FLOG communication (Farming bLOG) from Dena & Ernie @AmalieRobert Estate. Oregon Willamette Valley Pinot Noir. 

  

The time is drawing near, it’s practically here! Monday, December 21^st is the shortest day of the year! Somewhat of a misnomer really, this day has the same number of hours as any other day, it just has the fewest daylight hours when experienced in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s the winter solstice from the Oregon point of view. On a related note, how many months have 28 days?

 

And do we have a gift giving idea for you: Wine! For the deserved on your wine gift giving list (including YOU the gift giver), we are offering iPinot Holiday Gift Giving shipments. Each bottle in your Holiday Gift shipment comes individually wrapped in our French Vanilla colored tissue paper and includes a handwritten Amalie Robert holiday card with your gift message.

 

All iPinot Holiday Gift packages include domestic ground shipping. Have a look at your naughty and nice list and match your gifts to our available vintages from the last of the cool vintages 2011, the sublime 2012, the elegant 2013, the stunning 2014 and the opulent 2015. To ensure timely delivery, order today - don’t delay!

 

Our iPinot Holiday Gift Giving options are shown below with domestic ground shipping in the continental US included. Please contact Dena at Cuvee@AmalieRobert.com for shipping options to Alaska and Hawaii. Multi-bottle shipments can include a selection of vintages (mix or match), and due to shipping logistics reflect the best value. The greater the gift, the bigger the package as we can see here.

 

Single bottle $50

Double shot $75

The 6 pack $175

Full Monty case $300

 

One click of the Big Blue Button and you are on your way to Holiday Gift Giving Bliss! Alternatively, we are available by appointment for pickup service at the winery.

 

 

Dena will apply your discount upon order confirmation and schedule a shipping window. If you would like any suggestions or assistance with your order, please contact Dena by email at Cuvee@AmalieRobert.com or by phone at 503.88.CUVEE (28833).

 

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie