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 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

Amalie Robert Estate: Lip Sanitizer & 2020 Spring Cellar Report - Vegan Edition

Hello and Welcome, 

Before we get to the Spring Cellar Report - Vegan Edition, we have a Special FLOG Communication.  

As you are most certainly aware, the Coronavirus is rapidly spreading across the planet. Virtually all US and World health related agencies have issued safety precautions, travel warnings and, in some cases, quarantines to help contain the spread of the virus. These are important recommendations that should be followed. You can follow Johns Hopkins University tracking of the outbreak here.

The Pacific Northwest, and the Seattle area in particular, was one of the first areas in the United States to be exposed to the Coronavirus. As efforts to contain the spread of this virus have increased, many public events and gatherings have been cancelled. The downstream effects of these cancellations include a reduction in travel and tourism related economic activity. Specifically in the greater Seattle area, over 40 restaurants have closed, some permanently, in response to a lack of patrons.

Retailers are feeling the effects as well. If your local merchant is running “out of stock” on hand sanitizer or bath tissue, may we suggest looking to online sellers such as eBay. Not that we recommend that you should support these sellers, but it is interesting to see private label brands being re-sold this way. And maybe that is why your local merchant is running “out of stock”.

If you are looking for even more protections, may we suggest augmenting your facial mask protocol with a lip sanitizer. Lips are important and form a quite necessary aperture for the enjoyment of wine. To exclude lips from the first line of defense seems to leave open a pathway to potential infection. To help provide a first line of protection for your lips we suggest Pinot in Pink Rosé as a home remedy lip sanitizer. Note: The effectiveness of Pinot in Pink Rosé as a home remedy lip sanitizer has not been proven, studied or even contemplated.

We would also like to remind you that everyone gets a free cork included in each bottle. Our corks are firebranded (no ink) and are made from natural tree bark, as are most premium closures in use for fine wines today. They are also considered to be an approved vegan closure. We compress our corks to about 50% of their relaxed diameter and then insert them into our bottles. The cork will naturally expand to fill the neck of the bottle and seal the contents inside from virtually all outside contamination. While natural corks are not a substitute item for bath tissue, they may perform a necessary and vital function during an “out of stock” condition.

The winery at Amalie Robert Estate is closed to visitation for the duration of March. Even though we believe we are virus free, the challenge is for you to get here and return home safely via plane, train or automobile.

Please join us for the 2020 Spring Cellar Report – Vegan Edition.

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2020 Spring Cellar Report – Vegan Edition

Hello and Welcome,

This is the 2020 Spring Cellar Report – Vegan Edition from @AmalieRobert. A FLOG Communication.

After a brief respite and a well-deserved nap, we are back in the cellar. The primary fermentations are complete, and the Malo-lactic conversions are in suspended animation. Too damn cold for the Malo-lactic bacteria to convert malic acid to lactic acid. But not to worry, when the cellar warms up the bacteria will complete their conversion and blow the barrel bungs. Then it is time to melt some sand and harvest some tree bark, it’s bottling season.

Meanwhile, we would like to guide you through the mystery of converting a vegan agricultural crop (wine berries) into an otherworldly adult recreational beverage (wine). Please be aware that what you are about to read and see may upset your cognitive processes and dislodge some preconceived notions about how we get from wine berries to wine. And the images will be graphic, especially the graphs. Like this one:

The “Jet” also known as the “Jet Stream” or more colloquially as the “Trade Winds” have a Yuge impact on the final days of the be-dangled wine berry, and consequently the resulting wine. In the above graphic, we see a trove of cold air coming to arrest the sugar development of any yet to be harvested wine berries, thus providing for lower alcohol potential and retention of scintillating acidity. Aroma, flavor and texture, however, continue to develop unabated, albeit somewhat more slowly. The harvest lesson to be learned is that if the Jet Stream is below you, prepare for a little arctic influence in your ripening curve.

This concept is known as hangtime and has been missing from the Willamette Valley for the past few vintages. As you will notice from about the 6^th of September and throughout the end of the month, below average daytime temperatures keep sugars in check. Then toward the end of the month, the evening temperatures drop, helping to preserve our natural acidity.

Or, as Ernie would tell you, this is when the vintage took a turn for the best. We experienced slow and steady aroma, flavor and texture development without having to worry about excessive sugar accumulation and the resulting high alcohol potential.

What a welcome relief from the days of the Jet Stream to our north filling the Willamette Valley with all the misbegotten heat from the Central Valley. Note: Heat expands to fill the space available.

We think of a vineyard construct in terms of acreage cut into blocks comprised of rows of vines constrained by a trellis. All very well and good and serves our purpose of growing wine. But for today’s FLOG let’s just think of a vineyard as a big East Coast city. One that has been around awhile, maybe a century or so, harkening us back to the 20’s. Man what a time to be alive, Speakeasies and Alphonse Capone were alive and well. The unintended consequences of Prohibition were to be seen all around, including your prescription for medicinal wine.

Like most big cities, our vinous city has neighborhoods and boroughs. Boroughs because we also have gophers that burrow under the walkways and roads, always trying to undermine our good faith efforts by eating the roots off of our vines. Occasionally, we have the opportunity to confront these rival gangs and dispatch them forthwith. And yes, Ernie has a “grease gun” but not the kind you may be thinking about.

Welcome to the neighborhood. In our city there are several neighborhoods mostly defined by where they are located. Pockets of vines that face east or south, or southwest. We also have the east side, as any representative city would have. Some of these neighborhoods are very diverse, home to Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, or Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Others are more isolated, such as the Gewurztraminer grafted onto the old rootstock block. And then there is the Syrah and Viognier quarter. They are transplants from Northern Rhônia. They keep to themselves and are rarely seen in other parts of our vinous city.

A year in the life. As these neighborhoods have matured, they have started to gift the city a bountiful harvest. Not of tax dollars or intellectual ingenuity, but of wine berries. Each neighborhood provides a unique contribution depending on their geographic location and indigenous population. Let’s have a look at one family in particular.

Introducing Gluc and Fruct Ose. Gluc and Fruct are closely related by genetics. Each wine berry that is harvested has a similar Ose family. The acid family is well represented within the wine berry collective by Tartaric and Malic. (Note, these families were gender neutral way before it was nouveau.) And then there are the Saccharomyces cerevisiae (aka Yeast). Growing up alongside the wine berry, but never welcomed inside the outer membrane. These are the main actors in our neighborhood. Then there is Cousin Como T. Ose, more on that one later on.

In a genetic experiment that went horribly wrong, High Fruct Ose corn syrup was invented. Much like GMO crops and their associated pollen, once released into our environment they are hard to control. Legalization of previously restricted compounds, processes and procedures can have unintended consequences. Fortunately, these products do have ingredient labels.

And some products do not have warning labels but should. Consider the vegan wine dilemma. Their thing is they would like to not consume animals, parts thereof or anything with animal residue. Fair enough, but why does this have anything to do with wine berries, Gluc and Fruct, or Saccharomyces cerevisiae? In our city it doesn’t, but every city has its underworld. More on that to follow, ya follah?

Right, so on harvest day Ernie rolls up with the tractors and harvest bins and we collect the bounty from each neighborhood. We try and get there before the other unregulated factions do, but those birds and deer are fairly cunning in their approach. Nonetheless, there is plenty for everyone.

All of the wine berries are sorted in case they have been turned against us by mildew or Botrytis. Those compromised wine berries are sent to compost collectives where they will be repurposed to nourish the land and positively contribute to a future vintage. Everyone must do their part, to do the best at what is expected from them.

As the sorting and processing function occurs, the wine berry families are deposited in sanitized 3,000 pound containers (fermenters) along with several of their neighbors. A small amount of sulfur dioxide is incorporated to keep any nefarious actors from corrupting the group. Slowly but surely the wine berries start to release Gluc and Fruct out of their wine berry skins and across the membrane. The Acid clan Malic and Tartaric go with them to provide some microbial protection, and that is when they meet Saccharomyces cerevisiae for the first time.

Gluc is the more gregarious of the Ose family and is first to undergo the transition to Ethanol with the help of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This is a big day for the Ose family as they will become part of a new adult recreational beverage called wine. Sometimes a few grams per liter of the Fruct remain in the final product and accept the moniker of Residual Sugar, but for the most part in our city all of the Ose family will convert to Ethanol and become wine. The process can take up to 4 weeks, as we do not introduce any foreign Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We want the yeast that grows in our neighborhoods to transition the Ose family to Ethanol. Gotta support the home team.

Now the Acid clan takes a different path to wine. Tartaric and Malic will not be swayed by the charms or coercion of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In fact, Tartaric does not transition at all, but moves from the wine berry family to the Ethanol based wine unchanged. Malic has less of a constitution than Tartaric and falls victim to the sweet and sultry calls of Malo-lactic bacteria.

Once the Ose family has been converted to Ethanol, the Malo-lactic bacteria start to convert Malic to Lactic acid. It is a gentle conversion and only occurs when the cellar temperature is around 60 degrees Fahrenheit. While the Malic acid is wholly consumed in this process, the resulting Lactic acid is a softer acid and more approachable in the wine. Consider that as humans develop, we lose our primary teeth to more permanent teeth. Or you could consider this process more of a pubescent experience. Wine being an adult recreational beverage, this may be a more apt analogy.

Except for Chardonnay. Sometimes Chardonnay likes to hold onto its Malic acid. Linus has his blanket, and that works for him. And despite our best cellar efforts to induce Malic to become Lactic, it’s just not going to happen. And so, from time to time our Chardonnay will have Malic present. Some kids refuse to grow up and they retain a little wild streak. So be it.

Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want. Let’s focus in on our flamboyant friend Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Yes, quite a character to be sure, but like everyone else there are limits. Gluc and Fruct are willing participants in the transition to Ethanol, but only to a point. Once the Ethanol level reaches 15.6% our friend Saccharomyces cerevisiae dies. Everyone feels bad, especially the person who has to sell the resulting (sweet) wine. There is no further conversion to Ethanol and it is usually Fruct left on the outside looking in at the Ethanol party.

How can this be, you may ask. Well, in these past few West Coast vintages there has been some serious heat units resulting in an over concentration of Gluc and Fruct. When Saccharomyces cerevisiae hits the scene, there is a limit to the Ethanol conversion. This is the result of external forces interacting with our neighborhood. The dastardly villain Climate Change has been here!

And yes, we have made a Fruct filled wine. Actually, a pretty good one too. Viognier, that masochistic wine berry provided an opportunity in 2015. Ernie picks on flavor and that is how the way it is. No flavor, no harvest. And so, the Viognier was not giving it up in 2015. Ernie walked away and pressed his Pinot Noir to barrel, ignoring the Viognier.

Eventually the aroma, flavor and texture did come around and it was as beautiful a juice as we had ever seen, but at a cost. The Gluc and Fruct were so concentrated that they conquered Saccharomyces cerevisiae. But not until the Ethanol had reached a concentration of 15.6%. That is the outer limit for Saccharomyces cerevisiae and it was death by Ethanol poisoning. They went off to meet cousin Como T. Ose.

But the wine was something very special. All of the Viognier goodness you could handle. It was 5 by 5! Aromas, flavors, and textures permeated the frontal lobe, not to mention a few compromised sensory membranes along the way. And yes, Fruct was there to experience it all. It was a marvelous wine darling, just marvelous.

And that is a teachable moment. Do not let your neighborhood get out of control, especially those Pinots. Gluc and Fruct are necessary, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

Maturation and the path to bottling or, in the brave new world we find ourselves in, getting canned. The final step of winemaking is packaging the said wine for distribution and sale. And this is where the vegan lifestyle meets the winemaking world head-on.

The vegan wine conundrum is really hard to conceptualize. Wine berries being naturally fermented with the yeast they rode in on, into an alcoholic beverage seems to be as vegan as you can get. How did wine come to be so controversial in the vegan home world?

At a wine dinner recently, Ernie was confronted with this question: “I bought a box of Chardonnay the other day, and it said, “May contain fish parts. What the Hell is that all about?” This question, while not specifically vegan, brings the issue front and center.

First of all, if we want to drink wine or any other fermented beverage, like beer, or enjoy certain fermented foods such as soy sauce or kimchi, we have to accept yeast as vegan. Until Star Trek becomes real and we have Synthehol, we need yeast to make fermented beverages. And typically, the yeast among us are quite happy, if not pre-programmed to perform this service for mankind.

We consider grapes to be vegan. If you walk through any of our neighborhoods at harvest time, from Chardonnay to Viognier, and eat wine berries, they are as vegan as the day is long. If you put a few pounds of wine berries in a bucket and they begin to ferment with wild yeast that are already on the grape skins, then that has to be vegan as well. The resulting wine that is produced? Gotta be considered vegan, and a natural wine as well.

The additives (fining agents) are the issue – egg whites, fish bladders, ox blood, horse hooves etc. Sometimes, these fining agents are added to improve the sensory experience of the wine, be it aroma, flavor or texture. And that process of adding fining agents is as old as wine itself.

Fining agents are mostly old world remedies that resolved issues from old world methods and techniques. As the human population has gained greater knowledge, we have in many cases moved from old word techniques and associated remedies to new world processes that require less intervention. The relatively recent discontinuation of leaches in the medical field is a case in point.

Wine is a luxury good and should offer a pleasurable experience. An adult recreational beverage to be enjoyed with a meal and friends, or with a trusted companion by the fire as the case may be. In the case of Champagne, when you are in love, or equally so, when you are not.

But for goodness sake, let’s leave the chemistry experiment to the energy drinks business, or the upcoming cannabis industry, or some other product where we expect manipulation.

But there is one old world fining agent we use that has stood the test of time and that is Bentonite clay. Bentonite is a (common) clay used for clarification and it is vegan. We use Bentonite to clarify our white and rosé wines, so they are considered vegan. Our reds fall clear in barrel and we add no fining agents whatsoever, so they are also vegan.

So at this point of the program, we have vegan wine to put into a container for distribution and sale. Fortunately, no one uses goat skins anymore - especially fortunate for the goats. Metallic closures such as cans and kegs contain no animal residue, so they are vegan. Glass, which is melted sand is also vegan, so far so good.

That brings us to the stopper that goes into the bottle. Traditional corks and the new glass stoppers with silicone O rings are vegan. We use natural cork for all of @AmalieRobert wines, so our entire portfolio of wines are vegan. The technical closures are next.

Technical closures are made from all manner of things. One in particular could be of issue with vegan wine and that is a closure made of cork bits and bound with some form of glue. As everyone knows glue can and has been made from several binding agents. One such binder could be honey, or milk based. And then there is our school days friend Elmer’s glue which was made from equestrian components.

While many wines could be considered vegan, the packaging could eliminate the vegan status by using a closure that contains animal parts or residue thereof. @AmalieRobert we use natural cork, for all of our wines and that is always a safe choice. Good to go!

So as you read this, admiring your natural @AmalieRobert (vegan) cork wine stopper, you can rest assured that in vintage 2019 Gluc and Fruct have left the building. Malic has been smitten and is becoming Lactic. The neighborhoods are all getting pruned back, in order to deliver a spectacular bounty for vintage 2020. In case you missed the first go around, enjoy the “Roaring 20’s”.

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Free (vegan) natural cork in every (melted sand) glass bottle.

Amalie Robert Estate Vintage Update: 2019 Harvest After Action Report - The Great Cluster Pluck

Vintage 2019 Harvest After Action Report – The Great Cluster Pluck 

  

Hello and Welcome, 

  

This is the @AmalieRobert Harvest After Action Report. A FLOG Communication.

Vintage 2019 will be remembered as the vintage that wasn’t ready, until it was – all of it – all at once. Yes, there was the typical atypical rain, as there always is in September. Good canopy management during the growing season is the preventive cure for that. But Botrytis will not be denied, and the clock started ticking with a pretty big shot of rain on the 10^th of September. A little too much of a good thing with many returns to finish the month of September with 2.72 inches of rain.

To put this in perspective, August registered 0.11 inches of rain, and we received no measurable precipitation whatsoever during the first 15 days of October. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what’s known as the sweet spot of harvest. If you could hold out that long. And we did.

And so October, which is the first half of Okto-vember, made its way into the decision matrix. Hmm, that’s a pretty nice block of Chardonnay you got there. Why are the wine berries turning purple? And that is how you know Botrytis had caught up to The Great Cluster Pluck of 2019.

A little Botrytis is ok, kinda nice in Chardonnay actually. But that is your nudge that it’s time to bring it in. Despite your best canopy management efforts, the Chardonnay wine berry is highly susceptible to the wayward advances of Botrytis. And since it was now Okto-vember, more Botrytis encouraging rain was most surely on the way – but it wasn’t.

It was Okto-vember 1^st at first light, when Ernie lit up tractors and we rolled up on block 24 from the south. The morning air was cool, with a little breeze and dry conditions prevailed as we Cluster Plucked our Dijon Clone Chardonnay. And that is when we verified another mystery of Vintage 2019 - a light fruit set. And at the end of that morning it was confirmed that Vintage 2019 was going to be low yield. Except for the Gewürztraminer, of course. A few more vines were bearing this year, so our yield almost doubled. Ernie still fermented it in “small, open top fermenters” (aka buckets), but he is up to about 5 cases worth now…

And by the end of that first week of Okto-vember our operation was up and rolling with Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir coming on. The September rains were a distant memory. Clear blue skies, a light breeze and cool nights were on tap for the next two weeks. The weather provided a most perfect opportunity to finish ripening our wine berries. For which we took full advantage – 8 days a week.

The Great Cluster Pluck of 2019 was on, and we were on it! We had daylight burning and Bird Gards squealing. The Cluster Pluckers arrived before dawn and set out their buckets and punch cards. Our production is entirely estate grown fruit and the clusters are all plucked by hand. Into the buckets they go at about 20 pounds per each and then into the harvest bins. Snap on the lids to deny Vespula germanica any of our prized booty, and off to the winery we go.

Rinse and repeat, and don’t forget to eat. The clear skies and dry conditions continued, and Okto-vember provided exactly the hang time conditions we needed to accentuate our aromas and flavors while keeping Botrytis in check. However, this fortuitous set of ripening conditions did not escape the opportunistic attention of those Flocking Birds. While not everyone could hold out as long as we did, the fruit quality was oh soooo worth the wait.

And there was not a lot of waiting to be had. The Great Cluster Pluck 2019 started on Okto- vember 1^st and concluded on Octo-vember 15^th. Everyday was full on, and we modified the work calendar to make more time. We added a day to each week of The Great Cluster Pluck 2019 by combining Saturday and Sunday into a single day. We would wake up on Saturday morning, but when we went to bed that was our Sunday night. The next day, which we have not yet named, was an extra work day! That’s 8 days a week! Ernie is a numbers guy and a calendar is just a mathematical construct. Not too big of a lift really, when you consider the legitimacy of daylight savings time.

Now, since you are there reading this instead of being here helping us, you probably do not know that we sort all of our wine berries twice. Our first sort is in the vineyard as the wine berries make their way into the harvest bins. That is when our nemesis Botrytis is dealt with. Yep, we sort that out right up front. And then in the winery, we have another look see. Any wine berries that are compromised are destined for the compost pile. But there aren’t so many of those as we do a really good job of canopy management during the growing season and sort at the harvest bin. What’s left for the fermenters is the duck’s nuts. Or the bee’s knees, if you prefer.

There’s a lot that goes into it, growing wine. But at the end of the day, we are just going to bring in those pristine wine berries and ferment the sugar out of them. And after that we are going to convert their malic acid to lactic acid. We have a bacteria for that. Then its off to a toasty oak barrel for some well deserved élevage. Of course, most folks are unaware of these things. But by the time the wine makes it to your elegant stemware, you are enveloped in the bliss of our viticultural prowess and oenological stewardship. And maybe some marketing along the way. At least that’s what we are shooting for.

The Great Cluster Pluck of 2019 proceeded undaunted amid the continual harassment of those Flocking Birds. Everyone knows who they are. Robins and starlings gather in trees and fly to pluck a wine berry then return to the safety of the forest’s edge. Ernie has counter measures called Bird Gards, but this year the birds were voracious. The last resort is to deploy the nets. This was especially important for the Syrah which was the beneficiary of our excellent hangtime weather up until it’s final day of ripening, Okto-vember 37^th.

Our indigenous species of raptors seemed to be off on holiday or were simply molting. And without this air support, the Flocking Birds demonstrated air superiority early on. But as we were cluster plucking the last of the Pinot Noir clusters to be plucked on Okto-vember 15^th (a Tuesday), the raptors returned. Red tail hawks are the “Constitution Class” of the raptors and define air superiority. The next best raptors to have in the avian theater are the Cooper’s hawk and the sharp shinned hawk. These are forest hunters and their aviary skill is equally at home among the vineyard canopy. The Syrah and Viognier had the good fortune to finish ripening under the hawkish eyes of these Amalie Robert Estate raptors. Don’t pay too much attention to the robin and starling carcasses littered around the vineyard. That is evidence of a healthy ecosystem.

Causation, correlation or coincidence? An exercise in climatically predictive wine quality. What we present to you here at this time, in this space, is what happened during the growing season. While that will have an impact on the quality of the vintage, it is much like evaluating the size of one’s wand. Where in fact what we are more concerned with is the magic in it. And more to the point, when that magic is ready to be presented and consumed. Perhaps, in the case of Pinot Noir, a better title would be “Bewitched, bothered and bewildered.”

Vintage 2019 was really a pretty nice vintage. Not too hot and a clean break from the arid conditions of the last several vintages. But not too cool, more of a 2007 mixed with 2008, and certainly warmer than 2011. Slow and steady ripening with a shot of rain just before harvest. Statistically more rain in September than most vintages, but not an overall significant factor @AmalieRobert Estate. Once again, this vintage is a grower’s vintage. When your winemaker wears the winegrower’s hat, it is always a grower’s vintage.

Vineyard labor is a lesson in economics. Good old supply and demand is alive and well. The supply is fairly fixed, but the agricultural demand continues to expand. And except for hedging, there is little vineyard mechanization to be had. That means virtually all of our canopy management is performed by, and the biggest chunk of the vineyard budget goes to, skilled vineyard labor.

Good canopy management demands timeliness, focus and attention to detail. The best weather conditions in world will not save you from untimely or poor quality vineyard work. The condition of the vineyard canopy, and the wine berries in it, during mid-September has a substantial impact on when to Cluster Pluck. And that in turn reveals more about the quality of the vintage than any Degree Day summation or growing season rainfall. Yet as humans, we are fixated on quantitative measures to compare and contrast. They help us comprehend the seemingly unending factors that culminate in a glass of wine.

Aromas and flavors develop on the vine over time. Sugar accumulation (alcohol potential) is a response to heat. As long as the vintage does not accumulate excessive heat (Degree Days), the longer the wine berries are on the vine, the more aromas and flavors are available to be captured during fermentation. While the presence of Botrytis can be an indicator that it is time to start Cluster Plucking, excessive sugar accumulation tells you it’s time to finish it up, right farming now.

This is why Syrah hangs until early November at @AmalieRobert Estate. Each and every day we are increasing the intensity of available aromas and flavors. Thanks to a cool climate, Syrah sugar accumulation is kept in check and the wines normally vacillate around 13% alcohol.

Deciding to Cluster Pluck because you believe the aroma and flavor profile of the wine berries is going to make the style of wine you like is the goal. Having spent the entire growing season focused on canopy management, positioning shoots, thinning and performing other timely vineyard tasks helps to ensure that when the rains do arrive, the canopy, and the wine berries in it, will take some rain and continue to ripen aromas and flavors without significant rot.

Or not. After that shot of rain in early September, some folks discovered their Cluster Pluck schedule would more be determined by the advancing rate of rot than by aroma and flavor development. There is little if any remedial action that can be taken at this point of discovery. This is not the goal. And it should not be a surprise to anyone that September brings rain to the Willamette Valley.

And how do we know this, you may ask? We saw it first hand in our Chardonnay. But that is Chardonnay and it is to be expected. Unfortunate, but not uncommon. The key there is to take the fruit before Botrytis spreads and can compromise the wine. We have been there and had that done to us with Typhoon Pabuk in 2013. The remainder of the vineyard however, and more to the point is that the Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir, was rock solid. And we heard a fair bit about it from our harvest crews.

Harvest crews represent an informal information network of how the vintage is progressing. They go where the work is and see hundreds if not thousands of acres of vines. They will tell you where they have been and what they have seen. Time and again we were told how our wine berries were the cleanest they had seen. And they kept coming back to help us. This is an important indicator, as Cluster Plucking around rotted fruit is less financially rewarding.

Why are we telling you this? As a climatic predicator of wine quality, we are trying to point out that harvest dates provide clues. How were those wine berries farmed all summer? What was their condition after the rains? Did you harvest because you wanted to or because you had to? Being able to handle some challenging weather conditions and let your wine berries hang through to develop aroma and flavor ripeness is a strong predictor of wine quality. The amount of Rosé produced might be another indicator of vintage quality.

Now the numbers, which honestly do have some meaning and relevance. While not a predictor of wine quality per se, they do provide a comparison to previous vintages and a historic continuum that can be the basis for debate. As we assess the vintage growing conditions, it is important to bear in mind that our ability to measure far exceeds our ability to comprehend the effects of what is measured.

Let’s start with the Heffalump in the room that joined us in September. There were three appearances spread throughout the month. The first was around the 10^th which gifted us 0.68 inches of rainfall. Next up was around the 18^th with another 0.97 inches of rainfall, and again on the 20^th with 0.42 inches. And lastly around the 30^th with 0.55 inches of rainfall. September total was 2.72 inches of rainfall. Squish, Squish, Squish… Not too bad if you are a duck, you know.

But then it was dry during the @AmalieRobert Estate Cluster Pluck vintage 2019 until the 16^th of October when about 0.96 inches of rainfall came rolling in. Not to be outdone, the 21^st brought in another 1.63 inches of rainfall. That was a soaker. And then again dry all the way through November 6^th when we Cluster Plucked the Syrah and Viognier. October total was 2.59 inches of rainfall. The 2019 growing season total April through October was 13.78 inches. And in preparation for next Spring, we can expect about 30 inches of rain between now and then.

Degree Days (aka heat units or heat accumulation) help provide an understanding of how the vine was able to ripen its wine berries within the constraint of available heat during the vintage. Matching heat accumulation to harvest date ties it all together. We track our readings every 20 minutes, so we have a pretty good idea what the vines are going through. Daytime highs, nighttime lows and the diurnal shift also tell the tale of ripening during the last few weeks before harvest.

While the growing season total is handy for multiple vintage comparisons, a detailed monthly view is more useful in understanding the character of the vintage and is an exercise left to the reader.

Coming into the home stretch of Vintage 2019, September registered 316.5 Degree Days, providing a growing season total of 2,220.2. The first half of the month recorded 195.0 Degree Days and the second half of the month recorded 121.5. The high temperature was 92.8 degrees Fahrenheit recorded on September 5^th at 4:36 pm and the low temperature was 37.2 recorded on September 28^th at 3:00 am.

Now the sweet spot of Vintage 2019 was the first half of October where we recorded another 55.0 Degree Days, and not a drop of rainfall to be had. The high temperature was 71.6 degrees Fahrenheit recorded on the 7^th at 5:00 pm and the low temperature was 31.6 recorded on the 9^th at 7:36 am. Heat accumulation through the middle of October was 2,275.2 Degree Days and that concluded the Great Cluster Pluck of 2019 – except the Syrah and Viognier.

The second half of October brought another 46.7 Degree Days for a monthly total of 101.7 and a growing season total of 2,321.9. The high temperature was 72.3 6 degrees Fahrenheit recorded on the 22^nd and the low temperature of 24.6 recorded on the 31^st at 7:00 am. That‘s frickin’ cold!

The Great Cluster Pluck 2019 was officially completed November 6^th, 2019 with the Syrah and Viognier. We accumulated an additional 11.8 Degree Days through the 6^th of November with a high temperature of 66.6 degrees Fahrenheit recorded on the 3^rd at 2:00 pm and a low temperature of 32.9 recorded the same morning. This represents a one day diurnal shift of 33.7 degrees. Total Vintage 2019 Degree Days stand at 2,333.7

While most of the Willamette Valley experienced similar conditions, within a standard deviation or two, the cipher to understanding Vintage 2019 will most likely be harvest date. A sloppy September gave way to an ethereal October. If you were a Rhône Head, you were riding the temperate weeks into November. And at a harvest brix of 24.0, you were feeling pretty good about that.

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie