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

Hello and Welcome, 

  

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

 

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

Precision farming, Ernie hedging a short canopy.

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

 
 
Winemaking: The Continuation of Terroir by Other Means. ®
 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Why is it SO FARMING HOT!?
 

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

 

 

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

 

 

The Jet Stream circulating HOT AIR into the Willamette Valley.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

Where there is FIRE, there is SMOKE.

 

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

 

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

 

 

So, what are we doing about it?

 

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

 

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

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

 

The BIG picture at Amalie Robert Estate.

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

 

 
What Does This Mean and Why Should I Care?


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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

 

 
Numbers: The Dichotomy of Farming.
 

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

 

The vineyard encased in ice after Ice Storm 2021.

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: May 2021

Hello and Welcome, 

 

Got a minute? That’s what we hear this time of year. It comes from 36 acres of vines. Each one of them is looking for a minute of our time. It’s pretty simple math really, 52,000 vines need about 870 hours of hand labor to put up the first set of trellis catch wires and tuck their shoots inside of them. Once that is completed, the weather heats up in June and the vines grow an inch (or more) each day. Then the vines are ready for the second set and finally the third set of trellis catch wires. Each set of wires needs another minute of time, or 870 hours - depending on your perspective. 

Mt. Jefferson making an appearance.

Winemaking: The Continuation of Terroir by Other Means.® 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 posting on Facebook and LinkedIn. Check us out if you can. We can use all the likes we can get…

 

May is Ernie’s Birthday Month. He is a Taurus. And for those of you who hadn’t figured that out yet, we felt it was about time to let you in on it. His contribution to the Amalie Robert Estate Pinot Noir portfolio is called Estate Selection. (Men make selections, and women make cuvées.)

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

Amalie Robert Estate about 15 miles southwest of Salem.

 

Canopy Management - It’s catch wire time in Willamette Valley wine country.
 

Miles and miles of hi-tensile wires. Readers of this FLOG know that an acre (43,560 square feet) of vines at Amalie Robert Estate represents 5,808 lineal feet. Just imagine all of those vine rows put end to end, instead of next to each other. For comparison, a mile is 5,280 lineal feet. Thanks to farming math, we can easily figure there are 1.1 lineal miles of vines per acre.

 
And on that acre there are some posts, EIEIO!



And on those posts we ran some wire, EIEIO!
 

In fact there are 8 wires on each of those posts. And thanks to our 1.1 lineal feet to square feet ratio, we know that’s 8.8 miles of wire per acre. There is a fruiting wire which holds the main cane and bears the weight of all the wine berries. There is a tendril wire about a foot above the fruiting wire so this year’s shoots have something to wrap their tendrils around, and then there are 3 pairs of catch wires.

 

Tendril holding on to a catch wire.

The fruiting wire and tendril wire are permanent. In other words they do not move up and down the post to hold the vines growth. They do move however, if a wayward tractor were to inadvertently run into a post. This is an unfortunate, but not uncommon, occurrence in farming.

 

 
Catch wires, do your job!
 

Their job is to contain the vine’s explosive springtime growth. Did we mention the trellis design at Amalie Robert Estate is called VSP? That stands for Vertical Shoot Position. Left to their natural tendencies, vines grow along the ground until they find someone they can lean on, like an oak tree. Then they use their tendrils to climb right up it. They are vines, that’s what they do.

 

VSP (Vertical Shoot Position) trellis at Amalie Robert Estate.

Since they can’t find any oak trees, they lean on us. More specifically, they grow into the trellis and our job is to vertically position their shoots into a set of horizontal wires. Surely, you can see how the vines upward growth is confused by this juxtaposition of horizontal wires. They need help. In our case, 870 hours worth of help.

 

 

Vertical shoots clipped between horizontal wires.

What does this mean and why should I care?
 

The goal is to harvest clean wine berries and ferment the sugar out of them. A properly trellised vine will more likely than not produce perfectly developed aroma and flavor wine berries free of rot, mold or any other affliction. Those wine berries make the best wine.

 

Rotted wine berries are no good. The birds won’t even eat the rotted ones. They will just fly over you and your picnic and drop little white spots on everything to show their disapproval with your lackadaisical approach and viticultural ineptitude.

 

This is something a 14 gauge can help with. Our 3 pairs of trellis catch wires are 14 gauge hi-tensile wire. When properly positioned at the most opportune time, we can catch the vines growth and direct the shoot growth upward allowing for sun exposure and airflow around each cluster of wine berries. This is the best-case scenario of canopy management. Ignore this step of winegrowing at your peril.

Amalie Robert Pinot Noir clusters enjoying the sun.
 
It’s most likely junk.
 

Welcome to the equipment corner. Our spring surprise THIS year was an inoperative UDOR diaphragm pump on the Turbo-mist Sprayer. Ernie discovered this early one Saturday morning. Being Saturday and all, there was no help available from the sprayer or pump manufacturer. Fortunately, there was still some downed branches from the ice storm to clean up. Ernie sent the appropriate E-mails so they would be waiting for the unsuspecting recipients early Monday morning and then he pivoted.

 

Turbo-mist sprayer with UDOR pump.

Monday morning arrived with a mission. UDOR is the Italian company that manufactures the pump. And that was Ernie’s first call. Clint was a fairly helpful engineering type and he said “Well, maybe you got lucky.” Ernie had to remind Clint that even though he was growing wine, this was really just plain old farming. Agriculture at its finest.

 

“Well then, if the diaphragms in the pump failed and the water mixed with the oil, its most likely junk.” This is what Ernie was looking to hear. A definitive “GO or NO GO” evaluation. Clint imparted a few words of wisdom, including some other farming anecdotes that can not be reproduced here, and sent Ernie on his way.

 

UDOR diaphragm pump "in situ".

Once the pump was separated from the sprayer, it was time to pull the drain plug. Like most other pumps or engines, water in the crankcase (where the crankshaft is located) is not a good sign. That is where the oil goes to lubricate the metal surfaces that have very tight clearances. Water in the oil is a telltale sign that you have exceeded the equipment’s mechanical limitations. Do not pass go and PAY $200.

"Open pump" transplant.

With that diagnostic step out of the way, Ernie was looking for a new pump – RFN. Tuesday morning the Turbo-mist E-mails were finally replied to. Those guys are up in Canada and may be a little slow in understanding the urgency of the situation. But again, this is farming, so what’s the big rush?

 

The Turbo-mist guys said call the Oregon dealer, and they provided a phone number – to Yakima, Washington. The dealer in Yakima, said he had a few pumps on order, but didn’t know when they would arrive. Then he asked why Ernie didn’t call the Oregon dealer. Right. Continue farming.

 

The parts man in Oregon said he had 3 pumps in stock. Ernie said put my name on one and he would come up to look at it right after lunch. In faming parlance “lunch” is a mythical time period that often buys you some time to finish doing whatever in the hell you were trying to get done before taking on a new (and unexpected) project. It rarely does, but sometimes can, involve food.

 

On the way out the door, the phone rings. It’s the parts man calling to say he can’t find the pumps. They are not in the parts bin where they are supposed to be. OK, thanks for the call. Turns out it really was time for lunch. After lunch, the phone rings again, and the pumps have been found. Procurement resumes forthwith.

 

Other than the fact this pump was green, and Ernie’s was red, everything else seemed to check out. Ernie buckled his precious cargo into the front seat for the 90 minute drive back to the farm. And that’s about all that gets done “after lunch.”

Ernie's precious cargo belted in and ready for the ride back to the vineyard.

Then next morning it is installation time! A few parts specific to the Turbo-mist application needed to be swapped over from the old pump to the new one. The water manifolds were quick AND easy. All was going well until the drive sprocket had to be removed from the old pump and affixed to the new pump. Oh fudge. But Ernie didn’t say fudge.

 

Farming is a fairly basic proposition. Legal contracts can change that, but the agrarian endeavor is essentially digging in the dirt, tending whatever grows up and then trying to consume it. Dogs also have a simplistic view of their condition. When they see something new they either want to eat it or mate with it. And rhubarb DOES taste different if you own a dog.

Drive sprocket and slip bushing before assembly.

Ernie has adopted the Sherlock Holmes approach to farming. Once you remove the impossible, all that remains is the improbable. The pump’s drive sprocket is held onto the 6 spline shaft with a slip bushing. The outside diameter of the shaft is just a micrometer larger than the inside diameter of the slip bushing. The idea is that the slip bushing slides over the shaft with the sprocket attached. The tight tolerances keep everything from moving around.

 

Installing drive sprocket using percussive maintenance.

A final call to the Turbo-mist guys. “No, you should not have to go to a machine shop to press the drive sprocket on.” The only solution left was percussive maintenance. Once the splines were aligned in the bushing, it was tap, tap, tap with a small hammer. It actually started to “slip” onto the shaft!

 

Excited and encouraged, Ernie found the next bigger hammer, pow, pow, pow. A little more progress, but that was the end of the low hanging fruit. The next 90 minutes yielded another 1.5 inches of “slip” and the sprocket was finally installed on the new pump. Hallelujah! The sprayer is operational – for now.

 

Successful pump transplant.
 
Well look at the time! It’s numbers time!
 

May vintage 2021 was a fairly moderate month. Our high temperature was 92.7 degrees F recorded on May 31^st at 5:24 pm. Our low temperature for the month was 33.8 degrees F recorded on May 8^th at 5:48 am. May Degree Days were 281.2 bringing the season total to 518.0 Degree Days.

Year to date May Degree Day comparison.

We did not record any measurable precipitation for the month of May. We are not saying there wasn’t any, we just didn’t record any. This anomaly simply highlights the undeniable fact that for all of the statistical analysis you read, or are forced to absorb, it is all based on data collection.

 

And in some cases, data collection includes adjustments or “normalizing” of the underlying data. In other cases, data anomalies can result from: not observing or recording the data, just making it up as you see fit or deleting nonconforming data points. The final analysis may be distinct and unambiguous, but the underlying data often illuminate shades of gray.

 

Not unlike the likelihood of a “Double CGG” sequence occurring naturally. It could happen, but never has. Once the impossible is eliminated, all that remains is the improbable.

 

Based on his time abroad, Ernie has developed the European corollary: The facts, however interesting they may be, are irrelevant to the narrative.

 
Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie