Amalie Robert Estate Vintage Update: The Great Cluster Pluck in 105 Days - and Counting

Hello and Welcome, 

 

Flowers in Pommard Clone Pinot Noir. 
 

It seems everyone is back to work after the long weekend, including the vines. It’s not like you are going to tell 20 year old Pommard vines when to flower, especially those grafted onto 5C. But in the course of putting up our first set of trellis wires, they have decided now is their time. On June 1^st we spied our first Pinot Noir flowers, and it was 103 degrees. We chose to commemorate the event with a glass of Pinot in Pink Rosé!

Winemaking: The Continuation of Terroir by Other Means.® A Farming bLOG (FLOG) communication from Dena & Ernie. Estate grown Amalie Robert Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from the Willamette Valley. 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…

 

The Harvest Window Appears

 

Over the past 30 years or so, Pinot Noir wine berries in the Willamette Valley have usually achieved full aroma and flavor development 105 days AFTER flowering. So, we can now pencil in a harvest window, and that is a handy thing to have as we move through the growing season.

 

From the vine’s point of view, they are simply trying to ripen their seeds and attract some creature to deposit them hither and yon so they can reproduce. Kinda makes you feel bad for seedless grapes.

 

We just want to make wine. If you are into the Julian calendar, as we are, you can take June 1^st (Day 152) and add 105 growing season days to get Day 257. And that day is the first potential day of harvest, September 14th. You can check our Julian Calendar math here.

 

Stages of wine berry flowering.

But first we must have pollination. Flowers are nice, but we are not going to have any clusters to pluck if there is no pollination. Good news is that the weather is supposed to be nice and wine berries are self-pollinating – they do not depend on bees as most other crops do for pollination.

 

After a couple weeks of pollination, we can check out the fruit set. The flowers that do not pollinate are called shatter and they fall off the stem. What is left are tiny green wine berries. Quantitatively speaking, if there are “a lot” of them, then the “fruit set” was good. If there are only a few, then you have a “poor set”.

 

The quality of fruit set gives you an idea of how many tons of wine berries you have on the vine. Watching the temperature over the next 45 days gives you an idea of how hot the growing season may be. If you are paying attention, somewhere in there is a plan to thin the potential crop load to match the growing season.

 

Flowers in Dijon Clone Chardonnay.

Vintage 2021 reminds us of vintage 2009 where we harvested early because the vines flowered early. And thus denied the birds their opportunity to freely feast upon our wine berries. It was a wonderful thing. However, in 2011 we flowered in July, and harvest was not scheduled until late October. The birds were back early that year with a vengeance (and friends and relations) when several TONS of wine berries took flight.

 

That’s what’s in store for us. Along with everything else Mother Nature and the farming endeavor can send our way. What are you going to be doing in 105 days?

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Vintage Update: Flowers 2020

Hello and Welcome, 

This is an Amalie Robert Estate Vintage Update: Flowers 2020. A FLOG communication from Dena and Ernie. Amalie Robert Willamette Valley Pinot Noir. 

  

The first sighting of wine berry flowers at Amalie Robert Estate occurred Monday, June 8, 2020. Flowers are the first sign that vintage 2020 is headed to harvest. And it comes with some specificity (105 days to be exact) from flowers to The Great Cluster Pluck. Yep, you can set your watch by it. You know the one… the one with just one hand.

Your timing would be off of course, but it wouldn’t be your fault. There are all manner of hidden and not so hidden disasters-in-waiting that can disrupt the path to harvest. And while we have fortunately not seen them all, in 20 years we have seen enough and gained tremendous experience. Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want. But it is wisdom that we are after, if only...

Like the early warning Cedar Waxwings that flew into the vineyard last week. They are wine berry bandits, complete with masks and afterburners. Typically, their turf is southern Oregon and we would prefer they stay there.

And so we press on to harvest 2020, undaunted in our quest. Even though we have seen this show before, each year’s production varies considerably from baseline and year to year. We live the infamous words of John Wayne, “Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.”

We grow three selections of Pinot Noir: Pommard Clone, Wadenswil Clone and five of the Dijon Clones. Each of them blooms about the same time, mostly dependent upon on where they are situated in the vineyard. Higher elevation plantings have a tendency to flower later and we usually harvest them toward the end of The Great Cluster Pluck. If you would like to learn more about the Wadenswil Clone, you can check out Interview with a Clone - Wadenswil 2A.

We also produce dedicated bottlings to showcase the best of what these clones can do on our site. The Pommard and Wadenswil Clone selections are typically just 2 barrels each (48 cases) of the most intriguing barrels of the vintage.  The Dijon Clones bottling is a little different story. We planted five of the Dijon Clones of Pinot Noir and they are 113, 114, 115, 667 and 777. We blend all five of these clones together to make the Dijon Clones Pinot Noir.

If you would like to experience these clones in their purest form, click on the Big Blue Button that will whisk you away to Amalie Robert Direct where you can peruse bottlings and select your favorite vintages. And check out the iPinot 6-pack offering while you are there.

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: June 2019

Hello and Welcome, 

  

This is the Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: June 2019. A Flog Communication. 

  

June is the month that the vines typically flower, and they did. It was a pleasant month, with some absolutely amazing weather during bloom. We are expecting a full fruit set, and then some, so we may need you to check your roller bag. Note: Wine flies free on Alaska Airlines flights out of Portland. Of course you, or your designated handler, will need to accompany it.

This outrageously fantastic weather means we are most likely sitting on about twice as many wine berries as we can optimistically hope to ripen. But that depends on the months of July, August and September – if we can hold out that long. Ernie’s block 2 midnight naked rain dance has been less and less effective each passing year. However, it does seem to keep the deer fascinated. Maybe he needs some new moves.

And we have equipment maintenance redux with our newfound best friend Ray the welding man. Ernie picked up on checking his lug nuts each and every farming day. But what have we here? Yep, it’s a case of broken spokes. But only 4 out of 5.

Have you ever noticed that when you start a project everything is exciting and new, but as you work your plan it can become a shlog? Never enough time to wrap it up completely before the next big thing comes along. If Ernie just spent a little more time mowing that day, why he could have snapped that last spoke. Sometimes it is good not to finish. But thanks to Ray and an afternoon of welding, it is not only as good as new, it is significantly more better!

And June means wires. Miles and miles of high tensile wires. And humans to tuck those shoots and raise those wires. Fortunately, the weather was quite moderate, mostly topping out in the 70s during the day and a chilly mid 40s at night. Makes you appreciate a steaming cup of morning accelerant and a cold post-shift beer. The diurnal cycle of caffeine and ethanol, what kind of world would we have without it?

And it was Dena’s birthday. Happy Birthday Dena!!

Next up is hedging and 5 sets of oil changes. Let’s talk about hedging. The concept here is that you trim off the shoot tips so the vines redirect their energy from growing longer and longer shoots to ripening their wine berries. So that we in turn may cluster pluck them from within the safety of their catch wires and ferment the sugar out of them. That is what we want. The vines just want to ripen their seeds and make new little vines. We can take cuttings and graft new vines. A medieval form of cloning if you will, but sometimes the old ways are the best. Just ask Dolly the sheep.

Vine Row Before Hedging

Vine Row After Hedging

And we have two sets of numbers to report on. The first comes from Vinous Media, where Josh Raynolds, Oregon’s correspondent, published his much anticipated and long overdue report on Oregon Pinot Noir. Our entire Pinot Noir portfolio (one exemplar each) spanning 3 vintages, 2013 – 2015, was reviewed. While they were a tight grouping, 92-94 points is a good group to be tightly grouped in with.

Now, on to the farmin’ numbers!

June’s high temperature was 98.8 degrees recorded mid-month on the 12^th around 4:12 pm. The low temperature for the month was up from May’s 34.3 degrees to 43.0 recorded on June 8^th at around 1:00 am. It was quite a time to be up viewing the stars and recording temperatures. Too early (and cold) for the first rain dance.

Once again, the diurnal shifts in the first half of the month were wider and produced a higher average temperature of 64.83 compared with the second half of the month at 61.53 degrees.

Degree Days for June were 406.4 with the first half of the month registering 229.5 and the latter period 176.9 Degree Days. The growing season to-date Degree Days stand at 806.7 for 2019 compared with 784.3 Degree Days for 2018. Clearly, we can see the breakaway in Degree Days from the last growing season beginning to manifest itself.

Climatically speaking, the big surprise was the blast of artic air, and corresponding 0.35 inches of rain that came toward the end of the month. Nice to have that in your back 40 going into summer, as it could be the last measurable precipitation we receive until a harvest window opens up. Total rainfall for June 2019 was 0.40 inches compared with June 2018 accumulation of 0.91 inches.

That’s what it was like at our house.

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Vintage Update: Flowers 2019

Hello and Welcome, 

  

This is an Amalie Robert Estate Vintage Update: Flowers 2019. 

They are out! The bloom is on the vine! And the weather is just absolutely gorgeous! Fruit set is happening all over the vineyard from Gewürztraminer and Chardonnay through Pinot Meunier and Noir to Syrah and Viognier. While we don’t grow Rosé wine berries, we can finagle a little bit out of the winemaking process.

So, just how many flowers are there this year? At this point in the game, you would expect Ernie to have an answer to that and he does. First, let’s review the following definitions from that all knowing communal source, Wikipedia.

Prime Number: A prime number is a number with no divisors other than 1 and itself. Euclid proved that there is no largest prime number. But people do keep looking. The largest prime number known as of this writing is 24,862,048 digits long. That’s a big meatball!

Twin Prime Number: A twin prime is a prime number that is either 2 less or 2 more than another prime number. For example, the first few twin prime number pairs are: (3, 5), (5, 7), (11, 13), (17, 19), (29, 31), (41, 43), (59, 61), (71, 73) and (101, 103). Leave it to the mathematicians to be fixated with the twins that really are not twins. Reminds us of the imaginary number crowd.

Perfect Number: Now we are getting somewhere. A perfect number is a number that is half the sum of all its positive divisors (including itself). The first perfect number is 6. Its proper divisors are 1, 2, and 3, and 1 + 2 + 3 = 6. Equivalently, the number 6 is equal to half the sum of all its positive divisors: (1 + 2 + 3 + 6) ÷ 2 = 6. The next perfect number is 28, then 496, and 8,128 and then 33,550,336. What would these guys do without spreadsheets?

So, it follows on with perfect linearity that this year we have 148,326,337 flowers. Let’s start with 49,433 flowering vines. While we have a few more than that, 49,433 is a safe bet and a prime number. Each flowering vine has 11 to 13 shoots on a single 4 foot cane, and as you can clearly see, 11 and 13 are twin prime numbers.

Here is where it gets tricky. Each shoot will have 2 or maybe 3 potential clusters. These are called inflorescence. Since both the number 2 and 3 are prime, we can logically assume that the true number resides between 2 and 3. We really got out of a tight spot there.

Each inflorescent will have about 101 to 103 flowers. Again, you can see these are twin prime numbers. However, not all flowers will pollinate. So as harvest rolls around we may have 79, 83 or 89 wine berries per harvested cluster. Each of these clusters’ wine berry count represents a prime number. But as we are talking about flowers, not wine berries, we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Ergo, with simple mathematics we have been able to ascertain the final flower count of 148,326,337 flowers is a prime number. The final proof is an exercise left to the reader. Please beware of the illegal prime number, it does exist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime

Now, here is an easy number, 105. That is the number of days that typically elapse between flowering and harvest. While we have not seen the Vintage 2019 movie before, we did see Vintage 2011, which was a prime number vintage, as was 2003. The next prime number vintage does not occur until 2027. And wouldn’t you know it, 2027 and 2029 are twin prime number vintages! How cool is that?

If it is a warm vintage, look to the prime number 103 to open the harvest window, and if we hang out for hang time, we go to the prime number 107 as a starting point. All perfectly legal and within the bounds of mathematical fidelity – no systemic variability permitted.

Stay up on the FLOG to see how the vintage shapes up: http://amalierobert.blogspot.com/

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Vintage Update: 2018 Flowers

Hello and Welcome,

This is a Vintage Update from Amalie Robert Estate. A FLOG Communication.

It is just a matter of time now. Some would say time and money, or that time is money. But at the end of the day there will be 105 days’ worth of time to spend the money before we start The Great Cluster Pluck of 2018.

And it was that Chardonnay vine that was first out with flowers again this year. What is it with that grape? But there it is, and soon the other 51,892 vines of Gewürztraminer, Pinot Meunier, Pinot Noir, Syrah and Viognier will be blooming.

At this point in the growing season, everyone wants to know if we are ahead or a behind, so here are the numbers. The first flowers revealed themselves on June 6^th, a belated birthday bouquet for Dena. Last year the first flowers were spotted on June 11^th, so we are a little ahead of last year. A distinction without a difference.

June 6^th is Julian calendar day 157. Note 2018 is not a leap year. If it were a leap year, the flowers would have still appeared on Julian calendar day 157, but it would have been June 5^th not June 6^th and messed up the entire harvest planning and operations. We most certainly dodged a bullet there.

On average, the vines need 105 days to finish their work. Their job is to ripen up their seeds to reproduce and then go dormant for 6 months. Our job is to look at the end of 105 days to see if we have great aromas and flavors in those little wine berries so we can ferment the shugar out of them.

To put all this into a farming perspective, 105 ARBs are the equivalent of 17.5 six-packs. (ARB – Adult Recreational Beverage. You know, beer!)

Now we do the heavy lifting of adding 105 farming days to Julian calendar day 157 and end up with Julian calendar day 262. So easy a winemaker can do it! And as everyone knows, Julian calendar day 262 is September 19^th.

That’s when the potential harvest window will magically appear in the vineyard. And Ernie will be keenly looking through it at the wings of Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir to make our Bellpine Pearl Rosé. Dena has informed him, in no uncertain terms, that this year’s Pearl should return to its original Blanc de Noir color from 2015. What a GREAT idea!

Then all manner of grapes will start pouring in. Most probably the G’wzr will be first, followed by some young vine Wadenswil clone along with Dick Erath’s clone 95. Then we will factor in the weather and a little Kentucky windage to bring in the rest of the vineyard.

The last fruit in will most certainly be the Côte Rôtie block. Most likely on Julian calendar day 314. That gives us 52 days of harvest and winemaking operations to get ‘er done before we experience the deluge of winter rains. But for now, it’s looking like an ARB harvest window is about to open.

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Vintage Update: 2017 Harvest After Action Report (HAAR)

Hello and Welcome, 

This is the 2017 Harvest After Action Report (AAR) from Amalie Robert Estate. A FLOG communication. 

The Great Cluster Pluck of 2017 began at Amalie Robert Estate in September by harvesting the wings of Pinot Noir for our Bellpine Pearl Rosé, and after much ado with our well pump, motor and wiring, we resumed with the Gewürztraminer, Chardonnay, Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir. The Great Cluster Pluck of 2017 concluded in November with our cool climate, Côte Rôtie style Syrah and Viognier. 

And along the way to the New Year, there was the vintage extending two and a half months of fermentations, punch downs and ultimately pressing the red wine from the depleted skins and stems. This was about the time the tractor with the front forks that moves this material lost the ability to travel in reverse under its own power. This is why it is nice to have a sturdy chain and a Dodge Diesel Dually available. And a replacement tractor. Thanks Tom!

And a note about the well. By definition, a well is a hole in the ground that has water in it. This is a very nice thing to have. However, without the means to extract the water from 180 feet below the surface, a well is, well, not that useful. And that is why it is nice to have a competent plumber available. Like Forbes Plumbing. Thanks guys!

Meanwhile, the temperature dropped for a natural cold stabilization of our Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer and Bellpine Pearl Rosé, so we had to make time to steward those finished wines to bottle and top them off with a wee bit of natural tree bark, aka cork.

So from the start of September through nearly all of December, this was Ernie having his way with about 100 tons worth of wine berries. Looking back on this four month protracted ordeal, it could also be reasonably stated that the wine berries, the well and the tractor all had their way with him.

How to tell if you are out of water. After a successful day of gently pressing the wings of Wadenswil, 667 and Pommard clone Pinot Noir it was time to wash down the equipment. But first, let’s review what it takes to make the Bellpine Pearl Rosé. You need the following items and the time to execute the production and clean up plan:

Freshly plucked wings of Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir (we go back and pluck the main clusters when they are fully mature).

A press to gently extract the clear juice from the be-winged wine berries and just a hint of color from the skins.

A pan to collect this sublime “Pinot in Pink” juice, with a valve that is attached in such a way that it can be fully opened and closed. The first processing day of the vintage always provides a great opportunity to refresh oneself on how (and why) all the bits and pieces fit together.

A pump to transfer the freshly extracted juice to a clean 1,000 liter stainless steel tank – about 250 gallons is all it will hold. This is nice to know in advance, during the planning portion of the day, before the production portion of the day ensues forthwith. A functioning drain, while effective in its own duties, is the receptacle of last resort.

Add in all of the obligatory hoses and various sundry bits and pieces and you too can make Rosé.

Note: While electrical power is also required to operate the equipment, it is not the focus of this section. We lost power after all of the wine berries were harvested. Once again, the Dodge Diesel Dually with a power inverter and 100’ extension cord saved the day. Punch down, we would like you to know, is a fully manual and hands on affair that does not require electrical power and continued unabated.

And then comes the wash down, with water. It all starts off so easily. Rinse everything down with cold water first to wash away the sugary juice and then move to ever hotter water to clean and eventually sanitize the equipment. So simple, even a winemaker can do it!

When you come to the point in the process where you are fully activating the hose nozzle while looking straight down it’s barrel, you are out of water. Instinctively we all know you can pull a vacuum but you cannot pull a hose, so we look to see if there is a kink in the hose. Nope, clear all the way back to the hose bib (still) mounted on the wall. And a second look confirms both the hot and cold valves are at least partially open.

Right. Down to the pumphouse we go. Here we find the hole in the ground that presumably has water in it. A circuit breaker box that controls the flow of electricity to various pumps and controllers that sense low water pressure and activate said pumps. And a 2,500 gallon above ground tank that Ernie had installed when we built the winery. Clever indeed.

But the circuits were all fine and the breakers were not tripped. Then we discovered a giant clue – the 2,500 gallon above ground tank was empty. Worse yet, it was not being refilled. It’s as if all the circuits were asleep or on break. But they were not asleep or on break. At this point, the notion that you cannot restore your own water crystalizes in your frontal lobe providing a sense of urgency and immediate focus on the plumber’s phone number that you have programmed on speed dial.

And that is how you know you are out of water.

But things designed by humans can usually be repaired by humans, albeit usually by bringing to bear a more intelligent design (and financial resources) than the original implementation. And that was the set of circumstances that restored our water supply. And harvest began, in earnest, the following morning.

As far as the wine berries are concerned they had quite a vintage. Just consider their itinerary of events leading up to the Great Cluster Pluck of 2017:

November 2016 through April 2017: Let’s have a nice relaxing winter rest while the humans scurry about pruning and tying down a fruiting cane. Hmm, looks nice. Maybe take up some nutrients from the fall cover crop and sluff off a layer of bark. Nothing too demanding and certainly not in any hurry. We have 6 months off!

March 53^rd Budbreak: Whoa! Is it spring time already? What is that guy on the tractor up to? What a rude awakening! Time to push out the new buds and get some leaves going on.

June 11^th Flowering: And here they are! This year’s bouquet of flowers. That sure makes the property smell fine! Meanwhile Ernie is figuring to add 105 days of ripening and looking at a harvest window in late September. Little does he know about the impending well issue.

August 6^th Pinot Noir In Flagrante! Blushing wine berries start to emerge throughout the 55,000 vines. Just a few at first, but given time they all join in.

August 21^st In the Path of Totality: The vines were treated to their first total solar eclipse. A Double Diurnal Day!

Photo by Vincent Cantwell

September 22^nd Winging It: The first wings make it to the winery for the Bellpine Pearl Rosé.

October 5^th OOW (Out Of Water): It’s a well thing.

October 12^th: The Great Cluster Pluck begins!

From a climate point of view, 2017 continues the de-escalation of the last few overly hot vintages providing us a degree day total of 2,279. See below for a 15 year retrospective.

And once again we held out for rain and were handsomely rewarded. Most everything we plucked came in with very moderate sugars and nice hang time. The Chardonnay, however, was letting us know, that pretty soon it would be time to go.

You see Chardonnay does not really like rain. It can handle a little, but much more than just a passing conversation and Botrytis starts to take hold. The odd mauve colored wine berry tells us that they have developed pretty much all of the aroma and flavor we are going to get. If we let it hang through another shower or two and the temperature rises, the Botrytis will take over. So, we take it at first light when the buckets are clean.

Rainfall for October was 4.70 inches. Total rainfall for the vintage was 14.10 inches and distributed throughout the growing season as follows:

And then it got cold. While most everyone, if not in-fact everyone, was finished with harvest, Ernie was holding out for his cool climate, Côte Rôtie inspired Syrah and Viognier. We took the Viognier first and it went straight to the press and then stainless steel. The resulting juice was a very cool 40 degrees. Not a lot happening at 40 degrees, microbially speaking, so Ernie deployed his tried and true 300-watt fish tank heater. That pretty much did the trick and the following day the juice was fermenting and flocculating with great abandon. The dazzling aroma of white peaches and honeysuckle and tamarind filled the fermentation deck.

Now, what do you call a hole in the ground with ash coming out of it? No, that would be our neighboring grape growers lighting burn piles while we are still hanging fruit. The more correct answer is a volcano.

Lucky block 13 is the Syrah block. That is 4 Northern Rhône Syrah clones represented by 1,188 vines covering just short of one acre and is Cluster Plucked by clone. The oddly interplanted Viognier is treated as a light skinned Syrah clone and co-harvested and co-fermented with its dark skinned cousins. In the winery, we use about 50% whole cluster and ferment in the same 1.5 ton fermenters as we use for Pinot Noir. This is Syrah made by a Pinot guy. Which is quite a different thing than Pinot made by a Syrah guy. Maybe.

The fermenters started out that morning at 42 degrees. Hmm. Ernie thought to himself. I wonder if the indigenous yeast that came in on those wine berry skins will take off at 42 degrees. Not only did those two fermenters take off, it was so cold that all of the fruit flies died off before they could get in the fermenters. It was a Cluster Pluck miracle! And we just happened to end up with about 10 gallons of Syrah Rosé. So many wines, so little time.

But then it got real cold and Ernie was concerned, that maybe just perhaps, the fermenters would get too cold to finish fermenting. So he lined up the press and a nice new barrel, and he pressed the wine down to our below ground cellar.

“It will finish in barrel,” he proclaimed with a grin. “It will finish fermenting with the yeast from within!”

And with the Syrah safely tucked into barrel, we conclude the 2017 Harvest After Action Report (AAR).

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Vintage Update: 2017 Flowers

Hello and Welcome, 

As the spring and fall like weather continued to vacillate before the first day of summer arrived on June 20^th, we had some intrepid little Chardonnay flowers emerge on Sunday, June 11^th – alone and unafraid. 

And then the weather got really bad, as in, “Why The Farm is this inch of rain falling out of the sky in mid-June?” Cool temperatures and gusty winds are, of course, obligatory and they make the field work of putting up catch wires just about as miserable an experience as anyone could ask for.

But the Pommard clone Pinot Noir was holding tight. As in, “Are you farming crazy? We are not going to start blooming in this weather!” And so they waited, but they too have a schedule to keep and so they began to bloom at the transition to nicer weather on June 16^th. Somewhat of a fair weather clone, it would seem.

So there, it is. We take mid-June (Julian calendar day 166) and add 105 days to wine berry maturation (more or less) and a harvest window appears in the not too distant future on September 28^th (Julian calendar day 271.) We use the Julian calendar for calculating farming dates for a variety of reasons, but mostly because it is easy math and we don’t have that many fingers and toes between us.

While this may (or may not) be the most exciting news you are likely to read today, please note there are a few keen observers of this event who are counting down the days.

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Vintage Update: 2016 Flowers and Tight Asstd. Wines

Hello and Welcome,  

The heady scent of pollination is in the air at Amalie Robert Estate. 

We are going to get it on, now! Actually, it will be the vines that will be getting their wine berries on over the next few days, right at the end of their collective pedicels. Here’s how they do it.

First the protective cap, or Calyptra, is cut off from the vascular tissue at the pedicel. As the cap dries up and falls away, the flower is exposed. Pollen grains from the Anther find their way into the Stigma, just as they have for centuries. Wine berries are self pollinating, so the only variable here is Mother Nature.

And it just so happens we are in for a nice warm dry spell which should see uniform pollination and a whole lot of it. This is better than the alternative, at least from a wine growing point of view.

We spied the first flower on the first vine on Friday, May 27^th (Julian calendar day 148) in a lovely little block of Pommard clone Pinot Noir grafted onto our beloved 5C rootstock. 5C is the most deeply rooted of all the rootstocks we grow. It most closely resembles the rooting proclivities of own rooted vines.

This is “YUGE!” as a dry farmed vineyard. We like deep rooting rootstocks that can tap into the last of the available soil moisture at the end of the growing season. Because, as everyone knows, irrigation cheats you out of the true character of the vintage.

So, now we have the answer to the first riddle of the 2016 growing season: When are we going to harvest? The answer is “it depends.” But we should certainly have a harvest window starting to open around Julian calendar day 253. In typical Oregon vintages, we need about 105 days from flowering to develop expressive aroma and flavor before The Great Cluster Pluck.

However, any and all manner of atrocities may befall us on the road to harvest. We could even get schlonged. Or it could be nice all the way through, just don’t bet the farm on it. And bear in mind, this is a leap year - it’s “YUGE!”

As summer descends upon us, we would like to remind everyone that we grow and produce an assortment of wines including White, Blanc and Rosé for your enjoyment. All of these wines are fermented in stainless steel and provide a crisp and tight finish.

Collectively, when short on space, we refer to them as our “Tight Asstd. Wines.”

Varietally speaking, we offer the 2015 Her Silhouette Chardonnay and 2014 Our Muse Viognier.

Stylistically, we offer a Blanc de Noir wine, 2015 Bellpine Pearl and our dry Rosé is the 2015 Pinot in Pink Rosé of Pinot Noir.

Follow this link to shop for some Tight Asstd. Wines.

SWAC (Sealed With A Cork.)

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Vintage Update: 2015 June Flowers IRS (Inflorescence Reconnaissance Status)

Hello and Welcome,

For longtime readers of this FLOG, you know Dena’s birthday is the first week of June. This happens to coincide with the wine berry vines going into bloom, aka flowering. Ernie likes to think he gives her the biggest bouquet of flowers every year!

Each of our 43,872 fruiting vines has about 30 inflorescences (potential clusters) that contain about 100 flowers each. A quick sleight of hand with the trusty abacus yields about 131.6 MILLION flowers. That’s one big farmin’ bouquet! And the aroma is just heavenly, almost as nice as Pinot Noir!

On Julian calendar day 151 (May 31) the first intrepid vines to show flowers were Pinot Noir clone 777 grafted onto that soil colonizing 44-53M rootstock. That is the good news. Well that and wine berries are self pollinating. They do not require the wee little honey bee to pollinate the flower and set fruit.

The bad news is that this flowering event was directly followed by about 1.25 inches of rain over the next 2 cold and blustery days. Even the Hummingbirds were grounded. Flowers often times do not pollinate and therefore will not turn into wine berries when the weather turns “carppy.” The result is a winery full of empty wine barrels. That’s bad enough, but just wait until the birds find out there is nothing to raid!

But Mother Nature has a back up plan and it is called a “fruiting tendril” aka the wing. This is a part of the cluster that typically flowers a week or so after the main cluster. The idea is that the weather will “change” (think climate change on a micro timeline) and the flowers on the wing will pollinate and set fruit. Of course the debate is whether the weather will change for the better or worse. And that depends on who you ask.

This is like good judgment, which comes from experience, which often times is the result of bad judgment. Ernie is turning 50 again this year and he has a working theory. More of a case study really.

So, what can we glean from all of this apparent gibberish?

Well (a hole in the ground with water in it,) we can add 105 days of ripening time to day 151 on the Julian calendar to come up with a potential harvest window opening about day 256. This just happens to be Sunday, September 13, 2015. This may be a bit early, but then again it depends on who you ask. As in, “No, I haven’t found the harvest buckets yet!”

Since we write this from an “ex post facto” perspective, we know that on June 4^th the weather changed to be dry and sunny with a light breeze. This led to other clones of Pinot Noir opening up their flowers ready to pollinate resulting in the fruit all being set about the same time. This contributes to even ripening on the cluster. And that means uniform and well developed flavors and aromas in the wine berry skins. Even the Viognier won’t be able to hold back.

Taken as a whole and “in situ” we expect fairly uniform ripeness on the cluster and we will snip off the late to ripen wings, as we always do. The birds will arrive late and be forced to eat cake, as all of the wine berries will be harvested. And those that are not will be netted to thwart the little blighters. It will in fact be “The vintage of the year!”

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Vintage Update: 2014 June Flowers IRS (Inflorescence Reconnaissance Status)

Hello and Welcome,

We have flowers! The first sign of a potential harvest window appeared on June 6, 2014 – Day 157 of the Julian Calendar. And get this; it is the same Julian Calendar date as 2013. While this is a fun factoid, it certainly guarantees that harvest will not be the same!

Typically, we are asking for about 105 days from flowering to harvest. So we will be looking to open the harvest window on day 262, or September 19.  Someone once remarked that this is just like clockwork, but when you are in business with Mother Nature, nothing you set out to do is as simple as that.

The part of the plant that is flowering (or “in bloom”) is called an inflorescence. When we are looking for flowers in the vineyard we are doing reconnaissance. Once our work is complete, we issue a status. Ergo, our IRS is RFN (Right Farming Now!)

Weather during bloom this year is about as perfect as anything in agriculture can be – thanks Mom. We are seeing highs hit the high 70s and we are cooling off into the 50s at night. A refreshing breeze blows by from time to time and a few wispy clouds add texture to an otherwise endless sunny blue sky. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, consider this: Wine grapes are self pollinating!

If we continue on our current trajectory, we could have a bountiful crop, ready to harvest in late September. But there’s a lotta “c’s” there to consider, and there has been some issue with the c(3)’s or is it the c(4)’s?

But today the sun is on our backs and the breeze is lifting our spirits. The world, for now anyway, seems to be spinning in greased grooves.

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie