Amalie Robert Estate Update: Open House July 25-26 & Tractor Bypass Surgery

Hello and Welcome, 

  

This is an Amalie Robert Estate Update: Open House and Tractor Bypass Surgery. A FLOG communication from Dena and Ernie. Amalie Robert Willamette Valley Pinot Noir. 

  

Please join Dena and Ernie for our next Open House on Saturday, July 25 & Sunday, July 26, from 10 am to 3 pm by appointment. An Evite will arrive shortly to schedule your preferred tasting day and time. You may also reach Dena by email at Cuvee@amalierobert.com and by phone at 503-88-CUVEE (503-882-8833) to schedule your appointment, or to place an order if you cannot join us.

Well, we have turned the corner in the vineyard. Our three sets of catch wires are up and clipped into place, the first hedge is completed, and the vineyard crew has done their best at removing the proper amount of leaf coverage to just partially expose our wine berries. We wouldn’t want to show too much skin this early in the game. The fruit set looks to be light, but the numbers are not yet in.

Vineyard inspector number 527, without an appointment, ready for a little outdoor tasting @AmalieRobert

Open air outdoor wine tastings are happening from 10 am to 3 pm each and every weekend now through Labor Day. Make an appointment and come on by, you just don’t know who you might see. Here is the tasting protocol under the new shade canopy overlooking 35 acres of Amalie Robert Estate Vines.

Upon arrival you will be offered your choice of barrel station. Each barrel station is at least 6 feet away from any other barrel station and is equipped with a bottle of sanitizer to be used on your hands. Lip sanitizer, by definition, is part of the tasting program.

Your barrel station will include a new Amalie Robert Riedel glass (they make these just for us) for each person in your party and an unopened bottle of water that you may share among your party to rinse your new stemware. There will also be a double-sided all-in-one tasting program and order form. We may also include some laminated marketing SWAG that is sanitized before and after your tasting appointment. The tasting fee is $15 with the Riedel tasting glass and $10 is refundable on any two bottle purchase per person. You may also opt for the Riedel Burgundy glass for $25 and $10 is refundable on any two bottle purchase per person. The now christened Amalie Robert Riedel glass is yours to keep and may be rinsed again.

We understand travel is somewhat of a challenge this year. If you find that you cannot make it to the vineyard, let us pack up a little of our terroir and ship it to you, weather permitting. Use the Big Blue Button to pre-order for pick up, or to place an order for shipping.

If you are spending some quality time watching films, may we suggest some timeless classics such as the Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot series, or maybe the ever-thrilling Alfred Hitchcock or the short lived original Star Trek series. All very Pinot family friendly.

Now if you find yourself at the corner of confused and bewildered, you may have just crossed the border into the Twilight Zone. Or our local Safeway, where you can find the depleted shelves being restocked with never before seen products, such as this.

And so now that the vineyard is cruising on autopilot, you are probably wondering what Ernie is doing with all his spare time between now and harvest. Well, let’s just say he is keeping himself amused.

Has this ever happened to you? You sit down to peruse the daily inoculum of mayhem from your E-mail productivity program and it shows you nothing. Your first clue that something has gone awry is that you are using software written by the world’s second greatest marketing company, whose stock symbol is MSFT. The first greatest marketing company is, of course, Lionel Trains.

You click the little blue button with your pointing device (whose idea was originally stolen from Digital Equipment Company) and a medium sized blue screen appears that informs you that your (MSFT annuity based revenue stream) E-mail program is starting. Then the screen disappears, and that’s all you get. Sweet F@ck All, is the phrase Ernie picked up in MSFT Ireland.

Standard operating procedure is to shut down, pour another cup of morning accelerant and start up again. Rinse and repeat - same result. At this point you realize you are not the only person to have had this problem, just the latest one. Off to the wonderful word of web browsing to see just how bad this problem is, and how one might once again gain access to one’s E-mail file – in a timely manner.

Fortunately, this problem is unfortunate, but not uncommon. A quick little diagnosis reveals you may start the offending program in safe mode with this run command: Outlook /safe. You will notice there is a space in this command. Must be a typo, Ernie thought. Nope, it’s there on purpose. Remember, first and foremost, this is a marketing company.

And lo and behold Outlook starts in safe mode and right there in front of you are all of your E-mails and subfolders containing even more E-mails! And a history of every E-mail you have ever sent, just in case. Now the fix here is simplicity itself, just disable the add-in (that added itself in) that is causing Outlook to not start up on its own. Right, what’s a cubit?

Yeah, don’t hold your breath. After disemboweling the Outlook program, and rebooting each and every time, still no joy. “Aye captain, I’ve got some bad news for yea. I am afraid it is time to eject the warp core.” No, there is an even easier and faster solution that Ernie picked up working at MSFT. You quite simply and with great pleasure, uninstall the offending program! It is really simple and quite gratifying. Another half cup of mid-morning accelerant and a high fiber bran muffin is your reward as you watch the little blue bar get longer and longer as your Intel Core i7, 7th Gen x86 based processor vanquishes the malignant software. Now we are making an impact!

By the way, when are we moving off the x86 architecture? We really should be 4 valves per cylinder, direct injection twin turbos by now. Or hydrogen power, or warp drive.

Next up, install a clean, uncorrupted version of the offending software. A quick download is the norm, but here in the middle of nowhere with nowhere internet service, we have some time to bake a fresh batch of high fiber bran muffins. A quick reboot, and there it is. Everything is back to “new-normal” and you may resume your early afternoon onboarding of mayhem. Maybe time to back-up your files.

And then it hits you. It’s tractor maintenance week at Uncle Ernie’s work farm. Three Italian tractors, one German rototiller, one French hedger, one Canadian sprayer and an Irish-American mower. This year, we have a nice little crop of issues that really should have been non-issues except for the fact that the Italians seem to have lost a few pages in translation getting to ISO 9000.

After 20 years that overly tight zip tie finally cut through a heater hose going to the cab in the tractor in which Ernie spends a significant amount of quality time spraying the vineyard. No big deal you think, we really do not need heat in the cab this time of year, and besides the air conditioning was just repaired.

Tractor bypass surgery

Except for the fact that the heater hose is connected to the water pump which is connected to the radiator which cools the 100 horsepower diesel engine that powers the whole shebang. Lose all of the coolant and what you have left is a really big paperweight stuck in the middle of 35 acres of vines. At least the wheel studs are tight this year.

And then there is the ever-expanding puddle of transmission oil dripping off of the muffler mounted directly below the transmission. No matter how you spin that, it does not come out well. There is a single oil line coming from the engine compartment disappearing underneath the cab, behind the interior panels and reappearing just before the rear axle.

Turns out we have a metal clamp, without a protective rubber gromet, that secures this metal oil line to the transmission housing. And get this, there is a whole bundle of electrical wires zip tied to that metal oil line! Much like the Grinch, you can only put up with this for so long before metal fatigue becomes a rupture. What could this possibly operate? Doesn’t really matter, it is an oil leak that leaks on the muffler. You don’t have to be a winemaker to realize oil dripping on a hot muffler is not a sustainable condition. What is it with the Italians and their zip ties?

You know, these cell phones have incredible cameras these days. Who remembers The Eastman Kodak Company? A picture may well be worth a 1,000 words but sending off an image to the engineers who designed the equipment is priceless. And much less is lost in translation, even with the Canadians, eh?

Here we have a chain drive pump with an idler bearing. A classic and farmer tested design that has not evolved much, if at all since it was invented. And if it works, you don’t get to fix it - yet. But if the idler bearing is wearing out in less than 1 season, you cannot escape the conclusion, and $107 plus freight, that something is askew. And in this case it is the out of alignment lower pump drive sprocket “walking” its way back along the input shaft where it will meet certain doom when the chain comes in contact with the frame. This is a priority one repair, as in do it right farming now. Yabba Dabba Do It Now!

What the engineer sees

What the winegrower sees

Leverage. When you have applied the maximum amount of force with the hammers you have and are not making an impact, you need leverage. Leverage in the form of a 4 foot bar and your best hammer not so gently coaxing this sprocket back to its original factory installed position. Hence, we apply the principle E=mc2 where the mass does not change, however it does absorb significant energy. And over time, directly applied energy slowly realigns the lower pump drive sprocket with the upper sprocket, thus extending the life of said idler bearing. You learn Einstein’s theory of relativity in school, but applied percussive maintenance is learned on the job. Please refer to page 118 of the May issue of Modern Agrarian.

And of course, there are the standard oil, lube and filter chores for 5 diesel powered machines. Nice to see a pack of field mice thought the air cleaner was a good place to build a nest. Top off the radiator, check the tires and don’t forget to grease the zerks. They really appreciate it. And so, that is what gets Ernie out of bed in the morning, albeit very cautiously. Almost as much fun as opening E-mail…

But the vines sure look nice!

You can reach Dena by email at Cuvee@amalierobert.com and by phone at 503-88-CUVEE (503-882-8833) to schedule your appointment, or to place an order if you cannot join us.

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

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

Hello and Welcome, 

  

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

  

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

You will not need a promo code to activate pricing. The pricing will automatically adjust when you select six bottles of iPinot and there is no further discount on iPinot. The shipping will be adjusted upon confirmation of your order. This is our contribution to the human condition, yours and ours. If you have any questions or need assistance, please E-mail Dena at Cuvee@amalierobert.com.

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

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

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

We have adopted the following outside tasting protocol. Upon arrival you will be offered your choice of barrel station under our new sun shade canopy. Each barrel station is at least 6 feet away from any other barrel station and is equipped with a bottle of sanitizer to be used on your hands. Lip sanitizer, by definition, is part of the tasting program.

Your barrel station will include a new Amalie Robert Riedel tasting glass (they make these just for us) for each person in your party and an unopened bottle of water that you may share among your party to rinse your new stemware. There will also be a double-sided all-in-one tasting program and order form. We may also include some laminated marketing SWAG that is sanitized before and after your tasting appointment. The tasting fee is $20 with $15 refundable on any two bottle purchase per person. The now christened Amalie Robert Riedel tasting glass is yours to keep and may be rinsed again.

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

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

  

Now the fun stuff.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: April 2020 & Library Pinot Noirs

Hello and Welcome, 

 

This is the Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: April 2020. A FLOG Communication from Dena and Ernie @AmalieRobert Estate. 

  

It has just been a lovely Willamette Valley start to the growing season. Wind, rain, sun and clouds provide an ever-changing landscape of environmental conditions that afford us the opportunity to conquer the agrarian challenges of getting the vineyard ready to bear fruit. And of course, it would not be springtime in wine country without a visit to the shop for some equipment maintenance. Then just wait until you see the numbers! They are just one sig-fig this year, but they are stunning.

First off, we have a little housekeeping to attend to. We have begun using Evite to help us manage in the times of COVID-19. https://www.evite.com/ Evite allows us to send invitations to help manage visits to the winery, so that we can comply with social distancing requirements, while not being socially distant. We have yet to figure out how to schedule specific times, so if you RSVP please indicate your preferred time. We also send an Evite to announce new releases. Note: We are not shipping any wine without your approval.

When you receive an Evite invitation, please notice there are often multiple pages to the invitation. The cover card is just the first page of the invitation (and notice the Pinot Noir stamp on the envelope). The second and third pages will contain details about releases or visits to the winery. Label images or other artwork are sometimes included. From time to time Ernie may insert a coded message, such as the timeless “Be Sure to Drink Your Ovaltine”. Also, we are introducing The Big Blue Button.

And while we are on the topic of cards and wine, we would like to point out that Mother’s Day is Sunday May 10th. Most of the country is still under lockdown and that means someone has to figure out how to make brunch for Mom. We suggest cinnamon spiced waffles with fresh strawberries and homemade whipped cream. Super easy and a very colorful presentation with purple lilacs for the table or a dozen pink roses - like Pinot in Pink Rosé, the perfect brunch wine.

There is still time to up your waffle making game before Sunday, and we are confident in your corkscrew abilities. You’ve got this! But if you need some Rosés, we are here to help. Pinot in Pink Rosé 6 packs are still $100, shipping included. Just press the Big Blue Button.

Digging in the dirt. That is springtime in wine country. The vineyard floor has been recycled to release the nutrients from last fall’s post harvest cover crops. Then Ernie prepped the soil and drilled the new spring cover crop. And the rain played right into Ernie’s plan to germinate the new seeds. Rain in April doesn’t actually require a lot of planning, just being ready to go when the sun peeks out is usually good enough. And so now we have about 18 acres of vineyard floor that is growing fertilizer for the vines. Once their above ground usefulness is at an end, these cover crops will be tilled under and the natural nutrient recycling lives on.

We recorded bud break on April 13th. The vines are starting to wake up and they have their pre-programmed plan. They know exactly what they are going to do and when they are going to do it. We have our plan as well. We know what we are going to do, we just don’t know when we are going to do it. We are in the driver’s seat, but we are certainly not in control.

Next on the vines’ agenda is flowering. We usually have to wait until Dena’s birthday in June, but sometimes we have to wait longer, and sometimes we don’t. That’s farming where we remember fondly, the words of Yogi Berra who once said, “You can observe a lot by just watching”. We will know it when we see it, and we will let you know when we see it.

`

Why yes, we have a little equipment maintenance to do. Of Ernie’s 3 Italian tractors, two of them have sequestration stations, aka cabs. And both of these tractors are equipped with air conditioning. (You would think the glass would offer UV protection like your vehicle’s windshield does, but hey this is agriculture.)

And it just so happens that both of the cab tractors need their air conditioning compressors replaced this year. These things usually run in three’s, but the third machine is an open station crawler, so the air conditioning is “au naturel”.

The alternative to not restoring the air conditioning function is to operate the tractor as a full-size convection oven. The heat is from the tractor engine and drive train, and the sunlight is unfiltered and magnified through the glass. The fan, while not providing any cooling, does distribute the heat evenly throughout the cooking space. Replace SPF 15 sunscreen with olive oil, salt, pepper and a dash of paprika and you end up with braised winegrower by mid-August.

And wouldn’t you know it. One tractor has a hydraulic pump attached to the crankshaft pulley. There is no way to just slip on a new belt. That means to change the belt that runs the air conditioning compressor, the entire front end of this machine has to be disassembled. And then reassembled. Correctly. While this is unfortunate, it is not uncommon in farm equipment.

The first thing to cover for the Vintage 2020 numbers is that 2020 is a leap year. If you were born on February 29th or have a wedding anniversary, this is your Special Year! Enjoy it now, as 2024 is a long ways off, and “the future ain’t what it used to be”. On February 29th we recorded a high temperature of 45.3 degrees and a low temperature of 29.7 degrees. We hope you made the most of it.

For the first month of the growing season, April 2020, we logged 133.5 Degree Days. The high temperature for the 30 day period was 79.3 degrees and the low temperature was 30.7 degrees. The first half of the month was cooler registering 41.6 Degree Days and recorded the low temperature. The second half of the month registered 91.9 Degree Days and recorded the high temperature.

And it seems Ernie’s prior vintage rain dances have a half-life. April rain slogged in at 1.33 inches. Note: The rainfall will continue to be expressed in 2 sig-figs. There is no reason for it, it just seems like the right thing to do. Kinda like some lockdown regimes.

Cleaning up the cellar. The COVID-19 SIP regulations have given us an opportunity to raid our cellar and we imagine you may have too. We have tucked into a little Spanish wine from the 1980’s which is sublime, and Ernie’s favorite Northern Rhône Côte Rôties from the 1990’s and somehow we found a bottle of Bordeaux from 1982. We tucked that one back away as it seems it has another 100 or more years to go.

And then we found this. From the very corner, bottom shelf of our library racks we uncovered a cache of our very early vintages. Only a few bottles of some blends and just a handful of cases in total of 2006-2007-2008-2009 vintages. There is an odd magnum or two to be had as well. Of course, we immediately performed the necessary Quality Control measures and are able to report that these wines are just singing!

The first vintage in our estate winery was 2006. That was the year, trial by fire. But it worked out pretty well. We made our first vintage of The Reserve in 2006 – just about 24 cases worth. So, we sent our first vintage of The Reserve, Amalie’s Cuvée and Estate Pinot Noirs off for review. And we sent them to the toughest critic of them all – Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar. The best review and highest score awarded from the 2006 vintage was a 93. And we were very, very pleased to see that our inaugural vintage of The Reserve earned that score. Our individual wines, Amalie’s Cuvée and Estate both came in at 92 points. As far as inspiration goes, 2006 was a very significant year for Dena and Ernie at Amalie Robert Estate. And then there was Ernie’s favorite vintage, 2007 where The Reserve once again earned the top score from the vintage from not only Stephen Tanzer, but also Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate. Just sayin’.

Please have a look at the following availability. We are offering these wines first come, first serve. If you see something you like, just press the Big Blue Button and an E-mail window to Dena will open where you can indicate your selections. Please specify 750 ml or 1.5 liter format. Dena will confirm back with pricing and availability. Happy Hunting!

And here is a Vintage Scorecard to help you in your quest. You can also check out the Vintage Vestibule to review past vintages.

http://www.amalierobert.com/vintage-vestibule.html

We have all SIP’d and pulled together to flatten the curve. Well done one and all! However, there could be another curve to pay attention to later this year. And that will be in the form of increased maternity ward activity just about 9 months after your local SIP order was issued. Time to find the waffle maker and get busy in the kitchen. Somebody put the kettle on.

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: May 2019

Hello and Welcome, 

  

This is the Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: May 2019. A FLOG Communication. 

  

May is the month the vines get busy and in turn the vineyard hands get busy with vine shoots and trellis wires. Miles and miles of vineyard trellis wires. In our vineyard construct, we run about 9 miles of trellis wires per acre. With each and every shoot perfectly tucked in by hand. That ought to hold ‘em till harvest.

Ernie spent most of April dodging raindrops and getting the vineyard floor turned, tilled and seeded for the summer with a cover crop mix of Buckwheat and Vetch – a timeless combination not unlike Pommard and Wadenswil.

     

                       

“Owners/winemakers Dena Drews and Ernie Pink have always marched to their own beat, opting to release their extensive range of wines after they have had some bottle age.” – Josh Raynolds, Vinous, June 2019

Now it is the vines’ turn to take the lead. With plenty of soil moisture and warm temperatures in early May, the vines took the advantage and played right into our viticultural plan. You see, while Ernie was out burning diesel, the vineyard crew was preparing for this very event. Their task in April was to count to 12, on about 50,000 vines.

Deep Dive - Vine Shoot Spacing

This is our “deep dive” into vine shoot spacing and the number 12. First, lets review the mental construct that precludes the number 12 and that is vineyard spacing. Yep, we are talking about vine density or vines per acre. The next time you look out into an open field try and visualize 43,560 square feet. That’s an acre. Or when the NFL comes back on, that football field is 1.32 acres including the endzones.

Or you could do it the Ernie way. He decided that the most optimal vine spacing on our dry farmed sedimentary Bellpine series soil would be 7.5 feet for the tractor row and a cozy 4 feet between each vine. That provides us with 1,452 vines per acre. Using farmer math, we can break that down like this.

First, we start with our acre of land, 43,560 square feet. Then we divide that by our tractor row spacing of 7.5 feet and that gets us to 5,808 lineal feet of vines per acre. Said another way, an acre is a strip of land that is 7.5 feet wide and 5,808 feet long. A quarter mile race track is 1,320 feet long, so a mile would be 5,280 feet. Ergo, we are 1.1 lineal miles per acre. That becomes important next month when we talk about a fully functioning canopy, aka our solar array.

So what we do is break up that 5,808 lineal feet into a vine at every 4 feet. Logically, 5,808 divided by 4 gives us the magic number of 1,452 vines per acre. There is a little more math left to go, so if you are starting to feel some swelling at your frontal lobe, this would be the right time to break out the duct tape and apply a few wraps.

As most of you have no doubt figured out, each vine has 30 square feet of soil to colonize. It has 2 feet each front and back and 3.75 feet side to side. The only variable is effective rooting depth. Ask Ernie about rootstock growth habits sometime. Or just wait until the August drought for the rootstock “deep dive”.

Right, back on point. The trellis system we adopted for our vineyard construct is called Vertical Shoot Positioned or VSP. And we employ a single Guyot, because he couldn’t find a date. Actually, that is a farming term we will get to soon, relatively speaking. When you train vines to grow into a trellis system, which you have to do each and every year as they seem to have the attention span of a gnat, you have to decide on cane pruning or cordon spur pruning.

In the last best place to grow Pinot Noir, we choose to cane prune. This means we take a (smart) shoot from last year that was successfully trained to grow into the trellis and wrap that on the fruiting wire which is conveniently located 30 inches above the vineyard floor oriented (not orientated) in a horizontal plane. This is so that the new shoots can be trained to grow vertically into the trellis system until they reach a total height of 90 inches at which point Ernie goes out and hedges their shoot tips off. That’s our canopy, it’s 60 inches tall starting at 30 inches off the vineyard floor and tops out at a solar radiation maximizing 90 inches. Assume 18 inches thick and for each 48 inch long, single Guyot that makes 51,840 cubic inches of canopy, or 30 cubic feet. That’s the same soil footprint at 1 foot deep. Hmmm…

We are going to bring it home now. When you wrap a cane onto the fruiting wire the cane is called a Guyot. In our vineyard construct we have 4 feet between each vine and choose to run a single unidirectional 4 foot Guyot, mostly. While it wasn’t obvious at first, Viognier does not like a single, unidirectional 4 foot Guyot. So we tried a double, bi-directional 2 foot Guyot, but not much better. How about a double, bi-directional 3 foot Guyot, happy now? Yes, I like that. Very good.

A cordon is what they typically use in the Napa-Sonoma Nebula. It’s as if someone put down a cane one year and forgot to prune it back the next. For those of you who don’t know, Cabernet Sauvignon is the galactic faux pas that was created when Sauvignon Blanc met Cabernet Franc in Bordeaux. It’s a different world in a galaxy far, far away.

On each Guyot, there are several buds that will push shoots that in turn will produce clusters of wine berries. From a wine quality point of view, we would like to have enough space between each cluster for good air flow and sun exposure. That means we are looking for about a 4 inch space between each shoot distributed equally along the 4 foot cane. We want 3 shoots per foot of cane times 4 feet of cane. Aha! That’s how we get to 12. So easy a winemaker can do it!

The vines could care less. Sometimes there are 6 or even 8 shoots per foot of cane. Sometimes a shoot will have a double shoot that grows right next to it. Imagine an aerial view of any interstate in the USA. Those cars are not equally distributed along the road. And then there is the guy in the far left lane doing one mile an hour over the posted speed limit. The spacing behind that car is short, and over time will come to reflect the temperament of the following drivers.

So, that is what the vineyard hands were doing in April. They were out there equally distributing 12 shoots along a 4 foot cane, about 50,000 times. And what about the epicormic buds? Yeah, we take those suckers off at the same time!

During the month of May we have the vines right where we want them, growing into the trellis wires! And they are getting some help from a team of specially trained vineyard workers. Now get this, since there were only 12 growing points and not 25 or 30, the shoots grow faster and that makes it much easier to catch them in the trellis wires.

Surface the boat! The deep dive exercise is concluded.

Farm Equipment

It wouldn’t be May without an appropriate tribute to farm equipment. “Hey, is that a new battery cable? Looking good!” Most every corner of the wine growing planet has produced some form of wine growing equipment. Some more useful and certainly more reliable than others. As Ernie has lamented frequently, all three of his tractors are of the Italian persuasion, oh joy.

The hedger is French and mounts on one of the Italian stallions. After 20 years, they have worked it out. The flail mower is made domestically, by an Irish founded company. The rototiller, which is as tough of an implement as you are likely to find, is German. Jawhol!

That leaves the vineyard sprayer, which comes from our good friends up north in Penticton, British Columbia, Cehnehdeh. You see up north, “a” is pronounced “eh”. Ernie had to buy a new sprayer a few years back. It was the same manufacturer and he just upgraded to the latest version. While this may sound kinda funny, farm equipment does evolve. Better components, larger tanks and more money.

“What the hell is a sprayer?” We hear you. Check out this vintage advert for sprayers in 1924. Some were designed for the horticulturists of the day to apply some sort of airborne mixture to a rose bush. The goal is for the ejecta (in a water vapor form) to land on the rose bush and prevent mildew or other nefarious insects from taking over.

While the modern-day implementation may have changed, the goal remains the same – to prevent mildew from growing on your bush.

The gentlemen of the day, however, appear more concerned with other, more pressing matters.

For roughly $25,000 CDN, you too can purchase a device that will apply an airborne mixture of sulfur and water to prevent mildew from growing on your horticultural bush or agricultural crop, such as wine berries. Water is simply the delivery vehicle to get the sulfur onto the vines. Much like French fries are a delivery vehicle for ketchup. And yes, sulfur is organic, but we are not so sure about the ketchup.

When you purchase a new piece of equipment, you are buying “time”. While there are “all kinds of time”, there never seems to be “enough time”. As in “productive time” without “down time”. “Over time” as equipment depreciates, it begins to offer the Master Farmer “some time” to reverse engineer its inner workings.

While Occam’s razor is a fine tool to be implemented in most situations, it is rarely applicable to farm equipment. Much better tools are hammers (in a range of sizes), the internet, telephony and electronic payment processing capability. And speaking of “buying time”, there is Next Day Air.

Farmers, while generally risk adverse people in their non-farming lives, are also somewhat impatient. As in “this needs to be done now before the rains or hail or birds arrive”. Hence the TLA (Three Letter Acronym) RFN which stands for “Right Farming Now”. Pick your pestilence, in any given agricultural endeavor at any point in the growing season, but especially harvest, and you will see the true metal of a Master Farmer shine through.

In Ernie’s case it was 24 hours from the problem detection point until returning to productive time. Pretty good, really. But the protocol is very simple. The first step is identifying you have a problem. That was the easiest step, as one side of the sprayer was spraying the vines and the other side was not. Ok, that’s a real and verified problem.

The second step is to determine why the problem is occurring. Since the valves on the sprayer are all electronically controlled, Ernie focused on tracing power through a variety of fuses, connections, switchboxes, relays and solenoids, most of which were not designed for easy access. It’s an Italian tractor pulling and providing the power to a Cehnehdiehn sprayer.

After consulting the owner’s manual, which was actually written in American English, performing a set of tests, and leaving 2 messages with the manufacturer, it was time for lunch. Lunch lasts just as long as it takes for all of the second step activities to gel into a plan of action. Then it is back on the phone to the manufacturer.

“Well, it could be …” Yes, of course it could, and I just saw a unicorn run by. After getting a matrix-like download on sprayer valves, and phone numbers for US based parts houses that might have inventory, Ernie was on it. But first a call to the closest parts house. “They are really busy right now. I can take a message and have them call you back.” Ernie left a detailed message with the part number he would most likely need. Two days later, there was a call back, “What can we help you with?” That’s just farmin’ great.

One of the advantages of newer equipment is that the parts have evolved and become easier to disassemble, if you have the newer tools that evolved alongside said parts. Hammers, however, are universal and percussive maintenance has stood the test of time. An hour later with everything disassembled, cleaned and reassembled in accordance with the manufacturer’s recommendation, lo and behold, it still did not work!

  

Once the impossible is ruled out, only the improbable remains. After all the internals were verified, the only possible explanation was the motor that controlled the valve. Sure enough, it worked one out of three times. Looking back on it, that one time it did work was most likely sampling error. So, back to the list of parts houses in hopes the inventory supply chain had functioned as intended and correctly stocked the shelves with all the right parts in all the right places.

The most local parts house was still far too busy to take the call or return the call from the hour prior. At that point Ernie made a phone in Yakima, Washington, ring and spoke with Jonathon. It was 3:35 pm. ”Why yes, we have one of those. We have a bunch of them.” Ernie immediately thought about buying a spare and just as quickly forgot to do so.

Once the part was physically verified as actually being in stock, the financial transaction ensued. Credit card declined? How could this be? Run it again, same result. “Is this an American Express card? We don’t take that.” New card and we have success. 3:45 pm.

Yes, I do want Next Day Air, Ernie confirmed. After the $400 valve motor an extra $25 was gravy for next day delivery. “OK, UPS picks up at 4:00, we should make it.” Ernie fell silent as he heard the pitter patter of parts man fingers gently working their magic on the UPS shipping website. “Got it” came through at 3:52 pm. Now the hard part. Waiting to see if it actually arrives. Who remembers sending off box tops as a kid, only to grow old and unfulfilled?

Miracle of miracles occurred at 9:55 am the VERY NEXT morning when the most beautiful UPS truck on the whole planet backed down the driveway. “Here you go, have a nice day.” Ernie scurried back into the house and with surgical precision opened the box. It looked just like the valve motor he was trying to replace.

Down to the shop, a quick tap with the most appropriate hammer and the old valve motor was off and the new one was on. Now the moment of truth, would it work? Ernie wired it up, flipped the switch and just as sure as Shinola, it did. Throwback to the old Microsoft days in Europe, “We don’t ask for miracles; we depend on them!”

The Numbers

May started off on a tear with the first half of the month recording near record high temperatures. Mid-May transitioned to an influx of rain and cool temperatures. Were we seeing an ominous preview of harvest 2019? Then the end of the month came through with more moderate day and nighttime temperatures. Just ideal for capturing the new vine shoots in our single 4 foot Guyot Vertical Shoot Positioned trained trellis system - mostly.

May’s high temperature was 93.2 degrees recorded early in the month on the 10^th. The low temperature for the month was 34.3 degrees recorded on May 1^st. The diurnal shifts in the first half of the month were wider and produced a higher average temperature of 59.01 compared with the second half of the month at 57.97 degrees.

Degree Days for May were 295.3 with the first half of the month registering 161.0 and latter period 134.3 Degree Days. The growing season to-date Degree Days stand at 400.3 for 2019 compared with 392.3 Degree Days for 2018. While an 8 Degree Day difference is measurable, at this stage of the growing season it is statistically insignificant. Just don’t tell the vines, they are getting ready to flower.

Rainfall came mostly during the third week of the month, well before flowering, registering 1.53 inches, providing a full month total of 1.79 inches. While the data support no conclusions as of yet, Vintage 2019 is shaping up to be pretty farmin’ nice.

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie