Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: 2013 September

Hello and Welcome,

This is the climate update for the month of September 2013, such that it is.

“From here on in anything could happen and probably will.”

                                    – Amalie Robert Estate Mid-September 2013 Climate Update

There is a technical farming term to accurately and succinctly describe the second half of September. It is not a term we can publish, but we will give you a hint – it rhymes with “Kitty.”

The vintage was rolling right along through the third week of September. We had a little shower early in the month to wash off the dust and give the vines a little soil moisture to finish their work of ripening seeds. A quick cluster sample gave us a clue, we were not ready. That, and the tell tale walnut tree was still holding green. It usually starts to senesce into a beautiful yellow torch when it is time to bring in the fruit.

The cluster sample provided us with a quick reading of sugars and acids. We saw the sugars were moderate in the 22 Brix range. This is the middle ground between 20 and 24 and provides an alcohol estimate of about 13 percent. If you just knew the number without the weather context you would be ready to cluster pluck. The other shoe dropped when we took a look at the pH. It was close to 3.25 which is historically very low (acidic) for our vineyard and the way we grow our wine.

All together now: “What does that mean and why should I care!?”

It means that we had another spot of rain before we were able to take the cluster sample. To look at the clusters, you would see the wineberries were fully pumped up with juice. That juice is now containing a higher percentage of water. So instead of reading 25 Brix and making 15% alcohol wines, we are bending the sugar curve down. The water diluted our sugars and we like that.

So why not pick ‘em? The acids as measured by the pH meter are also diluted. A pH of 3.25 is pretty low (acidic) for our Pinot Noir. Now consider where we were before the last cloud outburst. Take a bit of that water out of that berry and you would see a higher concentration of acid, maybe adjusting the pH down to 3.15. This tells us the wineberries have not completed their ripening program as indicated by high acids.

For several reasons, but only one we will elaborate on here, we simply cannot imagine making wine from someone else’s fruit. Each of our 36 blocks has their own little idiosyncrasies and unique characteristics that we are intimately familiar with. These all come into play when making a harvest decision to go or to wait.

One key factor of our winegrowing program has a significant impact on acids and that is our leaf pull regime. We pull very few leaves in our Pinot Noir because we will be fermenting those wineberries with a portion of the stems. Yes, this is a WTF (Waft The Fruit) moment.

Wineberries exposed to the sun develop aromas, flavors and phenolics (tannin.) Like most things in life that taste good, you can have too much of a good thing here. Excessive sun exposure will develop harsh or astringent tannins in the wine. A little more shading will temper this development into more sexy and sublime aromas and flavors with moderate tannins.

Here is where the whole clusters come into play. The stems that the wineberries are maturing on are a woody structure of the vine. We add a portion of our fruit to the fermenter “on the stem.” That means these stems are in the fermenter adding a bit of flavor and tannin complexity of their own. They also add a fair bit of astringency.

You can do this experiment in the privacy of your own home with a bunch of table grapes. Remove the grapes from the stem and chew on it. It should not take long before you will be experiencing the influence of whole cluster fermentation. Remember to say “Kitty!”

OK, let’s bring it home. Shading our fruit allows us to develop a more elegant aroma and flavor profile in our wines without the harsh tannin of overexposed wineberries. The stem adds a little astringent tannin to give our wines a strong backbone. We then go into barrel for 18 months to soften that astringency, a bit. The result is a well balanced tannin structure that, paired with firm acidity, is the secret to long lived wines that will continue to develop intriguing aromas, flavors and textures.

So, what does this have to do with pH? Wineberries grown in a more shaded canopy have a higher pH. We typically see our pH rise to well over 3.50 before harvest. So when we see a pH reading of 3.25, and it is diluted due to a little rain, we know they are not ready for the big cluster pluck.

And of course, there is more to the story. The skins still taste like green bananas when you chew them. The seeds are almost martini olive green, but not quite. And there is still a fair bit of gelatinous pulp around the seeds. This should be mostly gone in a fully flavored and “aroma-ed” wineberry. Ergo, they are not ready

And then it rained.

The old timers around here, after a bit of prodding, will tell you about 1984. That was the year the waterworks started in September and simply did not stop. They will talk about harvesting with “Oregon Buckets.” These are buckets that have drainage holes drilled in the bottoms to let the rainwater out. For you collectors out there, try and find a bottle of 1984 vintage Oregon Pinot Noir. Take your time. If you do find one, it will be a rare treat indeed as very little red wine was made that year. Then again, some things are better to want than to have.

And it kept raining.

  

It seems the Japanese do have some influence and control over Oregon Pinot Noir. The weather system that provided a seemingly unending supply of rain was fueled by Typhoon Pabuk. Typhoon Pabuk was heading to Japan for a little R&R (rain and ruin.) But, a typhoon is typically not the stealthiest weather pattern and it was detected just in time. A strong weather front gathered itself together from the mainland, pushed over the Sea of Japan and confronted Typhoon Pabuk in the Pacific Ocean. Apparently, there were some issues surrounding diplomatic protocol and bringing in undeclared aquaculture products. In short order, Typhoon Pabuk was sent packing to the northeast.

It was windy too, which brought even more rain.

One man’s northeast is another man’s northwest. And that would happen to be where history found Ernie the weekend of September 28-29, 2013. The good news is the rototilling is all done. The alternate rows are ready for the winter cover crops that are selected to nourish our vines in the Spring and hold the soil in place during the winter rains. The bad news is that the cover crop is sitting in the seed drill waiting to be planted in the vineyard.

It was warm rain. Anyone have a Geiger counter?

And that seems to make sense. Typhoons are tropical events and if they are going to party, it is going to be with warm rain. Warm rain is not so good, and three days of warm rain is really … “Kitty.” Warm rain means we are about to experience a significant Botrytis event.

While we have been trying to keep dry, Botrytis has been loving the wet weather. Sure some of the spores are getting washed off. But the ones that had been on verge of compromising the fruit are well positioned to take over the entire cluster. This will happen the first week of October, when the sun is rumored to appear and crank up the heat. That’s gonna be a real big “Kitty.”

As we harvest, we will be very vigilant in keeping the Botrytis out of the fermenters. In that regard it will be very similar to a Burgundy harvest. The climate there often provides showers during the growing season that helps Botrytis get a foothold. They don’t have anything as cool as Typhoon Pabuk of course, but they do get Botrytis all the same.

At least the nets are up.

After several years of watching the birds feast on the more exposed areas of the vineyard, Ernie stopped wishing they would go away and just netted the vines. This was after abandoning the idea of tenting the vineyard like an aviary – hawks and all. In hindsight, the correct maneuver would have been to tarp the whole field.

The numbers are classified.

Let’s put it this way. If the government can figure out how to keep spending our money unabated, we will show you the numbers. Probably a pretty safe bet.

We are ready for harvest, as much as we can be. Ernie has selected a ¼ inch bit to start drilling holes in the harvest buckets. We have laid in harvest provisions and a 10 pound bag of whole bean “Dark Monster” to brew up every morning. Fresh wool socks and a new pair of Giorgio Farmani boots help keep everything moving along. After 14 years here if you don’t know how to dress for harvest, you don’t know Jac Shirt.

Kindest Regards,

Dena, Ernie and Typhoon Pabuk

Amalie Robert Climate Update: 2013 Mid-September

Hello and Welcome,

This is the climate update for Mid-September 2013.

We spend a significant amount of time and go to a good deal of trouble to explain what we do in the vineyard and winery. Perhaps we have been going about this all wrong. Why just the other day, and for quite a few days now, we keep hearing about the data collection and data mining efforts that are being undertaken, or just taken, on our behalf. And recently we have had this crazy craving for Russian Caviar.

Soon we will be launching our own “Vineyard Vision.” Ernie has had a few spare moments, and you would be amazed at what he can cobble together out of that old flail mower and a few other pieces of “vintage” farm equipment. Sometime after harvest we will be launching our very own Interactive Communications Uplink (ICU) Satellite. Yep, there will be an app for that, for sure, for sure, good buddy!

Now we know this has been tried before, but with limited success. You see that was before the Smartphone and all those (foreign and domestic) Smartphone apps that are tracking our every move, credit card transaction, conversation, and perhaps image capture as well. And how do they get your driving directions so accurate? This is fertile ground to till, friends.

Meanwhile back on the farm, September has been one heck of a ride! You can see what we mean by going to Google Maps and typing in 13531 Bursell Road, Dallas, Oregon. Try it on your Smartphone…

September has been running hot and warm. We have seen the August trend continue, but with an unexpected shower of about an inch of rain. Ernie was really hoping for some cool rain to slow down the sugar accumulation in the wineberries. What he got was warm rain and plenty of it.

For those of you that are new to this communiqué, hold onto your apps. One inch of rain over an acre of land is 27,150 gallons of water. We received this gift from Mother Nature during the evening hours of September 5^th.  This was big water in a short window. Our vines are planted at a density of 1,452 per acre. So you would not be inaccurate to say that each vine just gained access to a little over 18 gallons of water. We like to see the vines produce enough fruit to produce one bottle of wine per vine* – that is about 0.2 gallons. You old timers would know this as “a fifth.”

* Each ton of Pinot Noir harvested produces just about 60 cases of wine. Two tons of Pinot Noir from an acre of land will yield 120 cases (1,440 bottles) of wine from 1,452 vines.

You may be asking yourself where all of that rain is going to go. That would be a very good question, and is exactly what is on Ernie’s mind. There are only 2 places that much water can go:

First and fastest is the grass. Every other row of the vineyard has a permanent grass row. We use Tall Fescue as it has deep roots to survive our dry farmed vineyard in the summer. Now we had a little shot of rain at the end of August, about 0.25 inches. This woke up the grass and it started to green up. That means the grass is ready to take up a portion of this new rainfall. The warm temperatures are also helping it to grow. Nice.

The other half of the vineyard holds our fertilizer for this fall – Vetch to set Nitrogen and Buckwheat to help with Phosphorus uptake in the vines. These are 2 macronutrients the vines need every year. But those plants are pretty much dormant from the dry summer and are not going to take up a significant amount of that water. Not so much.

That leaves us with the water percolating down thorough the soil profile where the roots are waiting. Not much else they can do really. It’s not like they are going to run to town for beers. That’s our job.

The canopy is now in control. The leaves have a capillary ability to pull water from the soil via the roots. As the sun shines down on the leaves they carry out photosynthesis, convert that nasty carbon dioxide into oxygen that we all need and absorb heat. They cool themselves by opening stomata on their backside and release a little water vapor along with the oxygen. This is a very natural and biologically necessary function in most plants and many animals, some more than others – usually the males. So, the more leaves we have and the warmer the temperatures, the more of the available soil moisture will be transpired through the leaves. Very good.

Along with the leaves transpiring this moisture into the atmosphere, the wineberries are strategically positioned between the roots and the leaves to pick up some of this water on the way by. This can be good since the wineberries have had a hot and dry summer where they have desiccated a bit. This means the sugars will read very high because there is very little water left in the berry. High sugar accumulation before flavor development is bad, so we like a little moisture in the wineberries. Good.

However, an inch of rain is not a little moisture. The risk we are now exposed to is split berries and Botrytis bunch rot. As the leaves are pulling up moisture, the berries are packing it in. Late in the season the cell walls in the skins are starting to break down and release aromas that are like pheromones that stimulate the animal urges in … animals. This is good for wine quality as well, especially if you believe that a fine Pinot Noir is the embodiment of sex in a glass. Yeah, I’ll take a piece of that action!

However when these cell walls break down and the skins start to thin out it means too much water can burst the berry. When this happens, the cluster will start to rot with Botrytis. This is not good, as the cluster is now lost. No animal will eat that cluster when the cluster 3 inches away is just fine. Now that cluster is lost as well, and so on. Not so nice.

Ergo, the growing season to date has been quite warm and dry. The wineberries had been reading high sugars that meant an early harvest to keep alcohol levels down, but without great flavor development. This early September soaking has had the effect of diluting those sugars and thereby allowing for a little more hang time to develop those sexy, silky flavors we so desire. Now if they just hold together and don’t split we will be out to get them in a jiffy!

Let’s have a look at the numbers, and maybe a nice cold farming bier. That’s right, Okto-vember is just around the corner!

The first 15 days of September accumulated 248.3 degree days, had a high of 94.9 (recorded on 9/11 at 3:20 pm) and a low of 50.9 (recorded 9/7 at 3:20 am) for a 2013 growing season total of 1,985.3. This number looks a lot like 2,000 degree days which marks a nice cool climate growing season especially suited to Pinot Noir.

And we had rain. The evening of September 5^th brought us a full inch, increasing the growing season total to 7.53 inches. Well (a hole in the ground with water in it), the grass certainly has greened up!

From here on in anything could happen and probably will. The warm temperatures up into the 90s after our early September rain event helped to green up the grass and rehydrate the wineberries. The rest of September is looking kinda carppy with miserable little cloud outbursts here and hopefully over there. The good news is that we have finally slowed down the growing season to let the flavors catch up with the sugars. However, we now face the risk of split berries and Botrytis bunch rot. If 2011 was a character building vintage, success in 2013 will be marked by nimble harvest operations ready to go at a moments notice. That’s how the birds do it. Welcome to the advanced class.

Bonus Material: For those of you actually considering getting into growing wine in Oregon, please refresh yourselves on the definitions of the following 2 words: Could and Should. As used in a sentence: “Oh sure, I could grow great wineberries.” And “Growing wineberries and placing my family’s entire financial future in Mother Nature’s hands is not something I should be doing.” May we suggest writing the second sentence on a cocktail napkin and carrying it with you during the evening hours in case the need to use it suddenly arises?

This is what we had to say for Mid-September 2012:

Ah, the numbers. We take a reading mid month in September because we can. It is just another data point along the way and helps us to understand our fruit development coming down the home stretch. Through the 15th of September, we have accumulated 244 Degree Days, for a growing season to date total of 1,718. We are only 4 Degree Days short of the entire 2010 growing season of 1,722! But wait, there's more.

Our high temperature was 97.1 and our low temperature for the month was a brisk 41.0 degrees Fahrenheit. There was no rainfall in the first 15 days of September. Rainfall since April 1st through September 15th remains 8.96 inches. A full and comparative report will be provided at month end.

But heat units aren't the whole story. We need time for the berries to ripen their seeds and ultimately develop stunning flavors and aromas while maintaining vibrant acidity. Besides, the birds aren't here yet. The real excitement begins in the second half of September. We expect a little precipitation, but who knows when.

In the past few cool vintages, it has been the latter half of September and the first half of October that Mother Nature decided to send a little love our way. Then there was 2011, where September felt like April and we burned through all of October to finish our Pinot Noir harvest the first week of November! That tingling sensation originated just below our spines. We think of the 2011 vintage often, but not fondly.

"Lean into it" they say. Yep, that's what’s next - Okto-vember. More than any other time during the year, this 61 day period is when we switch from wine to bier. It's a Germanic thing. See you next month!

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: 2013 August

Hello and Welcome,

This is the climate summary for the month of August 2013 (Julian calendar days 213-243 inclusive.)

They say the line between genius and insanity is a thin one. We would add that in winegrowing this relationship is in a constant state of flux dependant upon the weather. And the final product, even years down the road, is repeatedly subject to interpretation.

August has been such a month. We have had very warm days with dry breezes from the east. The mornings have sometimes blessed us with a heavy onshore flow from the coast providing humidity and cloud cover, and on the 15^th an early morning double rainbow over Block 2. The evening sunsets and the full moon have been stunning. And we have even had the “R” word. Yep, a little bit of rain to close out the month. But to get a true read on the vintage, we need to pay attention to the underlying fundamentals – night time temperatures which have been warm.

For us, the line between unripe fruit and wonderfully expressive flavors and aromas in Pinot Noir occurs at about 105 days after flowering. In that other Pinot Noir growing region, Burgundy, they only need about 100 days to cross the threshold. So what gives? The nights in Burgundy are typically a little warmer, and even a little increase in temperature adds up over 100 days.

But what does this mean and why should I care? It means that during the day the leaves are carrying on photosynthesis and exporting that energy through the vascular tissue to the rest of the plant. This is how the vine is building sugars in the wineberries. However, the leaf can generate much more energy than it can export during the daytime hours.

As nightfall approaches the temperatures begin to drop. The leaf is still trying to export energy back into the vine, and will continue to do so until the temperatures drop down to below 50 degrees Fahrenheit. At that point, the vascular tissue is too cold to continue transporting energy from the leaves. The leaves are left to store the energy until the temperature rises.

As the sun rises and greets the vines, the leaves are once again photosynthetically active. However, the leaves are still storing energy from the day before. This limits the amount of photosynthesis that can occur each day, and in turn increases the number of days necessary to ripen the fruit. Now, 100 v 105 days may not seem like much, but try holding your breath for 5 days. It makes a difference.

But wait, there’s more! As part of the Pinot Noir cluster, we have the wing. This little, or sometimes large, appendage has got to go. Here’s why. The wing flowers about a week after the main cluster and therefore ripens about a week late. We would prefer not to have the unripe flavors from these berries in our wine, so we nip them off. That’s about a minute per vine by 45,000 vines. That’s pretty easy farmer math.

Now let’s talk about ripeness. What does it really mean? We look at it from two points of view. The first is the scientific analysis. We measure the fermentable sugars, primarily Fructose and Glucose, represented as Brix. We know that we will convert sugars to alcohol at a rate of about 60%. So if we have 20 Brix in our fruit, we will end up with about 12% alcohol. If we see 25 Brix it means we waited a bit too long and are peddling 15% alcohol Pinot Noir. Those are the rules of the road.

Acids are great and we measure those with a pH meter. For those of you who skipped high school chemistry, like Ernie, just remember the lower the pH the more acidic the wine will be. A microbial stable wine will be somewhere between 3.0 and 3.7 pH, the lower the better for extended aging. That is why wines from cool, character building vintages like 2005, 2007, 2010 and 2011 may need a little more time to tell their stories than warmer, more accessible vintages.

Once the numbers tell us we are “in the zone” we can get onto more subjective evaluations. The objective here is to understand what the wineberries taste and smell like. Think of the grape skin as a little flavor and aroma packet. Our job as wine growers is to use the 105 days of ripening to influence how those flavors and aromas will develop. We have several tools at our disposal including removing leaves to increase sun exposure, or not. We hedge the canopy to help accelerate ripening or let the shoot tips grow to slow down the ripening process. Cover crops and grasses play a role by taking up excess moisture when they are allowed to grow tall. Not so much when Ernie lowers the flail for a tight trim.

It also helps to keep the crystal ball in good repair so as to factor in what Mother Nature has planned. Obviously, we spend a lot of time in the vineyard tending to the vines. It keeps us off the streets, but we can only dance to the music she plays. And our station is WTFR (Waft The Fruit Radio) where the hits keep on coming.

So, there it is. The canopy is still looking very green and healthy. The wineberries are turning from green to mauve to purple. We are trimming off excess crop and the late to ripen wings. We are also waiting for a spot of rain to soften up the rows in the vineyard so Ernie doesn’t have to buy a new rototiller this year. Then the summer cover crop gets turned into the soil and we put down about 50 pounds per acre of Winter Peas to fix nitrogen and Rye Grass to hold it until the Spring when the cycle starts over again. No chemical fertilizer here, we grow our own!

Of course, everyone has an opinion on the upcoming vintage quality. It is said that only journalists can know the quality of a vintage before the grapes are actually harvested. That may be true, but we also have our own “Peanut Gallery.”

These guys and hens are constantly in the vineyard. Mostly they are eating the Buckwheat seeds from the summer cover crop mix. But they pop off quite often and loudly. We usually get an earful at the breakfast table, as there favorite spot to orate is in the shrubbery between the kitchen and block 2. They also have their own rabbit. He, or she, seems to be quite shy and we have yet to see an appropriate suitor on the scene.

 

And Peaches is still running around here somewhere. Ernie was discing the “Upper West Side” getting ready for a spring planting of Wadenswil clone when he saw this beautiful doe running along the inside of the new deer fence. Her coat was the most amazing color of a Redtail hawk’s tail feather. Not much to worry about in the vineyard just now, so Ernie geared down on the crawler and let her by. Since Ernie’s encounter, Peaches has been a bit shy, so we’ve issued a “Missing Peaches Report.” We expect she is getting ready for the rut and will be back in fine form just as the grapes ripen up.

Before we get to the numbers, we wanted to remind everyone that if you are doing any home repairs or remodels, you need one of these. This basic model has a handle for red and a handle for white. However, with just a little more effort you can find a model that will provide several choices to match your mood. We do recommend that if you are addicted to bubbles like Dena, the traditional glass bottle and tree bark stopper is the proper way to go.

And here are the numBERRRRs!

We have recorded 524 degree days for the month of August, providing a total of 1,737 degree days since the beginning of the growing season on April 1, 2013 (Julian calendar day 91.) For analytical comparative purposes only, the 2010 vintage only recorded 1,722 degree days through the end of OctoBERRRR.

Silky, sexy wines they are, with relatively low alcohol. When Ernie was in Dublin, the Irish guys would say “You can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning.” If that is the case, then 2010 is the vintage.

Crunch ‘em if you got ‘em, and Ernie does. Looking at the first 15 days of August we see a high of 92.0 degrees and a low of 47.2 degrees, with an average temperature of 66.39 degrees. This is from the optimally positioned weather station that takes a temperature reading every 20 minutes. The next 16 days of August provided a high of 89.3 degrees and a low of 50.6 degrees, with an average temperature of 67.31 degrees from the aforementioned, optimally positioned, weather station. The second half of August also brought a shot of rain and heavy cloud cover that held the daytime heat through the evening hours.

Here is what we can glean from these numbers:

R   The high temperatures are well below the levels that will shut down the vine and potentially sunburn overexposed berries.

R   The low temperatures tell us that the vines are continuing to export energy from the leaves during the evening hours. This is advancing the ripening curve and reducing the number of days the vine needs to build sugars.

R   Conversely, the vines are reducing the potential number of days we need to achieve flavors and aromas in the skins due to an advanced ripening trajectory.

R   We may not be able to wait the full 105 days to start harvest operations. Good news for you. You may only need to hold your breath for 3 days instead of 5.

Based on the date the vines flowered plus 105 days, a harvest window opens on day 262 of the Julian calendar (aka Thursday, September 16.) However if September continues on August’s course, we may be forced to begin harvest a little early to avoid high potential alcohol wines. What a change this would be from 2010 and 2011 where we were still harvesting well into NovemBERRRR.

August rainfall occurred from the 25^th thru the 29^th and totals 0.29 inches. While not a significant amount of rain, this event is significant as we typically do not see rain in August. It was a welcome sight as we have been pretty warm and dry since our last rain event on June 30^th. Total rain for the growing season is now 13.37 inches.

Here is what we had to say last year, August 2012:

We have recorded about 545 degree days for the month of August, providing a total of 1,474 degree days since the beginning of the growing season on April 1st. This compares with 582 degree days last August and a comparative total of 1,271 degree days for 2011. Ceteris Paribus for August, but we are still holding our degree day advantage from the Spring.

Our high temperature was 101.0 and Ernie’s hi-tech, wireless weather gauge chose this day to display “OFL.” We couldn’t agree more, it was awful! Our low temperature for the month was 45.4 degrees Fahrenheit. There was no rainfall in August. Rainfall last August was also zero. Rainfall since April 1^st through August 30^th remains 8.96 inches, and is 0.43 inches less than last year's growing season to date rainfall of 9.39 inches.

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Vintage Update: 2013 Pinot Noir In Flagrante!

Well for farming out loud, we’ve got a harvest coming our way!

The first sign of harvest arrived Thursday, August 1, 2013 (day 213 of the Julian calendar.) Yep, it always begins with one little berry just starting to blush, and then before you know it, they’re all gettin’ purple. Wineberries that is, and Pinot Noir in particular.

We’re not the only ones to notice. Here’s Big Nose checking out the crop.

Typically we see this phenomenon manifest itself around the middle of August, or day 227 of the Julian calendar. In that character building vintage of 2011, we were held out until day 237. Think about that, we were over 3 weeks later in 2011 v 2013. For some odd reason 2012, came in right about “average” at day 229. You can read all about it right here in our 2012 Harvest After Action Report (AAR.)

Other than jotting it down for posterity, what does this mean? It means that the birds may very well go hungry this year! Wouldn’t that be something? Actually it means we had better get the oil changed in the tractors, the harvest bins washed up and the winery ready to go because, in about 60 days, we will be harvesting our very first Pinot Noir from the 2013 vintage.

Ernie is quite excited about the Syrah and Viognier hanging out there. While they have ripened every year, this year holds a little more promise, at least on paper. The vines had an early start and have been the beneficiary of some great summer weather. The trick to growing a great cool climate Syrah on our site is hang time. The extra days, or in the case of 2013, perhaps weeks of sun, wind and a little rain on those skins all adds up to more interesting flavors and aromas. Of course, we won’t really know until November when we bring them in.

While we are enjoying the last few weeks of summer, how about a little “Pinot in Pink” Rosé to set the tone? This 2012 vintage wine is 100% Pinot Noir and fermented dry. It is terrific for welcoming the end of a long day, or just relaxing WTF (Wafting The Fruit.) Check it out here and send Dena an E-mail to hook you up! Ernie highly recommends the smoked duck breast.

Tasting Notes: Refracted pink twilight sets the mood. A brief chill returns spring wildflowers, fresh picked strawberries and cut Rhubarb stalk (without the dog influence.) The palate is lively and accessible, bringing a svelte experience backed by delineated acidity, as if taunting you for a taste of something nice. A tribute to the allure of a casual afternoon, or the seriousness of a sunset rendezvous.  30 case production.

Suggested Food Pairings: Fresh Gala apples and your favorite cheeses are a wonderful beginning. Grilled vegetables and the antipasto plate in the picnic basket means you are good to go. Smoked duck breast and fresh Oregon strawberries are the perfect foil. Perhaps a little contraband on that afternoon train ride? Nothing too complicated, life is serious enough.

Before we return you to your regularly scheduled activities, we would like to remind you about the most misunderstood vintage in Oregon’s history. That’s right sports fans, it is the 2007 vintage. If you are new to Oregon Pinot Noir, or this vintage in particular, have a read through our 2007 Vintage Primer.

By now it seems “common knowledge” that the early reports of the vintage were somewhat less than kind to this very expressive and sublime vintage. A lighter body vintage with lower alcohol seemed to be what the mainstream press was clamoring for after a string of very warm vintages, but they blinked. That being so, many bottles of 2007 were consumed very early and not allowed to fully express themselves through bottle maturation.

Now we find ourselves nearly 6 years after the vintage and the wines are, as Glenn Miller would say “In the Mood.” Amalie’s Cuvée and Estate are our “Hers and His” reserves and they are on the band wagon. Our whole cluster fermentation, along with great acidity from the vintage, is standing the test of time by developing layers of flavors and aromas.

If you have been holding onto to these wines to see what they would develop into, your dedication and patience will be rewarded. While we believe they still have many years of life left, and they are providing great pleasure now. If you are short on these wines, please let Dena know and she can kit you out.

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: 2013 July

Hello and Welcome,

This is the climate update for the month of July 2013.

July brings with it the busiest time in the vineyard. The vines are literally growing out of control despite our best efforts to position their shoots and clip them into the wires. It seems we are “all out there steppin’ and fetchin’ like our heads are on fire and our grasses are catchin’.” (A little inspiration from the Charles Daniels band there.)

But then there is the hedging. This machine is the vineyard’s great equalizer. The vines take up as much soil moisture as they can and use it to grow shoots and leaves. The more soil moisture they have, the more of this behavior they exhibit. This is where you can learn a lot just by looking around. The parts of the vineyard that are showing only moderate shoot growth are low on available soil moisture and more likely than not to ripen their fruit earlier than areas with more available soil moisture, ceteris paribus.

However things are never really what they seem, specious maybe, but certainly not ceteris paribus. The hedging, however, makes a good first cut at returning all of the shoot growth to an equal level. At Amalie Robert Estate, we like to see a 7 ½ foot tall canopy, because our rows are 7 ½ feet wide. This maximizes the potential sunlight absorption of the canopy. Really.

For about a week or so after the first hedging pass, it is pretty quiet out there. The vines seem to be shocked into submission. Hardly. What they are doing is preparing for a second offensive. Along each shoot that we have so gingerly tucked into the trellis, there are several lateral buds. Inside these buds lie the potential for a lateral shoot, aka the second offensive. However, these buds will only push and grow that lateral shoot if the growing tip is cut off by the hedger or otherwise removed (usually by some foraging deer, like this one.)

The laterals are useful in growing additional leaf surface area. Something we were very much encouraging in 2010 and 2011. We needed all the leaf surface we could get in those cold vintages. However, in a warmer year like we seem to be experiencing now, too much leaf surface can have less than positive results. One of those is building excess sugars and the other is transpiring what little soil moisture we have too quickly. This combination leads to high sugars before the aromas and flavors in the skins can catch up. As a side note, we go through this every year with Viognier. Such a troublemaker.

There are a couple of things we can do about this. The first is to check the crystal ball to learn what our rain pattern will be this year. The next best alternative is to set the hedger just a little bit lower than 7 ½ feet, but higher than the top of the posts, which are 6 feet – good to know. This will remove a little extra leaf surface and slow down the accumulation of sugar as well as preserving our precious soil moisture. Next, we put a really tight trim on the grass between the rows. Ernie set the flail mower and hedger on the same tractor so he does this in a single pass. What a guy!

Check out the new flail mower – it swings both ways!

After all of this, we venture out into the great unknown – how much crop do we leave on the vine? Our crop load, or fruit set, is not heavy this year and here is the rub. The lower the yield per vine, the faster it will ripen. The faster it ripens, the less chance we have of really great aromas and flavors developing in the skins. Note that there are two kinds of ripening going on here. One is increasing sugars and decreasing acids. The other is flavor development in the skins. Both of these ripening curves depend on water.

Let’s have a closer look at what is happening at the very top of row 66. The clusters on this vine are for the most part still green, except for the guy at the very end. Those berries are almost fully colored. How can this be? Water, or more accurately put - sap. Look closely and you will see the first catch wire is cutting into the shoot. Wires, like the IRS, are unyielding things and the shoot has no where to go. Don’t let this happen to you, have someplace to go, comrade.

This has the effect of cutting off the sap to the shoot and specifically the cluster. The result is the berries getting the message, quite clearly, “RIPEN YOUR SEEDS NOW.” And in so doing, the cell walls of the skins and pulp around the seeds starts to break down. The berry uses its malic acid as an energy source which reduces the acid in the fruit. The dark berries are then spotted by a wandering animal and the seeds are deposited “way the Hell and gone” over the next hill. This is all well and good for the vine; they have seen this movie before. But from a wine quality point of view, we do not have the aroma flavor development yet.

What does this mean and why should I care? Ah yes. What we have just seen with this cluster will happen to the remaining clusters, but naturally. The vine will shut off the sap to each and every cluster, forcing the ripening process to begin. That is when things get interesting.

If we end up with warm breezes from the east, our berries desiccate and make raisins. So leaving a little extra crop will slow down the desiccation and accumulation of sugars and allow for more time on the vine. Another dynamic is in play here. If the vine cannot get water from the soil, it will dip into the clusters. So leaving a bit more fruit is really a hedge to slow down ripening, dilute sugars and increase aroma and flavor development.

If we get a weather pattern from the coast, it is going to rain. But the crystal ball was somewhat elusive in showing us exactly when and how much. Note here that sap and water are not the same things in the vine world. While the vine cuts the cluster off from the sap of the Phloem, it is still connected to the Xylem.

The Xylem, that’s where the water is. If we get rain, the berries on the cluster will absorb that water if the moisture makes it down to the root zone. If this happens, the berries can split and rot in situ. Not all is lost here, the seeds will still have ripened.

But a little moisture is what we are looking for as it also brings cooler temperatures to slow down ripening. A little shower here and there is usually taken up by the grassed rows and not really a big deal. Grasses are the most opportunistic of the plant world, they just wait like crocs at the watering hole. It’s as if they know it will rain. Maybe we should go chat them up…

Either way, the wings are coming off. The wing is the back up plan in case the main cluster does not set much fruit to ripen seeds. It is the back up plan because it sets fruit a week after the main cluster and therefore ripens a week later than the main cluster. We would rather leave a few more clusters and take the wings off, than just take a few clusters off and leave the rest of the clusters with their wings. Call us crazy but, it seems to be working…

Amalie Robert Estate 2010 Wadenswil Clone Pinot Noir earns 93 points from the IWC!

“Bright red. High-pitched cherry and Asian spice aromas are deepened by notes of sassafras, woodsmoke and cola. Stains the palate with sappy red and dark berry flavors and tangy acidity adding lift and cut. An exotic floral nuance emerges with air and carries through a long, sweet and persistent finish. While this energetic pinot is built to age, it has a lot of immediate appeal. 93 points.”

- Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar, July/Aug 2013

Tasting Notes and 2010 Harvest AAR

For those of you who trusted your palate and purchased this wine as futures, well done! Please note we have very limited availability at the winery. Please Email Dena to place your order while we retool our fulfillment solution.

As for our late release 2009 iPinot, there were also some very nice things to be said.

 “Vivid ruby-red. Sexy, spice- and floral-accented aromas of raspberry and cherry-cola, with a smoky topnote. Offers sappy red fruit and floral pastille flavors and notes of gingerbread and white pepper. Shows a silken character, with real back-end energy. Weightier on the gently tannic finish, which strongly echoes the raspberry and floral notes. 92 points.”

- Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar, July/Aug 2013

Tasting Notes and 2009 Harvest AAR

This wine is in good supply and is providing great pleasure now $38 by the bottle and $34 on 6. It gets better if you’re on the A-List. What’s the deal with the A-list?

Well who knew? The lady likes to go fast! It seems Mother Nature has hit top gear and is just rolling that power on! Looking good, sunshine!

We now present the July 2013 numbers from Amalie Robert Estate:

The month of July accumulated a very enjoyable 543.5 degree days, had a high of 92.7 (recorded July 2 at 2:40 pm) and a low of 45.0 (recorded July 22 at 5:40 am) with no farming rain at all. This brings the 2013 growing season up to 1,212.9 degree days from April 1 through July 31. Rainfall for the growing season remains at 6.24 inches.

The race is far from over, as we have heat accumulations for August and September yet to log (and rain, yes we will have rain.) These two months combined are typically in the 600 to 900 degree day range, except when they are not. To wit:

For those of you getting the first taste of the 2010 and 2011 vintages, please bear in mind each of those very cool vintages logged less than 1,800 degree days. Combine that low heat accumulation with an extended ripening window providing hang time into November and you have a couple of vintages for the record books. And many folks thought the 2007 vintage was “special.”

Here is what July 2012 looked like:

We have recorded about 449 degree days for the month of July, providing a total of 929 degree days since the beginning of the growing season on April 1st. This compares with 381 degree days last July and a comparative total of 689 degree days for 2011. During July, our highest high was 90.9 and our lowest low was 43.9 degrees Fahrenheit. 

We received no measurable precipitation for the month of July. July 2011 brought the gift of 1.02 inches of rain. Rainfall from April 1st through July 31st was 8.96, and is 0.40 inches less than last year's growing season to date rainfall of 9.39 inches. Timing is everything.

The trend seems to be warmer and drier than last year. Hard to believe it could be wetter and colder, though as we now know, anything is possible. Mother Nature, while not very reliable, is somewhat predictable, and seems to be turning on her charm

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie