Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: 2015 Mid-August

Hello and Welcome,

This is the 2015 Mid-August Climate Update – WTF Edition.

Smell the Coffee & Waft the Fruit - Do we really need a separate coffee “vessel” for each type of coffee we drink, like we do for wine? And what about the straw?

The first week of August has slipped us a new call sign. After a blistering triple digit performance that carried the month of July through the first day of August, we seem to be experiencing climate change in our own particular microclimate. In fact it has cooled down and there has been rain in the forecast, and it is still in there, just not in the vineyard. Perhaps the vintage that got the wine berries on the vine is not going to be the vintage that gets them off.

Our high temperatures have been peaking in the mid 80s and only staying at their zenith for a couple hours, if that. The evening temperatures are still above 50 degrees, but it is taking much longer in the morning to warm up as we wake up and smell the coffee. Then we seem to cool off quickly enough to open the windows in time for dinner. That’s the time of day when we plan our strategy for the next day and waft the fruit of some previous vintage. Right now we are on a 2007 kick because we ran out of 2005, dagnabbit!

We’ve got thinning on our minds. As the wine berries begin to color up, it is someone’s job to determine how we are going to thin the Vintage 2015: Hell-bent for Leather crop. There are several theories on how to determine a strategy, and of course then there is the implementation. In the world of agriculture, we often think back to a very solid piece of Microsoft advice:

A good plan well implemented is far batter than a great plan poorly understood. (While we do take artistic license from time to time, you just can’t make this stuff up.)

It’s just a rework of the KISS principle, but it seems that not everyone can keep it simple. In fact, it may be the case that someone is in the need of some Special High Intensity Training.

A Primer: Developing a Vineyard Thinning Strategy

Thinning theories break down into two camps and the dogmatic principle. The first camp is trying to determine how much wine they can ripen this season with the ultimate goal of making the best wine this vintage has to offer. Sounds good.

The camp down the way a bit wants to know what is the least amount of fruit they need to cut off and still get the crop ripe. And the disciples of the dogmatic principle thin to a specific crop load expressed as tons per acre, but not pounds per vine* because “it depends...” Overlay the variability of the remaining growing season and our problem is framed quite nicely.

Now Ernie is a recovering accountant, but he still wields Occam’s razor with the precision of a well oiled slide rule. He keeps it hidden, but this is the one time of year he brings its simplistically brutal power to bear.

{Using stealth and the cover of darkness, we enter the first camp.}

This camp is assessing the degree days and wine berry development at the beginning of August. Lag phase cluster weights have been done at seed hardening and they provide a pretty good estimation of the final cluster weights – maybe. So most folks now know they are hanging between 4 and 8 tons of wine berries per acre. At 60 cases per ton that is 240 to 480 cases of wine per acre.

This much crop traditionally has been impossible to ripen in the Willamette Valley, but not so in other nearby wine growing regions. And the reason is usually the warmth, irrigation and duration of the growing season in California and Eastern Washington. As most everyone learned from last year, a little extra crop can slow the vines down and extend the growing season. So can a little bit of rain if you can wait for it. Those that didn’t learn these lessons may be in for another Special High Intensity Training session this year.

But this year, as is the case with all previous years, is different. We are very far advanced in the vineyard due to historically high daytime and nighttime temperatures. We are also dry with no rainfall in the short term (believable) forecast. So this year, our limiting factor is not heat units or length of growing season to ripen our wine berries. Our limiting factor this year is lack of available soil moisture to prevent rapid sugar accumulation without the time required for commensurate aroma and flavor development.

So, what to do? Thin now or thin later? Thinning now will simply speed up ripening. The vine is building sugars and the fewer the berries, the more sugar per berry. This is exactly the opposite effect we are trying to achieve. Aroma and flavor are more a function of time rather than heat and we are trying to buy time. And that is another reason why Ernie only hedged his “yard of vines” twice this year instead of 4 times. He is letting the vines “free range” out there and this will have the effect of slowing the ripening curve by letting the vine think it can just keep growing new leaves and worry about ripening up the wine berries later. This is known as “Human Terroir” or interacting with the vine’s environment. If only it would rain…

The second camp is counting on extra yield to slow down the sugar accumulation and allow time for aroma and flavor development. By leaving extra fruit on the vine now, they are providing a reserve if the vine runs out of soil moisture. The vine can take some moisture from the wine berries to continue ripening. The more wine berries there are, the less impact on each individual berry.

When most of the wine berries have turned color, they will thin off clusters that are still green and would ripen later than most of the vines’ other clusters. The goal here is to “approximate the ripening curve by matching the climatic growing conditions to the vines’ yield potential.”

The dogmatics have their tons per acre number and they are out there right now cutting of wine berries to match it. However, with such dry conditions, they may undershoot their target crop load due to desiccation. Warm and dry breezes from the east are not uncommon in August and September. This has the effect of drawing more moisture from the vine and concentrating sugars and acids. In fact the amount of sugars and acids do not change, only the amount of water inside the wine berry is reduced so it looks like sugars and acids are increasing.

But the dogmatics also have logistics on their side. As was the case last year, we have a large crop load. But most wineries are fixed in size and do not expand whenever we have a large crop load. So what can happen is that they harvest until all of the fermenting space is filled. They wait for the fermentations to finish and then return to harvest the remainder of the crop. This is akin to turning tables in a restaurant. Either you have the table for the night, or you need to “dine and dash” by 8 pm.

This can lead to the worst case scenario – harvesting early before aroma and flavor development, fermenting for 3-4 weeks and then harvesting again when the wine berries have desiccated and over ripened. Perhaps the dogmatics are onto something by matching their crop load to their fermentation capacity.

And then there are the wings – what to do with you? Wings typically make up about 20% of any given cluster and have the tendency to ripen a week or so after the main cluster. These may be left on the cluster as a way to further slow down sugar accumulation and provide a water reservoir. They may also be clipped off with the purpose of keeping under ripe aromas and flavors out of the fermenter.

* Remember me? Looking for something? Feeling incomplete? I’ve got some figures you are going to want to investigate – thoroughly. Let’s delve into the tons per acre, vines per acre and pounds per vine mental construct. Tank, load the jump program!

Typically, Pinot Noir is grown in a marginal climate meaning the grapes ripen just as Mother Nature is unleashing the heavens with wind and rain to signal the end of the vintage. The astute (and lucky) winegrowers have completed harvest operations just that very morning.

When they want to know how they ended up for the season, they take the total weight of the crop harvested and divide by the acres harvested providing tons per acre - so far so good. They know the total acreage because they know the number of vines harvested and how many of those vines are needed to cover an acre of land. Now we are getting somewhere, but where is that?

The limiting factor of growing Pinot Noir is either climate based or land based. Pinot Noir growers are masochists by nature. They cleverly choose locations where they know climatically it is going to be tough to ripen a full crop each year. Therefore they thin the crop down to a reasonable level (tons per acre) they think will ripen as discussed above. This climate based limiting factor seems not to be in play for Vintage 2015: Hell-bent for leather.

However, thinning is done on a vine by vine basis resulting in pounds per vine. Sure, multiply that by the vines per acre and you can easily come up with tons per acre. So you could consider tons per acre to be metadata, which is just data that describes other data. That’s like horsepower v torque and RPM. Torque and RPM are measured outputs of an engine (like vines per acre and pounds per vine.) Horsepower is just a mathematical formula that results in a number that we can compare across different exemplars (like tons per acre.)

And when you consider that horsepower is just torque multiplied by RPM divided by 5,252 you can see that you have been using metadata your whole life, gearhead! Don't get confused by the 5,252, it is a mathematical constant derived from the fact that a 1 foot circle has a circumference of 6.2832 feet, don’tcha all know…

So the cleverly masochistic Pinot Noir grower approaches each vine fully intentioned and begins to thin a little fruit. A nip here, a snip there, a fresh bandage for the green thumb, and it all looks good. But some growers are finished before others because they have a different number of vines per acre.

Early Oregon vineyards were planted at an 8 x 12 foot spacing giving them 454 vines per acre. Highly masochistic vineyards can be planted “meter by meter” yielding about 4,050 vines per acre. Note: these vineyards are often owned not by masochistic wine growers but by sadistic land owners who hire masochists to work in them. Look at any corkscrew carefully – who do you think designed that?

At Amalie Robert Estate, we are moderately planted at 1,452 vines per acre. (We not only own our own land, we farm it ourselves as well, so we have more than just a passing familiarity with the whole Sadomasochistic wine growing thing.) Our vines are 4 feet apart and we leave 7.5 feet for Ernie to get this tractors and implements through the rows. For aspiring accountants, you can do the math at home. Just take the total square feet in an acre and divide by the vine spacing. It’s easy: 43,560 square feet in an acre divided by (7.5 x 4) spacing = 1,452 vines per acre!

And if you thought that was fun, try this: If you can cover that acre in an hour, how fast are you travelling? Please express your response in the traditional “furlongs per fortnight” with two sig figs to the right of the decimal point.

So now we can peel back the tons per acre metadata to reveal the pounds per vine crop load. At an average 3 tons per acre crop load, an early Oregon vineyard will be carrying about 13.2 pounds per vine. The meter by meter fellow is packing just about a pound and a half per vine. At our moderately dense spacing of 1,452 vines per acre, each vine has to ripen just over 4 pounds of wine. It takes just under 3 pounds to produce a bottle of wine. At Amalie Robert Estate we are trying to ripen a bottle of wine per vine, but in some years the bottles are a little bigger than others.

The actuaries in the group (who skipped right to the asterisk) are now wondering why the meter by meter guy doesn’t leave the same amount of crop per vine as the old Oregon vineyard guy. Just look at the numbers; it would be over 25 tons per acre! Man, we can make some serious coin at this crop load!

Because you can’t ripen it. The crop load is limited by the amount of land. An acre is an acre is an acre no matter how many vines you plant on it. On top of the land you have the canopy. Think of it as a solar array that harvests light and heat to ripen the crop and transpires water from the soil. At 454 vines per acre, there are 3,630 lineal feet of solar array, at 1,452 vines per acre we have 5,808 lineal feet, and the meter by meter guy has 13,280 lineal feet.

But you need to factor in the space under the vine which has no leaves and the maximum height of the canopy to prevent shading. Let’s say the first two guys have no leaves below 2.5 feet and their canopies top out at 7.5 feet tall. While the old Oregon vineyard could grow a 12 foot canopy it is hard to hedge at that height, so let’s go with a maximum height of 7.5 feet. This gives us a 5 foot wall of Photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) catching canopy.

Now this is funny: The meter by meter guy has the vines trained at just over a foot off the ground, 12 inches, and a maximum canopy height of 40 inches to prevent shading. This gives him a canopy that is 28 inches tall, 2.33 feet. Not a lot to work with there. And imagine working on vines that start at just a foot off the ground. Knee pads anyone? Dang, just ran out… aka “Let Them Eat Cake.”

We can now look at height and width to give us square feet of canopy - per vine. Note: If you assume the canopy is 1 foot wide, then square feet (as if by magic) become cubic feet – ooooooh, so cool! 454 vines per acre give us 3,630 x 5 feet of canopy for a total of 18,150 square feet – 39.98 square feet per vine. 1,452 vines per acre give us 5,808 x 5 feet of canopy for a total of 29,040 square feet – 20.00 square feet per vine. And our meter by meter friend has 13,280 x 2.33 feet of canopy for a total of 30,943 square feet – 7.64 square feet per vine. The size of your solar array puts an upper limit on the amount of wine you can ripen per vine.

Now below the land you have the roots and a limited amount of available soil moisture. No matter how many vines are planted in our example, each scenario’s roots will have grown to the point of exploring the entire acre. This is called colonizing the soil. Mycorrhizae are fungi that live symbiotically with the roots and they exponentially increase the root’s “footprint” and ability to uptake nutrients and available soil moisture throughout the entire breadth and depth of the soil profile. Don’t mess with the Fungi.

Most of the available soil moisture is going out through the stomata to cool the leaves, the wine berries are certainly holding some water, and the vines need some water to translocate nutrients. So unless you are irritating the unique character of the vintage with drip irrigation i.e. cheating, the available soil moisture is putting an upper limit on the amount of fruit you can ripen per acre.

Now the obvious question is which yield (and measure of yield) makes the best wine for your palate in any given vintage? Hmmm… How to know? Experiencing wines grown in all manner of spacing and densities is the only true way to know for sure. You’re gonna need more corkscrews. Choose an array of corkscrews that have different extraction modes to reduce the potential of repetitive motion injury. So many wines, so little time.

So, there you have it – WTF.

The numbers for the first half of August look like missile launch codes, but they’re not, honest. If you try and sell them, no one will actually come through with the funds. But you might get to meet some nice folks from Interpol or the NSA, if there are any.

What the numbers are trying to tell us is that August has broken June and July’s heat spell. It could be a passing of the baton, sort of speak, where we see a very different climatic expression take the wine berries across the threshold to harvest.

And that means a slower and “more better” ripening curve with the possibility of quenching rain. And we were forecasted to receive measurable precipitation on the 14^th of August. Instead we received momentary precipitation, which is not measurable.

We have logged 278 degree days through the 15^th of August for a 2015 growing season accumulation of 1,710 degree days. If you are enjoying the 2010 and 2011 vintages, perhaps it has something to do with the fact that those 2 vintages accumulated less than 1,800 degree days for the entire growing season! We are there now. You can check out the 2010 and 2011 “After Action Reports” to see how we dealt with those dueling (grueling?) vintages. And while we don’t quote ourselves often, we find it helps to keep the “signal to noise” ratio above 1:1.

Much like how we measure engine output in a formulaic way with a made up construct called horsepower, we do the same with heat accumulation in the form of degree days. Consider two very different growing seasons with the same degree day accumulations:

The first scenario sees a massive shift in diurnal temperatures with record daytime highs and very cool nights. The daily temperatures average out at 70 degrees and provide a monthly degree day accumulation of: 70 degrees less 50 degrees times 30 days for a total monthly accumulation of 600 degree days.

The second scenario has a much tighter stratification of temperatures with the highs in the mid 80s and the lows holding the daytime heat into the mid 50s. The average daily temperature here is also 70 degrees which would provide the same 600 degree day accumulation as the first scenario.

Now, let’s bring it home - literally. If your living environment were to maintain a constant 70 degree temperature for any given 30 day period, you would experience 600 degree days as well. And, while the degree day accumulation is equal in both scenarios, they would certainly produce very different wines, but both those wines could well be enjoyed in your constant 70 degree environment – albeit with separate and distinct stemware.

And with that profound concept resonating throughout the vastness of your mind, we bid you “a fond adieu.” (Say it out loud…)

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie (The Recovering Accountant)

Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: 2015 July

Hello and Welcome,

This is the Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update for July, 2015.

Farm it like you mean it, or don’t farm it at all!™

Vintage 2015: Hell-bent for Leather: The 2015 growing season has been a story of “Too much, too soon.” Flowering began in May (a couple of weeks early) and was followed by warm and dry June weather resulting in a very bountiful crop. July has proven to be very advanced with all available forecasts showing no break in the historically above average temperatures (day or night) or any discernable rainfall through September. Our last meaningful rainfall was June 1-2 when we recorded 1.24 inches of rain.

Despite our best efforts to increase hang time by managing a short canopy to reduce water loss and slow sugar accumulation and keeping the vineyard floor mown tight and weed free, we estimate our harvest window to open somewhere mid-September. The only effective tool we have to mitigate these climatic factors is our deep roots that come from vine age and dry farming.

So much for the executive summary talking points, let’s get into the dirt. Grape vines are fairly simple plants in their response to heat. The warmer it is the faster they grow, until they run out of available soil moisture. The key phrase here is “available soil moisture” which means moisture in the soil that the vines can translocate from their roots, through their vascular tissue and eventually transpire via the stomata on the underside of their leaves. In other words, they can draw a vacuum, fairly straightforward really.

The vine’s leaves exert negative pressure via the roots to draw moisture into the vine. Some soils are deep and moist, others are shallow and dry. Some can hold a lot of moisture, others can’t hold much at all. Perhaps you are familiar with personal exemplars of these characteristics.

The soils at Amalie Robert Estate are formed from marine sediments. The soil series is called Bellpine and after a 12” topsoil layer (A horizon,) it has an effective rooting depth (B horizon) ranging from about 24 inches down to 36 inches. Below this is the C horizon and that is where things get interesting. Our C horizon is comprised of fractured sandstone and ironstone. The key term here is fractured.

Fractured is good because it allows the vine’s roots to penetrate deep into the ancient clay of the C horizon in their quest for water. Willakenzie, the other marine sediment soil series in the Willamette Valley, has a C horizon that is “weakly to moderately cemented” tuffaceous sandstone that is typically not fractured. This is called a root restrictive layer and is akin to growing vines in a bucket – the roots can’t get out to delve deep for available soil moisture. Something to consider when planning a rooftop vineyard.

The other soil series in the Willamette Valley is derived from volcanic flows and is most well known as the Jory series. This soil is brilliant red from its high iron content and can be deep. Often times Jory soils can be 6 to 8 feet deep or more before hitting a basalt (volcanic rock) layer. And, it just so happens, rock is also root restrictive.

So, the obvious question is “Who has the most available soil moisture?” In the sedimentary series, the root restrictive layer gets weeded out rather quickly in a vintage like 2015. The only saving grace could be (unnatural) irrigation.

That leaves us the marine sediment Bellpine series and the volcanic Jory series. The easiest mental construct for comparative purposes is a sponge – any examplar will do. The amount of water a sponge will hold depends on the size of the pores in said sponge. Jory soils typically have large pores and Bellpine soils have relatively smaller pores. Ergo, Jory soils will hold more water than Bellpine soils per any given inch of the soil profile.

However, the large pores in the Jory soil series have the tendency to lose soil moisture faster than the tighter pores in the Bellpine soil series. You can try this at home with two different sized sponges. Weigh them dry, weigh them fully saturated and then weigh them after you gently and equally squeeze them. The results will be inconclusive, but now you have a better idea of the water holding and retention characteristics of marine sediment soils and volcanic soils.

Note: Be careful how you present this newfound knowledge as there is quite a debate over the virtues and vices of each soil type. There are true believers out there and then there are true believers who grow wine…

Roots are the structures vines use to bring that soil moisture to the surface. Once again we have two camps: the own rooted camp and the newfangled rootstock camp with their fancy names and numbers. And if you want to experience life as a root, insert a very small straw into the aforementioned sponge and “exert negative pressure.” Yes, there are mycorrhiza, but not now.

Own rooted vines are just that and they grow the deepest roots of all. Cuttings were taken from dormant vines, allowed to warm up and form callus tissue and then gently inserted into the soil where the callus tissue would form roots. Often times these vines were planted in very straight rows to allow human interference with trellis structures and mechanization. Other times they were placed just far enough apart to get an oxen or other bovine between them. This may have been the basis of “Natural wines” including their unique “plant nutrition” regime.

Necessity is the mother of invention and that is as true in agrarian endeavors as any other discipline. When the inhabitants of the old world came to the new world they were amazed at all of the unfamiliar flora and fauna. Being humans, with human like tendencies, they returned to the old world with a bit of the new world in their pockets. Who was gonna find out and what could they do anyway?

Well, fate took a hand when they planted all of their newfound booty only to discover a little fauna they hadn’t counted on – phylloxera. That little louse began feeding on all kinds of roots, with grapevine roots being their favorites. The new world roots were used to this and went about their business of callusing over and growing new roots. The old word roots were not so lucky. As the phylloxera tore into their roots, they were unable to form callus tissue to protect themselves from all of the nasty pathogens that live in the soil. Sadly, and rightfully so, the old world vines began to die.

What to do? Well, they decided to head back into the belly of the beast. They returned to the new world with a vengeance and began looking for vines that grew up with phylloxera. They looked at riparian areas where new world vines were growing wild or “naturally” near streams and waterways. They took cuttings and skulked back across the pond.

They grafted these new world roots onto the old world vinifera cuttings and began planting these new “unnatural” vines. And this is how we arrive at the plethora of rootstock choices available today. The key factor in all rootstock choices is that they are tolerant of phylloxera. We say tolerant because phylloxera still attacks rootstocks, but they grew up with phylloxera and can deal with it by forming callus tissue that keeps the nasty soil pathogens at bay. However AXR #1 was not resistant and was perhaps the greatest hoax perpetrated on the California wine grower.

“AXR #1 was widely used in California during the planting boom of the late 1960s and early 1970s. By the mid 1980s it was failing to phylloxera as it had in France, Italy and South Africa…  AXR #1's advantages were adaptability, consistent high quality and yields, ease of propagation and relative tolerance to most viruses. However, this rootstock is not phylloxera resistant and should not be planted.”

Rootstocks come in three categories: Small, Medium and Oh My! Wait, that is something else…

The most phylloxera tolerant of all rootstocks is called Riparia Gloire. This rootstock is also known as “RG” and has the shallowest roots of all. This rootstock is sometimes used with the idea of controlling the vine’s growth through irrigation. In other words, someone likes to dress up as Mother Nature.

Next is a series of moderately deep rootstocks known as 101-14Mgt, 3309C, Schwarzmann and 44-53M. These are widely planted in many premium winegrowing regions around the world. Mostly thanks to that New World louse phylloxera. And watch our for those dagger nematodes!

That leaves the deepest rooting rootstocks of all which are best represented by Teleki 5C. The growth habit of this rootstock is the closest thing mankind has found to own rooted vines. It has the deepest root growth of all the aforementioned rootstocks. It is also the most widely planted rootstock at Amalie Robert Estate.

As the days desiccate off the calendar, the continuum of soils, rootstocks and available soil moisture leads us through the ripening curve. Let’s define ripening as producing a viable set of seeds to reproduce, wrapped in an aromatically fragrant and hedonistically sweet wine berry with sugar levels that will produce wines in the 12.5 – 14.0% alcohol range. We know, that’s a lot to ask from a bunch of grapes.

As the soil profile dries from the surface down, the vine’s roots must struggle to extract water. The best case scenario is that as the soils begin to dry out, the wine berries begin to slowly ripen. We know this is happening because we see the berries turn from green to mauve to gunmetal blue and finally Pinot Noir colored, and there is little in the rain gauge, until the season’s end.

As the season progresses, the shallow roots will run out of available soil moisture. This sends a signal to the vine to start ripening up those seeds. The vine’s deeper roots may still have access to soil moisture and that allows the vine to continue to build sugars in the wine berry. The vine handles this dichotomy of signals quite well. It takes the queue from the shallow roots to get with the program, while utilizing the deeper roots to continue ripening their seeds and developing aromas and flavors. Who needs a vineyard manager when you are growing Pinot Noir?

However, once all of the vine’s roots exhaust their available soil moisture the vine will start to relocate water from the wine berries. This is a one way trip, and we all took that trip in 2003. Not everyone will remember, that is how it goes with some trips. Even if late season rains soak the soil, the vine has moved on. The wine berries, sadly, will most likely raisin and not rehydrate. This may result in a good deal of time spent at the sorting table, and perhaps a Port styled wine.

This explains why a little drought stress now to start the ripening process and a little shower later (but not too late) to help the vine complete the ripening process provides the best possible ripening curve – agronomically speaking. But you never know how much you are going to get, when you are going to get it or how long it is going to last.

Ergo, effective rooting depth and available soil moisture will have a dramatic if not traumatic impact on the ripening curve this year. In the dry farmed world, own rooted, phylloxera free vines with significant vine age will certainly have the advantage, followed by vines grafted onto that wonderful Teleki 5C rootstock. If you are farming shallow rooted RG, well that irrigation line could become a lifeline.

But it is not over until it’s over. There are thousands of acres of Pinot Noir grown in the Willamette Valley representing all kinds of soils, elevations, rootstocks and vine age. Some have irrigation while the rest of us go the natural route.

Right. When you are in business with Mother Nature, you pay your money and take your chances. In Vintage 2015: Hell-bent for Leather we are relying on the decisions we made almost 20 years ago and the resulting deep roots that come with dry farmed vine age. We did over 30 soil borings and dug several open pits to learn about the depth of our soils across 30 acres of ultra-premium vineyard land. We knew what we wanted: “Wines true to the soil, Wines true to the vintage®” and therefore we were not going to irrigate. We have some deep soils and some thin soils. Mostly Bellpine, and a wee little bit of Jory. And while the soil is not new, we have a new classification – introducing Windy Gap. This is about three feet of Jory soil sitting on top of marine sediments. Isn’t that crazy?

We laid out the rootstock map over our soil map. We chose RG for a very small but deep and fertile area, and then scattered a little 3309C, 101-14Mgt, Schwarzmann and 44-53M over some moderately deep areas. And that bruiser Teleki 5C went over everything else. Then we began to assign clones onto rootstocks. Put some Chardonnay here, Pinot Meunier there, and we rolled the dice with several small blocks of Pommard, Wadenswil and the Dijon clones. Thanks to Dick Erath and the good folks at Guigal, our Syrah program got all the right clones, on all the right roots, in all the right places.

With scant rainfall in the foreseeable future, we wait and hope our bets pay off. We want those rootstocks pulling up water to sustain the vines and Mother Nature to back off with the heat. A shower or two before harvest would be a miracle. Miracles are not something we hope for. Miracles are something we depend on.

Here is another thing you can depend on, the un-farming believable numbers:

The month of July began with a fine display of triple digit temperatures and ended the month on the same high notes. We recorded a high temperature of 104.4 degrees and a low temperature of 43.6 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s 40.2 and 6.4 for those of you across the pond with your so called “new world” shrubberies. No hard feelings on the whole phylloxera thing, and thanks for the rootstocks.

We logged 632.1 degree days for the month of July, up 120.4 degree days (23.5%) from the 511.7 degree days in June. And when you add July’s 632.1 degree days to the 799 degree days accumulated through June, you end up with the year to date July degree days, as you might expect. Rainfall was a scant 0.02 inches; 110% humidity was all that was and it didn’t last all that long - hot and bothered…

This is the part of the shpiel where we try and say something funny. But when you look at August coming down the pike, with a historical 600 degree day accumulation and no precipitation, it’s not so farmin’ funny. But this is: Well it’s 40 below and I don’t…

So, we will most likely be around 2,000 degree days and as dry as a popcorn phart as we breach the month of September. But a lot can happen in 30 days.

It reminds us of the court jester accused of adultery (with the Queen no less) who saved his skin by promising the King he could make his prized stallion talk if he could just have 30 days to train him. The King granted his request and a guard led the jester away to the stables.

The guard said “Are you mad? You can never train a horse to talk! What are you going to do?” The jester replied, quite sure of himself, “30 days is a long time. The King could die, I could escape or who knows? The horse could learn to talk.”

In case you wonder why we go to all this effort to inform, educate and (hopefully) entertain, we thought this strip answers that question beautifully:

But there is more than one way around the barn. Here is another approach to what we endeavor.

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Vintage Update: 2015 Pinot Noir In Flagrante!

Hello and Welcome,    

Vintage 2015: "Hell-bent for Leather" has given us the first indication of an impending harvest. We spied the first "blazing" berry on July 23, 2015 (day 203 of the Julian calendar.) That means we should be commencing harvest operations in about 60 days, more or less. That would be Wednesday, September 23, 2015, or day 263 on the Julian calendar.  

Pinot Noir Dijon Clone 777 grafted onto 44-53 rootstock was the first to show. It was quickly followed by one of Ernie's favorites, block 10 Wadenswil on 5C. Now that these "tastemakers" have been outed, we expect the rest of the vines to bring it on.

Is this early you ask? Farm yes it's early! This is too farmin' soon for our likes, but the grapes are ready when the grapes are ready. 

The only thing that can slow this runaway train is meaningful rainfall. The chance of that happening in the Willamette Valley in July and August is pretty farmin' slim. So slim in fact, there is only one side to it. That's slim.

Speaking of slim, now is the time to set the crop load. The idea here is to remove anything that will not ripen in time for harvest - which is impossible to know, welcome to farming. The other school of thought is to remove everything from the vine that you don't want in your wine.

Things we don't want in our wine, or yours, include the late to ripen wings. We also don't want clusters attached to stunted shoots that don't have enough leaves to ripen them. And we don't want any more than 2 clusters on any one shoot - too much work to ripen that much wine.

Things we do want in our wine include the clusters toward the end of the cane. These clusters have shown to produce superior quality wine. The clusters toward the head, while still viable, are not as enticing. So when we thin, we leave a little more at the end and take a little more from the heads. Not everyone does, but there is the easy way and the Ernie way.

Please join us in a week or so as we detail the month of July. It has been hot, real farmin' hot...

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: 2015 May & June

Hello and Welcome,

This is the integrated May and June Climate Update - it’s a twofer.

April showers bring May flowers and so they did. The month of May is the boring before the bedlam in the institution that is the vineyard at Amalie Robert Estate. The vines look innocent enough as they are starting to fill out the trellis. The spring cover crop of soil conditioning Buckwheat and nitrogen fixing Vetch is drilled in and set to life by a gentle sprinkle, and the odd hailstone or two. There is even time to do a little spring cleaning… and then all that pent up vine energy breaks loose!

June is the month we all get real farmin’ busy. It starts with the vines, as it always does, but this year presented us with yet another unique scenario. Our vines began flowering on May 31, and our first shower of June followed straight away. During those first two days of June, we recorded about 1.24 inches of rain. That put a bit of a damper on pollinating the wee little wineberries.

The 3^rd of June began the first heat wave of the month, a condition the vines picked up on without delay. The resulting rate of growth was un-farming-believable. Bear in mind, while we are trying to grow wine, our source material is a grape vine. Their proclivity is to grow into high places, usually up tree trunks, where they can bask in as much sunlight as possible. And they have tendrils to help them do it.

So get this. We had bud break on March 24, day 83 of the Julian calendar. The 30^th of June is day 181. In that 98 day period the vines have grown shoots that are about 98 inches long – some more, some less. For purposes of illustration, we see that on average the vines grow shoots at a rate of about an inch a day.

Nessie awash in a sea of green

But they don’t. At the end of May, Julian calendar day 151, our shoots were no more than 30 inches long. So logically, the latest 68 inches of growth (or more) occurred in the last 30 days. No matter how you crunch those numbers, that is over 2 inches of growth per day. And with evening temperatures above 50 degrees they grow at night too!

Welcome to Vintage 2015: Hell-bent for Leather. Let’s start with 1.24 inches of rain. That is 33,671 gallons per acre, and we farm 30 of them. From a vine’s point of view in their individual vineyard placement perspective, that means about 23 gallons of water for each and every one of those “winemakers.” Now let’s turn on the heat, and leave it on. This combination of a downpour followed by “above average low temperatures” and “downright hot high temperatures” in June have the vines kicking our acids!

Unfortunately, vines pre-date trellis designs by quite a few years and subsequently they never evolved to the point of naturally growing into a trellis system. (Don’t tell the natural wine folks.) This is where our superior trellis design and 2 minutes of human hand labor come into play. Multiply that by a factor of 44,000 vines and that is how the month of June disappeared, ipso facto.

America may run on Dunkin’ but farm machinery runs on diesel. With July on the horizon, and another 200 gallons of diesel being delivered next week, we are starting to turn the corner. Once the vines’ growth is harnessed in the trellis, Ernie brings out “The Enforcer.” Hand labor, while extremely important to growing world class wine, is no match for these be-tendrilled vines.

With 10 blades spinning at a bazillion miles an hour, the hedger trims both sides and the top of a row in a single pass. The result is immediate and significant (not unlike pairing Pinot Noir with duck confit.) With the flail mower running behind, the trimmings are incorporated back into the vineyard. Man, that looks oh-soooooo good!

But, the vines have seen this movie before. They take the first hedging pass in stride and just pour all that extra energy into the shorter shoots and up they come. Ernie is waiting for them with pass number two. And as has been the case in the past, a third and usually a fourth pass is required. There goes July.

By removing excess leaf material in a warm year, we help to conserve soil moisture that we will most assuredly need in September. In cool years like 2010 and 2011 we hedge a tall canopy to maximize leaf exposure and photosynthesis. In hot years we hedge a short canopy to minimize leaf exposure, water loss through transpiration and to slow down sugar accumulation to allow flavors and aromas to develop.

Leaves. We’ve all seen them and know that they take that nasty carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. They use it during photosynthesis and this is what gives the vines their life-force and we humans get oxygen. What a deal! But wait there is more, we also get wine! Imagine a life without carbon dioxide - there would be no wine. Love those vines!

Now the hedging pass brings us to the first real winegrowing decision in the vineyard - the leaf pull pass. We pull leaves out of the fruit zone after the first pass with the hedger. The reason for this “viticultrual practice” is to improve the airflow around the wineberries to reduce the chance of mildew or rot. But leaves also influence, to a great degree, how wine feels on your palate.

Before leaf pull

After leaf pull

Leaves perform a very important function of shading the wineberries. The more shade, the more elegant will be the mid-palate experience, all other things being equal – which they never are. While this is especially true for our vineyard at Amalie Robert Estate and Pinot Noir, other varieties benefit from a little more sun exposure. And, as we all know, Cabernet needs all the exposure it can get. Nothing worse than a “weedy cab.” Hey, is that legal now?

But all vineyard sites are not created equal. While we have a terrific aspect with great air drainage and elevation from 650 feet down to 275, some sites have poor air drainage and high humidity levels based on their elevation, location and aspect. Cold and damp air pools just like water and that is the condition that fosters mildew and rot. Vines grown in this condition may have most, if not all of their leaves removed from the fruit zone to try and reduce mildew and rot. And with all those leaves goes an elegant and supple mouth feel in your Pinot Noir.

Tannins. They are those bitter things what give your wine a bit of a back-end bite. A little is good, a lot is kinda harsh. Tannins come from the skins and are a direct result from sun exposure. The more sun, the more bite. But tannins also come from the stems and that is the velvety tannin we like. Stem tannin evolves with bottle maturation and becomes a more refined and perfumed tannin. Seed tannins are right out. We ferment as much whole berry as possible to minimize tannin extraction from the seed. That is some really bad tannin. Skin tannins, while an essential part of wine, are not really going to evolve. But they do provide balance and help to frame the finish, albeit monolithically.

What does all this mean and why should I care?!

Right. We are espousing that a little shade and some whole cluster tannin is how we shape the mid-palate expression of our Pinot Noirs - elegant, lively and with a lingering, scintillating finish. Yeah, that’s our thing and we do it in the vineyard. What about the color? Well, that is Mother Nature’s thing and we don’t mess with her on that.

Kinda like the numbers. All we can do is read ‘em and weep, or sit here and bitch. So without further ado, tuck yourself in for a taste of winegrowing - extreme heat edition.

May was pleasant, and not significantly warmer than May of 2014. Our high temperature was 86.6 degrees Fahrenheit and we logged a low temperature of 34.9. Just enough to avoid any frost damage on our perfectly positioned and well drained piece of dirt. May logged 233.8 degree days for a growing season to date total of 287.4 degree days. We were dry in May without any measurable precipitation.

June was something other. Our high temperature was 97.4 degrees Fahrenheit and we logged a low temperature of 38.9. June logged 511.7 degree days for a growing season to date total of 799.1 degree days. Last June saw an accumulation of 335.1 degree days for a growing season total of 647 degree days. We received 1.24 inches of rain during the first 2 days of June. Our growing season begins on April 1^st each year, even with the leap years, and our growing season precipitation total is now 3.92 inches.

The 2015 April – June degree day accumulation is the warmest we have seen in recent memory. The 2009 vintage is not far off the mark either, but closed out the season moderately, unlike 2014. A nice Oregon vintage clocks in around 1,900-2,100 degree days. If July turns in a blistering performance, we are in for a wild ride. Having mastered the Botrytis Chardonnay challenge with Pabuk’s Gift, Ernie is threatening to call the folks in Banyuls for a few tips on making fortified wine – “au naturel.” And if your memory is in need of refreshing you can always check The FLOG or have a look right here:

Vintage	April-June	July	YTD - July	Total
2015	799	TBFD	TBFD	TBFD
2014	647	624	1,271	2,499
2013	669	543	1,212	2,143
2012	480	449	929	2,068
2011	308	381	689	1,794
2010	334	464	798	1,722
2009	568	532	1,100	2,095
2008	462	531	993	1,929
2007 *	497	557	1,054	1,890
2006	656	590	1,246	2,176

TBFD: To Be Farming Determined

* Miss me yet?

So what does it take to accumulate 511.7 degree days in June? It takes an average temperature for the entire month of 66.9 degrees. For the month of June, we spent 355 hours at or above 66.9 degrees. Conversely, we spent 365 hours below the average of 66.9 degrees. The fact that we spent less time above the average means we were very warm during those hours.

Here is how we break it down:

Note: Some rounding is inevitable, some is intentional, and some is from sampling error.

And if you want to see the heffalump in the room, just look at the amount of time we spent above 50 degrees. The magic number in the vineyard is 50 degrees. Below 50 degrees the vines do not get too much done. Above 50 degrees and they are merrily growing new foliage and proceeding unabated toward harvest. Whoa!

Of the 720 hours available in the month of June, 646 of them were above 50 degrees. There were only 74 hours during June when the vines were not actively growing. If you slept 8 hours a night in June, you were not farming wine. But you had 240 sleeping hours.

Historically Oregon has differentiated itself from Burgundy in precisely this way. Burgundy has more of a continental climate where the evening temperatures are a bit warmer. Oregon has a marine influence that typically manifests itself in cooler evening temperatures.

This is why Burgundy needs only 100 days from flowering to ripeness and Oregon needs 105. They have warmer nighttime temperatures that advance ripening by a few days. They also have rain and hail during the summer. We have the 4^th of July and fireworks: Winning!

Spoiler Alert: The first week of July has already seen a high of 97.7 and logged about 100 degree days. But we have had about 90 minutes below 50 degrees…

This communication is provided to you on a “Need to Know” basis. If you know someone who you think needs to know, by all means, please “FLOG a friend.”

If you did not receive this communication directly, you can subscribe right here: FLOG ME!

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