Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: 2014 July

Hello and Welcome,

The Dog Days of summer appear to be upon us. Sunny warm days and cool crisp nights are the reason Pinot Noir ripens so exceptionally well in the Willamette Valley. It’s nice to see the Pinot Noir leaves being gently caressed by the afternoon breeze. And ya know the resident humans like it too. Yep, it’s pretty farmin’ nice!

A well groomed vineyard is a beautiful thing. We spend much of the month of July tending to the vines’ every need with an eye toward harvest. Our first battle is getting their shoots tucked into the trellis and then clipped into place. They put up a pretty good fight, but at the end of the day we lock them in. This activity alone takes about 2 minutes of hand labor per vine over the course of 3 visits – repeat 45,000 times.

Then Ernie wheels out the hedger for a whole lotta “tough love.” He runs though the vineyard with the sole purpose of removing the growing tips from the shoots. The goal here is to get the vine to redirect its energy into ripening its seeds. At first they don’t get it and just produce more shoots and leaves. Fine.

A second pass starts to bend the curve, but they just keep on pushing. Now the third pass, that one can achieve the result we are looking for. And so it goes, by the end of July the vines have mostly stopped producing new foliage and have begun to direct more energy into ripening their wineberries. And we like it like that!

July is also the time of the growing season when we can impact the “tannin structure,” “mid-palate texture” or “phenolic profile” of our wines. This is all just crazy wine talk for how the wine feels in your mouth. But you can use real words like smooth, elegant, pure, very nice, and yum! The “yum factor” is a real thing and sometimes that’s all you need to say. People may give you the “confused dog look” but we know what you mean: “Amalie’s Cuvée – Yum!”

We get the yum factor in our Pinot Noirs by leaving most of the leaves around the little wineberries attached to the plant. Sure we take some of the bigger leaves off to allow for air circulation and some sun exposure, but not very many. These well positioned leaves also protect our developing wineberries from harsh heat spikes that can come and go depending on Mama’s mood. And if Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy…

The alternative is to strip the leaves out of the fruit zone to maximize the sun exposure and “phenolic development” in the wineberries’ skin The resulting wine can be more harsh, bitter and less pleasant to be around. This is kind of like you falling asleep at the beach and not noticing that the umbrella you were napping under was horked by some passing kid. And the dog got your bottoms. Doggone it…

This is part of the “Enhanced Extraction Technique” school of viticulture. And how do you handle those harsh flavors in the winery? Get out the toasty oak barrels, aka burn cream. The oak’s sweetness will temper the wine’s harshness and if done well, this approach can make a very exciting Syrah. May the yum factor be with you.

Numbers:

You can never tell for sure ‘til it’s over, but 2014 is shaping up to be building on the 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2013 warm July vintages. We’ll do the numbers, and then you can do the math.

We logged 624 degree days for the month of July, 2014, with a high of 98.1 and a low of 44.8 degrees Fahrenheit with 0.80 inches of rain. The total degree days for the 2014 growing season now stand at 1,271 with total rainfall at 6.68 inches (that was close!)

Have a look at this Degree Day comparison (which way does the hockey stick go?):

Vintage	April-June	July	YTD - July	Total
2014	647	624	1,271	TBFD*
2013	669	543	1,212	2,143
2012	480	449	929	2,068
2011	308	381	689	1,794
2010	464	334	798	1,722
2009	714	532	1,246	2,095
2008	462	531	993	1,929
2007	497	557	1,054	1,890
2006	656	590	1,246	2,176

* To Be Farming Determined

Lots and lots of ways to look at this. 2014 has one of the warmer Springs on record at Amalie Robert Estate at 1,271 degree days, and holds the top spot for July at 624 degree days. However, at this point in the growing season, we look a lot like 2006, 2009 and a bit like 2013. Also interesting to note 2007 was ahead of 2008 in July, but that didn’t hold through harvest.

Further detailed analytical and subjective analysis is an exercise left for the reader. If you are missing exemplars of a particular vintage, please contact Dena to secure your specimens. If you are not sure which wine you need, check out the Amalie Robert Estate Scorecard.

And what about 2010? That vintage was so farming cold that the birds got here ahead of schedule - and they stayed. Yep, they feasted on wineberries while we waited for them to ripen. Every day a few more vines were denuded. We estimate our loss to be about 300 cases of wine that just flew right out of the vineyard. Others were hit harder and everyone lost some. But we saved a bunch of money on bottles and corks!

The growing season was a rollercoaster ride with a very nice October. Here is what we said in our 2010 “Harvest After Action Report.”

“The challenge we faced was bringing in 65 tons in short order. While the harvest window looked really nice, it was not going to last forever. There is a funny story about someone who made a substantial sum in the stock market. He was asked how he did it; what was his "secret?" He replied "I sold too soon!"

And so it was as harvest began. People wanted to pick, but they thought it was too soon. The sugars were rising (Brix) and the acids were falling. The planets were beginning to align. The cold 2010 vintage was being redeemed! The weather was stunning and Ernie understood the temptation to wait. But Ernie has lived through the "Dot.Com" bust, and the thought of waiting was never seriously considered. He learned the hard way that those "gains" are not yours until you bring them home.”

You can read the full 2010 “Harvest After Action Report” on our FLOG (Farming bLOG) right here:

http://amalierobert.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2010-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2011-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=10

So, did we make the right call starting harvest “too soon?” Well, we think it worked out just fine. As most of you know, we like to hold our wines until we think they are drinking well, and providing a substantial “yum factor.” The latest reviews from our most respected Pinot Noir reviewer, Josh Raynolds for Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar, were published at the beginning of July. (All reviews: ©2014 WineAccess. All Rights Reserved.) Whaddya think?

2010 Pinot Noir The Reserve Willamette Valley Light, bright red.  Highly perfumed aromas of fresh red berries, potpourri, cinnamon and sandalwood are complemented by deeper-pitched notes of cola and black cardamom.  Shows excellent clarity and lift on the palate, offering spicy raspberry and bitter rhubarb flavors that gain sweetness with air.  Distinctly pure and focused pinot with silky tannins coming on late and adding grip to the long finish. 93

2010 Pinot Noir Amalie's Cuvee Willamette Valley Bright ruby-red.  A complex, expressive bouquet evokes fresh red berries, Asian spices and potpourri, with a hint of smoky minerals emerging with aeration.  Offers juicy, incisive black raspberry and bitter cherry flavors that stretch out and deepen with air while picking up a suave rose pastille nuance.  Shows excellent clarity and drive on the persistent finish, which is firmed by dusty, harmonious tannins and a jolt of blood orange. 93

2010 Pinot Noir Pommard Clone Willamette Valley Bright red.  Vibrant mineral- and spice-laced red berry and floral pastille scents are given depth by notes of licorice and cola.  Lithe and sharply focused on the palate, offering gently sweet strawberry and cherry flavors that put on weight and gain spiciness with aeration.  Pure, focused and lively on the strikingly long finish, which is framed by silky tannins and brightened by a tangy blood orange note. 93

2010 Pinot Noir Estate Selection Willamette Valley Bright red.  Expressive spicy, floral bouquet evokes fresh rose, red berries and incense, with a subtle orange zest note adding lift.  Silky, tangy and precise, offering nervy redcurrant and raspberry flavors that slowly flesh out with air.  Shows outstanding clarity and lift on the long, spicy finish, which betrays just a hint of fine-grained tannins. 92

2010 Pinot Noir Dijon Clones Willamette Valley Bright red.  Heady, exotic aromas of fresh red berries, Asian spices and potpourri, with subtle smoke and mineral nuances adding complexity.  Silky, expansive and appealingly sweet, offering intense raspberry and rose pastille flavors and a strong spicecake quality that builds on the back half.  Pure, focused and strikingly persistent on the finish, which is firmed by fine-grained, harmonious tannins. 92

2010 Ipinot Pinot Noir Willamette Valley Light, bright red.  High-pitched redcurrant, strawberry and orange zest aromas, along with suggestions of dusty minerals and white pepper.  Shows very good clarity and lift to its light-bodied bitter cherry and red berry flavors.  Closes with lingering spiciness, a touch of rose pastille and silky, fine-grained tannins that stay hidden in the background. 91

2012 Pinot Meunier Willamette Valley Vivid red.  Musky red berries and cherry on the fragrant nose, with subtle herbal and floral qualities adding complexity.  Chewy bitter cherry and licorice flavors become sweeter with air while picking up a peppery nuance.  Closes with very good energy, grip and length, leaving a note of white pepper behind.  Shows good delineation for the vintage, with no excess fat. 90

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: 2014 June

Hello and Welcome,

Happy 4^th of July!

Say hello to our little friends!! Wines true to the soil, wines true to the vintage®. We grow ‘em from the ground up.

And to think, we were concerned we wouldn’t get any rain for those seeds to germinate. Well, not to worry, June has blessed us with an abundance of moisture. This has also had a positive impact on the new Wadenswil planting. Ernie has not had to go out and water those new little vines. Yep, Mother Nature is adding a little natural irrigation.

But if you are in the business of growing wine instead of cover crop, this June rain has not been a welcome chain of events. You see the vines flowered during June. The idea here is if the weather is warm and dry, the flowers will pollinate and turn into little wineberries. This is called “fruit set” and makes the wine grower very happy.

If the weather is cool and rainy, fewer of these flowers will become berries. The aborted flowers will fall off the stem. This is called “shatter.” If it is severe enough, like 2005, we may see just a few wineberries on a cluster where we normally see about 85-100 wineberries. Then we will have “a bad set” and this is why farming is not for the faint of heart.

Well, we’ve had both conditions and a whole lotta things in between. This means we will have some wineberries that pollinated early in the month and others that pollinated late in the month – all on the same cluster. What’s a winegrower to do? The cover crop sure looks nice…

As harvest approaches like a wrecking ball headed to Detroit, we will want to remember the weather conditions in June and how the vines flowered. It could very well be that while we are seeing sugars in the right range for harvest, the acids and flavors may not be commensurate. Or maybe they will. Either way, our job is to wait until they are the best they can be and then compete with the birds, deer, rain, and botrytis to steward them into a fermenter to release those wonderful aromas and flavors.

The sudden cloudbursts of rain have not gone unnoticed by the vines. Sometimes at night, when we are sleeping, the vines are taking up the newfound soil moisture. There’s probably even a rainbow (in UV of course) if the moon is right. During the day, the warm sun encourages their growth. They like this and grow like the vines they are.

This is all well and good and we couldn’t stop them anyway, so we concede the point. But it does provide focus and a sense of urgency in getting that third set of catch wires up and clipped into place. If we let them grow too far beyond the top of the posts, they have leverage on us and it is hard to get them in the trellis wires. We endeavor to persevere.

But once the ever growing shoots are in the top wires and they are clipped in, Ernie brings out “The Enforcer.” We will have discipline. We will have order. And we will have it right farming now!

Dena says the vineyard is the most stunning right after the first hedge. The vines are all trimmed up and the grassed rows are mowed on the same pass. Everything looks so orderly and contained. Ernie says take your pictures now, as it ain’t gonna last long.

The first hedge of the season does several things. The most important of which is setting the schedule for the second hedge. Kinetically speaking, the hedger is 10 blades of “whup-ass” spinning at about 15,000 rpm trimming off shoot tips from both sides of the canopy and the top in a single pass. It is of French design and manufacture. Yeah, these guys have come a long way since the guillotine. But still, an effective piece of equipment by any standard.

As the vines grow, not all the shoots reach the top wire at the same time (this is especially true with that little miscreant vine Viognier.) The shoots that do make it get a little taken off the top. Over the next two weeks, all of the shorter shoots will have the opportunity to grow into the “shoot tip removal zone.” The shoots that were topped will begin to push laterals, and this is where the show gets interesting.

The laterals are just newly formed shoots all along the main shoot. They will grow rapidly and produce more leaf surface. In cool vintages like 2010 and 2011, we needed all the leaf surface we could get. Ernie set the hedger high and wide to take just the tips, leaving as much leaf surface as possible.

By the time Ernie makes the second hedging pass, the laterals will be out in full regalia. The short shoots will be short no more and will be topped so they too can produce laterals. And if the equipment keeps working, we will be on this schedule through August. It’s like herding cats, you do it until you get tired and start again the next day - with a different set of cats...

Until one day, the vines get it – “maybe we should start to ripen our seeds, because this joker is just going to keep cutting off our shoot tips!” And why are ripening seeds so important you ask? Well step right into the vineyard vestibule and we can pipe off on that for a moment. Ripe seeds are an indicator that the aromas and flavors are coming on. The vine (while somewhat indiscriminate in this relationship) wants some bird, raccoon or deer to smell that wonderful aroma, eat those flavorful berries and deposit the seeds in an undisclosed location.

We, of course, do not. However, we do want those wonderful aromas and flavors in our wine. And since the vine is somewhat ho-hum on who gets the fruit, we take proactive counter measures to stack the odds in favor of the humans. Either way, us or the birds, the vine has completed its yearly reproductive task and then goes dormant. Remind you of anyone?

Now just as soon as farming possible after the first hedging pass, we approach the vines from the east and take some leaves out of the fruit zone. That’s right, we open up the canopy to let in a little sunlight and promote air circulation around the fruit.

There is always some internal debate (left brain v right brain) about how many leaves we need to pull. The more leaves we take from the vine, the more stately and masculine the wine will be. The fewer leaves we remove the more sublime and silky the wine, much more like the velvet glove of persuasion. Not all of our wines are grown the same way, so we vacillate between the velvet glove and S&M.

So what’s next? July brings with it an evaluation of fruit set and more hedging (we also take a few minutes to back up our hard drives, especially our E-mail.) This means we get to see how many of those zillions of flowers actually will produce a berry, a wineberry. Depending on what we see and calculate, we will begin thinning operations to reduce the crop to a manageable size. In other words, we cut off some of the clusters to lighten the load to what we think we can ripen.

This is not necessary in many other crops, such as Perciatelli. Follow this link to learn more about the Swiss Spaghetti harvest.

Well, look at the time. Let’s run down the numbers, shall we?

It seems that climate change (and carbon taxes) continues to be the “hot” topic again this month. We closed out the month of June with a blistering 84.60 degrees. If we were to sneak a peak into the first day of July, it would look a lot like 98 degrees! But the vines are good with the heat up to about 100 degrees. But once it tops the century mark, the vines redirect the leaves away from the sun and they shutdown photosynthesis. Hot weather can help advance ripening, but if it is too hot, it can delay ripening. (Farming Humor Alert: What did the vine say to the onion? Don’t sweat it…)

The split month of June accumulated 154.12 v 180.98 for a total 335.1 degree days providing an accumulation of 647.2 degree days since the beginning of the growing season on April 1, 2014. This is a 21.6 degree day decrease from the 2013 growing season. But you wouldn’t know it based on the advanced wineberry development.

And it rained. We received 0.47 inches during the first half of June and 0.63 inches during the latter half of the month for a total of 1.10 inches and 5.88 inches since the beginning of the growing season on April 1, 2014. The showers were well spaced to give the new Wadenswil vines a little drink from time to time.

It could very well be that we do not see any more of the liquid sunshine until we experience that magical moment of Harvest (more aptly known as the Big Cluster Pluck.) And based on all that we see here swaying in the summer breeze, it could be in September. This is similar to 2012 and 2013 where we were “runnin’ with the shovel” throughout the summer, only to be cooled off by some September rains. Not to put too fine a point on the subject, but Mother Nature used a Typhoon in 2013 to slow us down. You just never can tell what she’s gonna come up with next.

A Note from the 2103 Vintage:

The month of June accumulated a whopping 387.4 degree days, had a high of 95.2 (recorded June 30 at 3:40 pm) and a low of 43.0 (recorded June 14 at 3:20 am) with 1.24 inches of rain. This brings the 2013 growing season up to 668.8 degree days from April 1 through June 30. Rainfall for the growing season is now up to 6.24 inches. Well now, we may just have a “contender” vintage on our hands here.

Check back in July to see how the wineberries are progressing. July is also equipment maintenance month here at Amalie Robert Estate. Ernie does most of the routine work like oil changes, checking the tires and greasing the implements. But no matter how diligent, there always seems to be another zerk out there that needs a grease…

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

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

Hello and Welcome,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: 2014 April & May

Hello and Welcome,

Please excuse the tardiness of this FLOG (Farming bLOG,) as Springtime in the Willamette Valley is a very busy time of year for the winegrower. There are some occupations where a fixed amount of work is spread over an allotted time to complete it – for example, completing the national mathematics exam form 1040. In farming, we have the situation where there is a fixed amount of time and an unlimited amount of work to complete. Many hours of which are spent behind the wheel of a tractor at about 2 miles per…

And to make matters worse, Ernie decided to add to the workload. While those are in fact milk cartons, we are not growing milk. There are little Wadenswil vines in those “vine shelters.” And the timing couldn’t have been better – for the plants. We stitched those little vines into the hill under the most intense rainstorm of the year.

The humans, however, were mired in fully saturated Bellpine soil. Yeah, it’s good dirt and if you are a vine, it’s where you want to be!

Well let’s see now, where did we leave off? We finished harvest, including the Botryotinia Fuckeliana Chardonnay and tucked our newly fermented wines into the cellar. The cover crop Ernie drilled into the vineyard emerged to provide nutrition for the vines in the Spring and that is where we begin today’s FLOGGING.

We think of the soil as the plant’s stomach. Every other vineyard row is planted to permanent grass, and the remaining rows are used to grow cover crops to feed the vines. To feed the vines we grow a blend of plants that will fix nitrogen right out of thin air (which is about 80% nitrogen) and something to hold that nitrogen until we (Ernie) can come back around and till it into the soil. As these plants decompose, the vine roots are right there to take up all the available nutrients. That is how we are able to feed our vines without the use of chemical fertilizers.

Here is the action plan to achieve this result:

• Wait for a day when it is not raining

• Start the tractor - This often requires some light maintenance, such as a new battery, adding air to the tires and removing the rodent nest from the cab of the tractor. Time estimate: 2 hours.

• Attach the new flail mower, grease it and top off the fuel tank with diesel. Time estimate: 1 hour.

  

• Mow the cover crop rows – We have about 43,552 producing vines spread over 30 acres. The vines are spaced 4 feet apart, except for one Wadenswil plant that is only 2 feet away from its rowmates. This provides about 174,208 lineal feet of vines. But wait; there’s more – the roadways. After about 400 feet of vineyard row, we usually have a roadway that is 28 feet wide adding another 6,994 lineal feet. Finally, we use the space at the ends of the rows to turn around. This adds another 26,752 lineal feet for a grand total of 181,202 lineal feet or 34.32 miles. Since we are only mowing the cover crop rows, the distance is cut in half, just 17.16 miles. Driving time estimate: 8.58 hours at 2 miles per.

If the weather cooperates and the equipment works, this is a 2 day adventure in the vines, but not necessarily consecutive.

• Chisel plow the cover crop rows – Here we switch to the crawler. Ernie thinks of it as his Roadster for the vineyard. It has no cab so it is open air and you can feel the wind in your hair, the sun on your back and the soil in your teeth. However, on this machine the suspension is fixed, that means the only shock absorber is you. Same prep work as above. Driving time estimate: about 11 hours at less than 2 miles per.

If Ernie’s back holds together and we don’t run out of diesel or ibuprofen, this can be completed in 3 grueling days.

• Rototil the cover crop rows – The Rototiller has a thankless task and it is good at it. This machine has quite an appetite for clutch discs (two at a time), tines and the occasional U-joint like this year. Lead time on the clutch discs is about a week, so Ernie always has a couple on hand. The tines are consumed after about 2 years due to our sedimentary soil. That is why the Chisel Plow makes a pass to loosen things up a bit. It takes about a day to get this implement ready to flog the soil. The Rototiller is mounted on a wheel tractor and running speed is back to about 2 miles per hour. Driving time estimate: 8.58 hours.

It is best to wait for a little rain to soften the soil, but that was not the case this year. Fortunately, all Ernie’s fillings remained intact and a 3 day investment in the soil is complete.

• Drill in the spring cover crop – This is it folks. This is the last pass to set the vineyard floor for the growing season. Ernie decides the cover crops to grow for the Spring, determines the pounds of seed per acre per crop and multiplies by 15 acres. Out comes the handy dandy Schmeiser seed drill and off he goes! The most important thing about the seed drill is to not run out of seed. So this pass requires a few return trips to the shop for more seed. Driving time estimate: 8.58 hours at 2 miles per.

The associated task here is to wait for rain and we are still waiting, but we do multitask.

• Mow the grassed rows – By now the permanent grass rows have responded to the great weather and have grown about a foot, or two. Time to order a diesel delivery and make one more pass. Driving time estimate: 8.58 hours at 2 miles per.

So there it is. Five passes through the vineyard total about 90 miles. Elapsed time to implement this action plan is about a month and factors in waiting for the right weather conditions, dealing with the vagaries of farm equipment, diesel deliveries, equipment repairs and some sleep.

Yeah, who’s your farmer?

Meanwhile the vines are doing their very best to escape the bondage known as the trellis. The trellis represents control and structure. The vines want nothing to do with that. They want to be free to grow and frolic in the warm summer breeze. Ernie has a plan and it involves catch wires and clips.

Our vines typically start the growing season in April with a single 4 foot cane wrapped around a fruiting wire at about 30 inches off the vineyard floor. As the buds begin to burst, leaves unfurl and the shoots elongate. Everything is right with the world for a few weeks as the shoots remain mostly in a vertical stance. Then when you are making that rototiller pass, it hits you. We are behind!

Our first set of catch wires are deployed at 8 inches above the fruiting wire. What this means is we need at least 10 inches of growth before we can raise the first set of wires. After 15 years here, the vines have figured this out. Some shoots grow 15 to 20 inches and are out of control. Others grow just 6 or 7 inches and are too small to be captured by the catch wires – for now. What’s a grower to do?

Tough love. We catch most of the shoots that will be bearing fruit, align them vertically and clip them into place. They just sway in the breeze looking at you, trying to lure you closer where they can get their tendrils wrapped around you. You should see what they do to the posts!

They know that this is just the first wire and there are two more to go. They have been monitoring the weather and have calculated that they will be growing about an inch a day now. There are about 44,000 of them and they communicate – it’s called a grapevine for a reason. They figure that we can’t catch them all at the second wire and certainly they will outgrow the third wire position before we regain control.

Maybe. We have been at this awhile as well. We know it takes just about a minute per plant to get those second wires in place and capture any rogue shoots we might have missed. Then the third set of wires is up before you know it. By the next time we FLOG, Ernie will have mounted the hedger. This machine makes order out of chaos and enforces discipline.

The numbers

If this is your first FLOG, you may want to familiarize yourself with the concepts of a Degree Day and a Julian Calendar. You can find out all about it in our FAQ section.

April was pretty farming nice and that is because the showers showed up in May. But that was OK too, as we took that rain down to the root zone for our new “Upper West Side” planting of Wadenswil clone Pinot Noir. Look for the first harvest of that fruit in 2016.

We entered the growing season on April 19 (day 101 of the Julian Calendar) with Budbreak. This is the first marker from the season that lets us know that harvest is happening in the southern Hemisphere and we are a scant 6 months away here. Last year we saw bud break on day 109.

We look at April in two halves because the first half is usually pretty cold and we have the technology to separate the data. The first half of the month gave us 39.2 degree days, a high of 72.9 and a low of 37.8 degrees F. Certainly off to a good start.

The second half of the month gave us 8.8 degree days, a high of 83.5 and a frosty low of 31.0 degrees F. Rainfall for the month was 2.81 inches. The only logical way to explain a cooler second half of the month would appear to be climate change.

The month of May accumulated 264.1 degree days, had a high of 88.0 and a low of 34.9 with 1.97 inches of rain. This brings the 2014 growing season up to 312.1 degree days and is 30.7 degree days ahead of the 281.4 degree days recorded during the same period last year. Rainfall for the growing season beginning April 1 is now up to 4.78 inches.

We hope you enjoyed your first FLOG of the 2014 growing season.

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie

Amalie Robert Estate Vintage Update: 2014 Bud Break

Hello and Welcome to the 2014 growing season at Amalie Robert Estate!

The big news is we have bud break!  The first intrepid buds began to open on 4/11/14. Note this is day 101 of the Julian Calendar.

Actually, we saw this coming a few weeks away. First it was the Crocus, then the Daffodils and finally the forms for the national mathematics exam arrived in the local P.O. Yep, the ol’ 1040 is where the citizenry meets the inner workings of the Internal Revenue Service yielding a lot more than just a little “creative accounting”.  If we could just figure out how to get that much complexity into our wines!

The Purple Lilac is the indicator plant for Pinot Noir bud break and that is what really tipped us off. When the Purple Lilac starts to bloom, the Pinot Noir buds along the cane begin to open. Now, if we could just get that much simplicity into our tax code! (IRS Humor: How much money did you make last year? Ok, send it in. What does AMT stand for? And More Too!)

The 2014 growing season marks our 15^thAnniversary at Amalie Robert Estate. We finished planting our first 10 acres, with a little help from our friends, on Earth Day.

To track 2014 and prior vintages, visit our new blog at www.amalierobert.blogspot.com.

Dena & Ernie

Kindest Regards,

Amalie Robert Estate: 2014 Spring Cellar Report

Hello and Welcome,

This is the 2014 Amalie Robert Estate Spring Cellar Report – Terroir Driven Edition. It is also our 15^th anniversary. So we figured it is about time to dish some dirt with our Terroir.

We are going to spend a significant portion of this communication talking about Terroir. Specifically, we will discuss, elude and most certainly evade any meaningful summation. However, we will be framing the subject in our own individual estate grown vineyard idiom.

Look for the answers to these and several other questions:

Terroir – what is it and how do I know I’ve got it?

We don’t all grow grapes the same way – what impact on Terroir do humans impart?

If you asked 5 winemakers to make 2 finished wines from the same 50 barrels of wine, no two blends would be the same, but would the wines still reflect the Terroir?

Blending for complexity – what does that mean, and where does the Terroir go?

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Let’s get started straight away. First of all, every site that produces an agricultural product has Terroir. This can range from the largest of vineyards to the tiniest of kitchen gardens. The questions to obfuscate are: What is my Terroir good for and, how do I go about marketing it for maximum financial impact? Look for the advanced class called: Monetizing your Terroir for fun and profit.

Let’s say you have a nice little piece of dirt off the back porch and you have a propensity for Grand Cru Burgundy. You have done some basic research, and in the process made your local wine merchant very happy. You have also read the wine reviews in question and are thinking you may be sitting on the next best place to grow Pinot Noir. Either that or you should be turning out compost there. Here is where we discover rule number one about Terroir: No one knows more about your Terroir than you do.

So you get some good advice that maybe you should start small and scale up to full production as your time, money and family will allow. The kitchen herb garden sounds easy so you take that on along with a few tomatoes up in the windowsill. The seeds germinate, little green shoots emerge and voila! You are now a grower!  But will your windowsill tomatoes taste better than the guy next door? It depends, partly, on your Terroir, but mostly on “unbiased” reviews from your family, friends and good buddy Gary at the county fair.

As the summer months approach and the threat of frost diminishes, you put your small garden outside to absorb the natural warmth and life giving force of the sun. The next morning you find that the deer, raccoons and other voracious “pests” just couldn’t wait for the sweet fruit to ripen, let alone bloom, and they nibble your efforts right down to your Terroir. The second rule regarding Terroir is that what you do will either diminish or protect your Terroir. This is called the Human Factor and relies on the following principle: Just because we could doesn’t mean we should.

Now let’s fast forward to today. You have been talked out of investing your family’s life savings with Mother Nature and instead have allocated those funds to “conquer the local Terroir.” You visit several wineries in your area, perhaps the North Willamette Valley, and you discover the third rule of Terroir. First to market defines the market, for a while.

You learn that wine has been grown in various regions for centuries; however Earth, at this point in history, is the only planet to grow wine. We have cornered the intergalactic market on Terroir! You also learn that some countries are better at exporting their Terroir to more economically “fertile fields” abroad. You may recall the imported over oaked, buttered popcorn smell that was sold as Chardonnay. That style of wine was early to market and defined what Chardonnay tasted like in the American market, for a while. Axiom 1: Terroir = (Product + Marketing²) / Timing.

The truth shall set you free and stainless steel fermented Chardonnay did just that. A whole world of fruit driven clarity bloomed from the glass followed by delineated flavors and crisp acidity. People were overheard to be saying “Well it’s certainly not Chardonnay, but I really like it!”

And then, laid bare in a glass was your Inspector Clouseau (Chief Inspector) moment, an unadulterated lesson in Terroir. This style of wine along with Gewürztraminer, Riesling and Viognier to name just a few, can expose the inherent beauty of Terroir. This is when the fourth rule of Terroir hits you; each wine that is grown in its own particular place expresses the culmination of the site, growing season and the farmer’s deft hand, if only allowed to do so.

Soon thereafter, the forward thinking restaurateurs got a hold of stainless steel fermented Chardonnay and leveraged this clean, crisp wine with a plethora of ingredients and preparations. On the plate, this is known as derivative Terroir, and so far anyway, has mostly escaped the “Too Big to Fail” regulatory agencies. Sadly, a favorite poultry liver has been lost in the Golden State. Better get some while you can.

Terroir cannot be discussed, much less in a heated manner, without the discussion of Oak. By Oak we mean catnip for humans. French oak trees that are coopered into wine barrels were originally planted to supply masts for sailing ships. Not today. Those trees command a pretty Euro, and when used properly can add nuance, texture and complexity to wine. But is it Terroir? This brings us to what Ernie’s grandmother, Bertha (Bert for short,) used to say: “Don’t ask questions.”

And that brings us to the human factor, how convenient. The term winemaker is an odd one in American English. In our idiom, there is not a winemaker, but a winegrower. This human has one overall purpose in our vineyard and that is to deliver grapes to a facility (winery) that can steward them into wine. Sounds pretty easy alright, but here is where the human Terroir comes into focus.

The human must understand the style of wine to be enjoyed and tend to the vines in a manner that will produce grapes to create that experience for aroma, flavor, mouthfeel, balance and acidity. The skins hold all of the aroma and flavors, and the human must spend the entire growing season tending to the vines to insure they have developed properly for the desired experience. The logistics alone of delivering 70 tons of perfectly ripened estate grown wine over a 4 week period is not a trivial matter. But does it matter? What if it rains? What if it doesn’t? Will Terroir trump all?

“Anyone can make wine, but if you leave it to God, he will make vinegar.” – Anonymous.

Somewhere along your journey, you discover that truly great wines are grown in very special places all over the world. Your job has been to co-locate yourself near the one that best suits you. The undeniable common denominator among all the wines has been their unique Terroir and the farmer that expresses it. As you sign the papers on your new home you realize the fifth rule of Terroir, not everyone appreciates the same Terroir the way you do. Which is a good thing, as it helps keep home prices down.

Blending for complexity – a primer on expressing Terroir.

Once our wines are harvested, fermented and safely tucked into barrels for their 18 month maturation journey, blending of the prior vintage can begin. We like to age our Pinot Noirs in barrel for at least 18 months before we begin blending and bottling.

There are several reasons for this, but the overriding principle here is a more accessible expression of our Terroir once you remove it from the bottle. And it makes a difference how long that Terroir has been bottled up. Some folks like young Terroir and others like a more mature expression of Terroir. Either way, we are trying to be sure you can fully experience our Terroir every time.

Let’s say you have ingratiated yourself with a winery that is just about to identify a couple of reserve level wines, a  restaurant list wine and a wine to be sold by the glass (BTG.) The cellar holds about 100 barrels of Pinot Noir, about 2,400 cases worth of finished wines. What do you do?

If you said taste some barrels, you would not be asked back. The correct answer is to taste the wine that is in the barrels, that is where the action is. Tasting 100 wines from barrel is not something we do in a typical afternoon, at least not that we can remember.

The blending process starts with what we have to work with. How is our Terroir being expressed in each barrel of wine? A serious day of evaluation will yield 10 – 12 technical evaluations and a couple of OMG’s. Each of these wines will be earmarked for a particular blend or two. Over the course of a year, we have a pretty good idea of where we stand with our Terroir. Occasionally this results in Ernie standing out in the Terroir because he locked his keys in the cellar.

Then it is back in the lab to get an idea of what each of these barrels represents. We harvest all 36 blocks from our 30 acres individually, and Dena takes meticulous notes. Once we find those notes, we can really pinpoint the exact Terroir contained in each barrel of wine. We look at when the block was harvested in relation to the entire vintage, the clone on top and the rootstock on the bottom, the overall ripeness and acidity, and any other notes we may have made, such as the amount of whole clusters in the fermenter.

At Amalie Robert Estate, we discuss, compare notes, haggle and then blend our individual idiom wines called Amalie’s Cuvée and Estate Selection aka “The Hers and His Reserves.” During this process we usually identify The Reserve. This wine is made from the barrel or two that neither one of us is willing to let go of, no matter how much horse trading goes on. This can be quite a long and drawn out affair. Dena can be fairly persuasive, and Ernie must keep vigilant.

With those barrels of wine off the table, we begin looking for the exemplar Terroir of the Pommard and Wadenswil Clone barrels. Usually just two barrels each that really defines and expresses our Terroir through those heritage clones. You may think putting two barrels together would be pretty easy. It is not. That selection must stand the test of time, and there are usually quite a few barrels that make the quality level cut. Often the blend is more interesting than the individual barrels, and that is the goal. Other times it is not. Hey, where did my Terroir go? Trial, error, repeat…

The Dijon Clones is arguably the most fun blend to trial. So many clones, so little time. We have planted 7 clones of Dijon Pinot Noir all over the vineyard. While each block has its own unique Terroir, the blend represents how the vineyard makes wine expressed exclusively through the Dijon Clones. Good Dirt!

The Uncarved Block represents the broadest interpretation of our Terroir. It is an introduction to Amalie Robert Estate, and the farmer who farms it. “... and what a Syrah!

“Brand Terroir” aka Marketing

Over the past 15 years, we have spent most of our mental and physical energy learning how to produce word class wines that express our unique Terroir. Now that we all can agree on what Terroir is, we turn to “Brand Terroir” aka Marketing.

Since the turn of the century we have witnessed a tremendous transformation. What was once a mature Montmorency cherry orchard is now a beautiful 30 acre estate vineyard. Ernie’s hair is much lighter in color, what’s left of it. All the vehicles we drive, on and off road, are diesel powered. And hard to believe, but we are about $17 trillion in debt, well not us personally.

And we have been paying attention, somewhat. As the vineyard started to produce exemplars of our Terroir in 2002, we began writing climate updates for our vineyard customers. Our idea was to catalog the key developments in the vineyard and share those with the winemakers who were purchasing our Terroir. This was most likely the smartest thing we have ever done, agriculturally speaking.

The “Monthly Climate Update” as it is now known provided a segue to collaboration and sharing of ideas with some of our most respected members of the Oregon wine making community including Dick Erath, Bruce Weber, Adam Campbell, Mike Etzel, and Steve Doerner. It was with their tutelage, and in no small part generosity, that we have evolved to the level of community we are in today. And as near as we can tell, it’s a pretty good community to be in.

So without further ado and rampant gibberish, we introduce our Monthly Climate Update Blog with a really cool and legally trademarked name:

Winemaking: The Continuation of Terroir by Other Means.^®

(amalierobert.blogspot.com)

This is where you will find the monthly climate updates for the 2014 growing season. And the cool thing about this blog for all you “vintageheads” out there is that you can see the degree days and read the climate updates from past vintages and view the “Scorecard”. Yeah, OK, we also put some press out there – but only the good stuff!

Most of the original text was lost during the (Dijon) Clone wars, but we were able to re-image some of the archived material. There may be a missing link here or there, but all in all, it will give you a pretty fair idea of what each vintage had to offer and how we responded to: “Mother Nature: Call to Harvest.” And there is “Bonus Material!”

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie