Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: May 2021

Hello and Welcome, 

Got a minute? That’s what we hear this time of year. It comes from 36 acres of vines. Each one of them is looking for a minute of our time. It’s pretty simple math really, 52,000 vines need about 870 hours of hand labor to put up the first set of trellis catch wires and tuck their shoots inside of them. Once that is completed, the weather heats up in June and the vines grow an inch (or more) each day. Then the vines are ready for the second set and finally the third set of trellis catch wires. Each set of wires needs another minute of time, or 870 hours - depending on your perspective. 

Mt. Jefferson making an appearance.

Winemaking: The Continuation of Terroir by Other Means.® A FLOG communication(Farming bLOG) by Dena & Ernie from Amalie Robert Estate. Oregon Willamette Valley Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Have a look and see what we see on Instagram @AmalieRobert Estate. We are posting on Facebook and LinkedIn. Check us out if you can. We can use all the likes we can get… May is Ernie’s Birthday Month. He is a Taurus. And for those of you who hadn’t figured that out yet, we felt it was about time to let you in on it. His contribution to the Amalie Robert Estate Pinot Noir portfolio is called Estate Selection. (Men make selections, and women make cuvées.)
Will you be in our area? Amalie Robert Estate is open all summer by appointment for vineyard tours and tastings. Select your preferred day and time with the Big Red Button.

Amalie Robert Estate about 15 miles southwest of Salem.

Canopy Management - It’s catch wire time in Willamette Valley wine country.
 
Miles and miles of hi-tensile wires. Readers of this FLOG know that an acre (43,560 square feet)of vines at Amalie Robert Estate represents 5,808 lineal feet. Just imagine all of those vine rows put end to end, instead of next to each other. For comparison, a mile is 5,280 lineal feet. Thanks to farming math, we can easily figure there are 1.1 lineal miles of vines per acre.

 
And on that acre there are some posts, EIEIO!

And on those posts we ran some wire, EIEIO!
 
In fact there are 8 wires on each of those posts. And thanks to our 1.1 lineal feet to square feet ratio, we know that’s 8.8 miles of wire per acre. There is a fruiting wire which holds the main cane and bears the weight of all the wine berries. There is a tendril wire about a foot above the fruiting wire so this year’s shoots have something to wrap their tendrils around, and then there are 3 pairs of catch wires. 

Tendril holding on to a catch wire.

The fruiting wire and tendril wire are permanent. In other words they do not move up and down the post to hold the vines growth. They do move however, if a wayward tractor were to inadvertently run into a post. This is an unfortunate, but not uncommon, occurrence in farming.  
Catch wires, do your job!
 
Their job is to contain the vine’s explosive springtime growth. Did we mention the trellis design at Amalie Robert Estate is called VSP? That stands for Vertical Shoot Position. Left to their natural tendencies, vines grow along the ground until they find someone they can lean on, like an oak tree. Then they use their tendrils to climb right up it. They are vines, that’s what they do. 

VSP (Vertical Shoot Position) trellis at Amalie Robert Estate.
Since they can’t find any oak trees, they lean on us. More specifically, they grow into the trellis and our job is to vertically position their shoots into a set of horizontal wires. Surely, you can see how the vines upward growth is confused by this juxtaposition of horizontal wires. They need help. In our case, 870 hours worth of help. 

 Vertical shoots clipped between horizontal wires.
What does this mean and why should I care?
 
The goal is to harvest clean wine berries and ferment the sugar out of them. A properly trellised vine will more likely than not produce perfectly developed aroma and flavor wine berries free of rot, mold or any other affliction. Those wine berries make the best wine. Rotted wine berries are no good. The birds won’t even eat the rotted ones. They will just fly over you and your picnic and drop little white spots on everything to show their disapproval with your lackadaisical approach and viticultural ineptitude. This is something a 14 gauge can help with. Our 3 pairs of trellis catch wires are 14 gauge hi-tensile wire. When properly positioned at the most opportune time, we can catch the vines growth and direct the shoot growth upward allowing for sun exposure and airflow around each cluster of wine berries. This is the best-case scenario of canopy management. Ignore this step of winegrowing at your peril.

Amalie Robert Pinot Noir clusters enjoying the sun.
 
It’s most likely junk.
 
Welcome to the equipment corner. Our spring surprise THIS year was an inoperative UDOR diaphragm pump on the Turbo-mist Sprayer. Ernie discovered this early one Saturday morning. Being Saturday and all, there was no help available from the sprayer or pump manufacturer. Fortunately, there was still some downed branches from the ice storm to clean up. Ernie sent the appropriate E-mails so they would be waiting for the unsuspecting recipients early Monday morning and then he pivoted. 

Turbo-mist sprayer with UDOR pump.

Monday morning arrived with a mission. UDOR is the Italian company that manufactures the pump. And that was Ernie’s first call. Clint was a fairly helpful engineering type and he said “Well, maybe you got lucky.” Ernie had to remind Clint that even though he was growing wine, this was really just plain old farming. Agriculture at its finest. “Well then, if the diaphragms in the pump failed and the water mixed with the oil, its most likely junk.” This is what Ernie was looking to hear. A definitive “GO or NO GO” evaluation. Clint imparted a few words of wisdom, including some other farming anecdotes that can not be reproduced here, and sent Ernie on his way. 

UDOR diaphragm pump "in situ".

Once the pump was separated from the sprayer, it was time to pull the drain plug. Like most other pumps or engines, water in the crankcase (where the crankshaft is located) is not a good sign. That is where the oil goes to lubricate the metal surfaces that have very tight clearances. Water in the oil is a telltale sign that you have exceeded the equipment’s mechanical limitations. Do not pass go and PAY $200.

"Open pump" transplant.

With that diagnostic step out of the way, Ernie was looking for a new pump – RFN. Tuesday morning the Turbo-mist E-mails were finally replied to. Those guys are up in Canada and may be a little slow in understanding the urgency of the situation. But again, this is farming, so what’s the big rush? The Turbo-mist guys said call the Oregon dealer, and they provided a phone number – to Yakima, Washington. The dealer in Yakima, said he had a few pumps on order, but didn’t know when they would arrive. Then he asked why Ernie didn’t call the Oregon dealer. Right. Continue farming. The parts man in Oregon said he had 3 pumps in stock. Ernie said put my name on one and he would come up to look at it right after lunch. In faming parlance “lunch” is a mythical time period that often buys you some time to finish doing whatever in the hell you were trying to get done before taking on a new (and unexpected) project. It rarely does, but sometimes can, involve food. 
On the way out the door, the phone rings. It’s the parts man calling to say he can’t find the pumps. They are not in the parts bin where they are supposed to be. OK, thanks for the call. Turns out it really was time for lunch. After lunch, the phone rings again, and the pumps have been found. Procurement resumes forthwith. Other than the fact this pump was green, and Ernie’s was red, everything else seemed to check out. Ernie buckled his precious cargo into the front seat for the 90 minute drive back to the farm. And that’s about all that gets done “after lunch.”

Ernie's precious cargo belted in and ready for the ride back to the vineyard.

Then next morning it is installation time! A few parts specific to the Turbo-mist application needed to be swapped over from the old pump to the new one. The water manifolds were quick AND easy. All was going well until the drive sprocket had to be removed from the old pump and affixed to the new pump. Oh fudge. But Ernie didn’t say fudge. Farming is a fairly basic proposition. Legal contracts can change that, but the agrarian endeavor is essentially digging in the dirt, tending whatever grows up and then trying to consume it. Dogs also have a simplistic view of their condition. When they see something new they either want to eat it or mate with it. And rhubarb DOES taste different if you own a dog.

Drive sprocket and slip bushing before assembly.

Ernie has adopted the Sherlock Holmes approach to farming. Once you remove the impossible, all that remains is the improbable. The pump’s drive sprocket is held onto the 6 spline shaft with a slip bushing. The outside diameter of the shaft is just a micrometer larger than the inside diameter of the slip bushing. The idea is that the slip bushing slides over the shaft with the sprocket attached. The tight tolerances keep everything from moving around. 

Installing drive sprocket using percussive maintenance.

A final call to the Turbo-mist guys. “No, you should not have to go to a machine shop to press the drive sprocket on.” The only solution left was percussive maintenance. Once the splines were aligned in the bushing, it was tap, tap, tap with a small hammer. It actually started to “slip” onto the shaft! Excited and encouraged, Ernie found the next bigger hammer, pow, pow, pow. A little more progress, but that was the end of the low hanging fruit. The next 90 minutes yielded another 1.5 inches of “slip” and the sprocket was finally installed on the new pump. Hallelujah! The sprayer is operational – for now. 

Successful pump transplant.
 
Well look at the time! It’s numbers time!
 
May vintage 2021 was a fairly moderate month. Our high temperature was 92.7 degrees F recorded on May 31st at 5:24 pm. Our low temperature for the month was 33.8 degrees F recorded on May 8th at 5:48 am. May Degree Days were 281.2 bringing the season total to 518.0 Degree Days.

Year to date May Degree Day comparison.

We did not record any measurable precipitation for the month of May. We are not saying there wasn’t any, we just didn’t record any. This anomaly simply highlights the undeniable fact that for all of the statistical analysis you read, or are forced to absorb, it is all based on data collection. And in some cases, data collection includes adjustments or “normalizing” of the underlying data. In other cases, data anomalies can result from: not observing or recording the data, just making it up as you see fit or deleting nonconforming data points. The final analysis may be distinct and unambiguous, but the underlying data often illuminate shades of gray. Not unlike the likelihood of a “Double CGG” sequence occurring naturally. It could happen, but never has. Once the impossible is eliminated, all that remains is the improbable. Based on his time abroad, Ernie has developed the European corollary: The facts, however interesting they may be, are irrelevant to the narrative. 
Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie