Amalie Robert Estate In Flagrante Update: July 2025
Hello and Welcome,
This is the In Flagrante Update, July 2025, and Photo Journal, from Amalie Robert Estate. Approximate reading time 0.93 ARB's (Adult Recreational Beverages); Pictures and video only 0.37 ARB's.
Willamette Valley Pinot Meunier and Noir, Vintage 2025, are making their move. The vines have transitioned away from growing more foliage and are now directing their energy to ripening their seeds to reproduce. And in the process, creating the precursor to wine.
We know this because the wine berries entered lag phase (seed hardening) early in the month. That, and Ernie has been out their hedging their shoot tips off. While one event does not necessarily cause the other, these two events force the vine to prepare for the eventual coming of fall.
And now they have been caught out! We have Pinot Meunier In Flagrante! The first blazing wine berries were seen in the Pinot Meunier on Wednesday, July 30th (Julian calendar date 211). We need about 105 days from flowering (Julian calendar day 156) to The Great Cluster Pluck (Julian calendar day 261). Utilizing standard farmer math, that means a harvest window will open at Amalie Robert Estate on September 18th, 2025. Giddy Up!
Wine berry by berry, advancing toward The Great Cluster Pluck.
From now until we hand harvest our wine berries, sugars will accumulate, and the acids will begin to diminish. The magic of Vintage 2025 will be revealed in the development of aroma and flavor. Little by little and all in good time, the Great Cluster Pluck will be upon us.
And get this: Vintage 2025 this has been THE MOST AMALZING growing season we have ever experienced since we started growing wine at the turn of the century! Vintage 2025 marks the 24th Cluster Pluck at Amalie Robert Estate. If only those vines could talk...
Winemaking: The Continuation of Terroir by Other Means.®
We are living the dream so you don’t have to. Winemaking: The Continuation of Terroir by Other Means.® is a repository of our farming history at Amalie Robert Estate.
We have over 200 posts going back some 25 years. It’s all out there on Substack. You can visit the archive for FREE! If you want to see what we see on a more regular basis, follow us on Instagram @AmalieRobert.
In This Communication:
Save the Date and See for Yourself!
Introducing Tractor Vision® (Putting YOU in the video).
The Big MOVING Picture / Tractor Vision™
Turning the Corner on Vintage 2025
Trauma, Drama and Dysfunction, aka The Blue Screen of Death
The Main Story - Hedging
The Numbers
Fire Watch and Undersea Volcano Alert
Traveling to the Willamette Valley?
Winemaking: The Continuation of Terroir by Other Means.®
Other Resources
Save the Date and See for Yourself!
Please join Dena and Ernie for Our Muse Viognier Pre-release and A-List pickup weekend from Thursday, August 14th through Saturday, August 16th. And Thursday is a Nooner! (not that kind). The cellar door opens at Noon on Thursday.
Mother Nature held back with the yield in Vintage 2024. But what she denied us in quantity, she more than made up for in quality! This Pre-release weekend is your opportunity to score a few bottles before they are gone. Viognier is Ernie's Love Language wine, and here is what he had to say about that little minx:
2024 Our Muse Viognier: Golden pearl radiates to the rim, while voluptuous orchid blossom, preserved lemon, champagne mango and raw honeycomb mingle in your frontal lobe. A naturally endowed palate experience is both generous and fulfilling, while the tension of firm acidity builds incrementally to sustain an enduring repose. 11 cases produced. Yes, that is 10+1=11.
Note: If you have not yet secured your allocation of 2024 Book Club White, now would be a fine opportunity to do so. Do you need glasses for your Book Club? Ask Dena for more details.
Please request a tasting appointment with your preferred time for Thursday, August 14th from 12 - 4 pm, Friday, August 15th from 10 - 3 pm or Saturday, August 16th from 10 - 3 pm.
If you find yourself somewhere other than here, The Big Blue Button can help satisfy your Viognier and Book Club White craving. And Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, Chardonnay and Syrah...
We are transitioning to a shipping credit to replace flat rate shipping. Any order of 6 bottles or more will receive a $15 shipping credit. An order of 12 bottles or more will receive a $40 shipping credit. All shipping options are available to you. You can apply your credit to ground shipping, or next day air. The credit also applies to Alaska and Hawaii shipments. Please email Dena for options.
As we transition to the new shipping credit, the credit will be manually applied by Dena (a human) and confirmed with your order before agreeing a shipping window. As the weather stays warm across the country, we may opt to use insulated shippers (and freeze bricks) at no additional cost for 6-bottle and 12-bottle orders to protect your wines. We also suggest a UPS or FedEx drop point to a climate controlled facility to allow you to pick up your wine at your leisure.
It's better on the A-List. A-List members receive a 10% discount on any 1-11 bottle purchase. A 12-bottle case purchase receives a 20% discount and domestic ground shipping is included.
Introducing Tractor Vision™ (Putting YOU in the video).
The Significant Farming Activity (SFA) in July is the multi-pass hedging of the vines. However, this can only be accomplished once all of the vines have had their shoots tucked and clipped into the trellis wires – by hand. That would be about 620,500 lineal feet of trellis wires. Or about 2,065 football fields. That’s a lotta football.
The July weather was very conducive to accomplishing this “by hand” activity in a timely manner. There were very few incidents where we stopped work due to high temperatures. However, when the field crew has said enough is enough, the vines take the advantage. The vines are active 24x7 this time of year and by the next morning they seemingly have put out another 2 to 3 inches of growth overnight. Fully Understood (FU).
Turning the Corner on Vintage 2025
Lag Phase in humans is the pause that invariably occurs between the 3rd and 4th ARB. While everyone is different, you may experience lag phase earlier on some days more than others. This is a verified phenomenon complete with replicated and randomized trials. In fact, you may have been randomized repeatedly and not even known it. All of course, for the greater good.
Lag phase in wine berries is the stage of their development when the seeds begin to develop a hard outer layer to survive the journey through some bird, or animal’s digestive tract. Early in July, as you walk the vineyard and pluck a sample wine berry, you can cut the wine berry “clean” in half with a thumbnail.
As you can see from the above image, not all wine berries have the same number of seeds. Actually, each seed is a pair of seeds. A little redundancy there from Ms. Nature. Following along sequentially, the first berry has one seed pair, the second wine berry has 2 seed pairs, and while somewhat unique, the third wine berry has 3 seed pairs, and the Big Kahuna wine berry has 4 seed pairs.
When you try that same activity later in the month and the seed will not yield, you will have soiled your hand. That’s how you know you are in lag phase. This is also colloquially known as seed hardening. This is a significant time in the vineyard because it allows for crop estimation. Farmers want to know how much of what they are expecting to get. Luck plays a significant role in the final outcome.
If you are lucky, you can weigh a few clusters of wine berries and apply a multiplier of 2x to determine final cluster weight. Clusters, on average, will double in weight between lag phase and the Great Cluster Pluck, hence the 2x multiplier.
If you are lucky AND good, you can apply a more nuanced multiplier taking into account your soil, rootstock, clone, fruit set (pollination ratio), number of seed pairs per wine berry, potential for late season precipitation and/or heat spikes, estimated hangtime and harvest crew availability. Ernie has developed a master class around these concepts, featuring individual Special High Intensity Training modules.
Here is where we introduce the concept of luck. Half of all farming is luck. Vertically integrated agricultural operations have the least amount of luck. But if you are dependent upon others in the agricultural supply chain (and their luck), then there is a derivative formula that provides the total amount of luck you can expect to experience. Then double it.
And a variable amount of that luck, from vintage to vintage, is good luck and bad luck. You never know how much of which kind you are going to get, but rest assured you will be getting some of each. Most likely, in the agrarian endeavor, more than your fair share. Your only recourse is to be prepared. Luck favors the prepared mind, both kinds.
Trauma, Drama and Dysfunction, aka The Blue Screen of Death
We thought it most appropriate to recognize the impending Windows 11 migration hand in hand with the concept of luck. Many hardware manufacturers will be reaping a windfall in new hardware sales as the hapless human population that is using “Software as a Service” is compelled to buy hardware that will service the aforementioned service. Are you being served?
Well, it wasn’t all that long ago that the Windows operating system would independently create a significant user FEATURE (not a bug) known as the Blue Screen of Death. The underlying cause was often related to those early 5 and a quarter inch floppy disks that were used to transfer data from one computer to another. And that is why Norton anti-virus software was developed.
In certain cases, it seemed, once the Windows operating system identified a floppy disk, it would require it to be in the floppy disk drive – ALL THE TIME. And if it went to check while you were doing some meaningful, productive and time sensitive work, and found out the floppy disk was missing, then it presented you with the Blue Screen of Death. Other times, the Blue Screen of Death would simply appear for no apparent reason. Well That’s Fantastic! (WTF)
There is no escaping the Blue Screen of Death. There is no Kobayashi Maru maneuver. You are provided a Hobson’s choice. No matter which key you would press, the Blue Screen of Death would not relent. If you chose not to press a key, you have still made a choice, but not one that advances your condition. And for those without a technical background, there is no “any” key. We have been there, had that done to us.
You could succumb to the three finger salute and voluntarily terminate the Windows operating system. This was what the Blue Screen of Death told you to do. Eventually (over some period of time and frustration) most users were forced to acquiesce. Akin to committing technological suicide, your data would vanish without a trace – by your own hand. No ransom note like today’s hackers. This is why backups were invented. Backups to floppy disks, mind you. Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya?
But the three finger salute was not the only option. Once you came to accept that your data was gone, and there is nothing you can do to get it back, your mind begins to work on another problem. And that problem is as old as time itself – exacting revenge against the machine.
The phrase is “Putting the Boots to It”. Some people think this means to reboot your computer, and in some instances this would be viewed as correct, but not with the Blue Screen of Death. With your data gone, you begin to consider the value of the computer. Then you value the frustration that it has caused and the unnecessary rework that lies ahead of you. Once you have established the value of these two variables, your decision is reduced to a binary “greater than” comparison and “if – then” plan of action.
IF your machine value is greater than the value of your frustrations, THEN you will simply unplug it from the wall, consume ARBs until lag phase occurs, and then plug it back in. IF your machine value is not greater than your frustration value, THEN you will consume ARBs until lag phase occurs, and implement a nontraditional shutdown procedure. FU.
The monitor, while party to the incident, was often times able to return to fully functional service. Note: These early PCs did not float. We are not at liberty to divulge how we know this, you will just have to trust us. #BoatAnchor
The Main Story – Hedging
Ah yes, hedging. The viticultural concept here is to remove the actively growing shoot tips, so that the vine will redirect its energy to ripen its seeds. The sooner this is done, the earlier your wine berries will develop aroma and flavor, thus avoiding rot and improving wine quality. This is a subjective, qualitative result from a defined, quantifiable activity.
Way back when, the monks at the monasteries brewed beer to sustain them while they were waiting for the wine berries to ripen so they could make wine. And that is why in modern times we drink beer while we grow wine. And since they didn’t have the modern-day conveniences of brush cutters and weed whackers, they employed goats to keep the brush under control. They liked to keep things fairly tidy and presentable, as you never really knew who was coming to dinner, or when. Could be the Spanish Inquisition.
One day the goats, being goats, found their way over to the vines. They started eating the succulent shoot tips and found them to be much more enjoyable than the poison ivy and thorns the monks kept putting in front of them. When the monks found out, they were having none of it and as promptly as they could, goats being goats, moved the goats away from the vines.
Fortunately, the Spanish Inquisition did not arrive, and a small cluster plucking occurred that fall. It seemed that vintage was remarkably better than past efforts. Could it be the goats had actually improved the wine quality? Or maybe it was the newfangled trellis system (the long forgotten “Flying Buttress”) that lifted the wine berries off the ground so they would not succumb to rot? It was never really decisively adjudicated, however maybe better to repent and enjoy a glass of wine than be burned as a heretic. As time went on, the vines continued to be “hedged” by the goats. Antidotally, it was reported some years later that spit roasted goat was quite the food and wine pairing.
With today’s modern trellis designs, such as the Vertical Shoot Position, the shoot tips are way too high up for the goats to hedge. The alternative is to mount a platform on your tractor to raise the goats or buy a mechanical hedger and leave the goats to the poison ivy and thorns. If you ever have doubts on which way to go, you can contact your local OSHA office. They have a tendency to offer up preemptive opinions on these sorts of dilemmas.
The Numbers
As we look out into the beautifully hedged vineyard this time of year, we always ask ourselves the same question. To wit: “What would you do with a brain if you had one?”
The fog of farming is upon us. It starts off pre-dawn in the shower, previewing all of the things that must get done that day. Augmented by all the things that need to get done. When you realize your toothpaste tastes weird, that’s when it hits you. You are brushing your teeth with shaving gel. And not for the first time.
The month of July in the Willamette Valley was made for growing Pinot Noir. Farmers always say things could be worse, and this year that’s right. In fact, it may not get any better than this.
July added 631.1 Degree Days, bringing the growing season to date total to 1,511.2. As was the case in June, the first half of the month was warmer with 322.7 Degree Days, while the second half (16 days) added 308.4 Degree Days.
The high temperature for July 2025 was 101.3 degrees Fahrenheit recorded on July 13th at 3:00 pm, and the low temperature was 43.9 degrees recorded on July 5th at 5:24 am. There was no measurable precipitation in July, leaving the growing season to date total at 2.47 inches.
Fire Watch and Undersea Volcano Alert
Not much to report on the Fire Watch. However, we do have an undersea volcano about 300 miles off the Oregon Coast, and 4,900 feet below the surface, that would like to interact with our environment this year in a very real and meaningful way. So, we have that going for us, which is nice…
Traveling to the Willamette Valley?
Planning to enjoy traveling and exploring the Willamette Valley? There are two primary gateways to the Willamette Valley. Most people are familiar with Portland International airport (PDX) at the top of the Willamette Valley. However, there is a second gateway in Eugene (EUG) at the south end of the Willamette Valley. Both of these airports service the major carriers.
Insider Tip: Alaska Airlines offers a Wine Flies Free program from both PDX and EUG. You will need to acquire a wine shipper box as you tour the valley. When you check in for your flight, indicate you have a case of wine, and it will be checked for FREE on Alaska Airlines. BONUS: Many wineries will provide you a FREE wine shipper box with a 6 bottle purchase.
Interested in learning about the newest AVA? Download our FREE guide to the Willamette Valley AVA’s!
Amalie Robert Estate is open year round by appointment for vineyard tours and tastings. Request a tasting appointment with your preferred day and time.
Kindest Regards,
Dena & Ernie
Other Resources
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Download your FREE Willamette Valley sub-AVA Guide
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