Pre-Harvest Situational Review
Hello and Welcome,
Suggested reading time: 4 minutes (12 minutes with optional Adult Recreational Beverage service)
This is a Vintage 2023 Pre-Harvest Situational Review from Amalie Robert Estate. Willamette Valley Pinot Noir - Unfined Unfiltered Edition. We have four topics to cover today including: The record setting/cluster scorching heat dome, Smoke in the Air! (NOT the Tom Cruise edition), The Numbers and that Pesky Climate Change, and finally, What does all that mean and why should I care? If you can possibly manage the time, we encourage you to opt-in for the ARB service. We have.
The Big Picture
Well, that image pretty well depicts the 2023 August Heat Dome. What was about to become the most idyllic vintage in the history of Willamette Valley Pinot Noir was set upon by an unrelenting heat dome. This phenomenon was similar to what we experienced in 2021, albeit we topped out at 106 degrees this year, far short of our prior personal best of 118.
Apparently, there was a disturbance in the sub-Asia weather pattern that allowed this heat dome to form over Willamette Valley wine country. A heat dome is a high pressure system with NO cloud cover. Heat domes bring intense heat and direct sunlight to the planet’s surface. The temperatures and direct sunlight significantly impact (scorch) anything found to be unprotected. Like clusters of grapes or humans.
Beginning Sunday, August 13th through Thursday the 17th the vines experienced 100+ degree high temperatures. Nighttime cool downs were in the upper 70’s to mid-80’s. We were sequestered in the house or the winery’s underground cellar where we store our wine - encased in 1,200 tons of below grade concrete.
But the vines did not have this luxury. The best they could do was orient their leaves away from the direct sunshine. That is their only defense. Some clusters that were directly exposed to the intense afternoon heat and direct sunlight were desiccated. They have since shriveled, dried and are now lost. Those clusters will either not be harvested as we are hand harvesting or will be sorted out at the harvest trailer before we even get to the winery. Not so much the case with machine harvesting.
While we do pull a few leaves on the morning side of the canopy, we do NOT pull ANY leaves on the afternoon side for just this reason. However, for all the mother-henning we do, we cannot prevent an exposed cluster here or there. Fortunately, we are planted on a southeast to south to southwest facing hillside, and a significant portion of the vineyard is protected from the blistering afternoon sun.
The vines do have mitigation strategies to continue to mature their seeds that are inside the wine berries. The first is that they cool the underside of their leaves by releasing water vapor through their stomata. This is akin to humans sweating through our pores, but vines are able to just release vapor. That is if the roots have available soil moisture. We have not had any measurable precipitation since May 6th when we recorded 0.30 inches of rainfall.
Whatever soil moisture was available to the vines prior to August 13th was certainly depleted during our 5 day heat dome event. The next source of moisture that the vine can tap into is the clusters of wine berries. Using the clusters as an alternate water source, the vine continues to release vapor through the stomata to cool the leaf surface allowing photosynthesis to continue.
However, the wine berry is now feeling the effects. And as winemakers, this is of paramount concern. As the next few weeks of Vintage 2023 unfold without meaningful precipitation, the vine will be robbing moisture from the wine berries. The effect is a higher concentration of sugar and acidity. A typical ripening curve sees a gradual increase in sugar with a corresponding decrease in acidity. Removing water means an increase in both sugar and acid concentration.
As we wait for sensory development of aroma and flavor, less water in the wine berry means an artificially higher sugar concentration. And there is a hard limit. Sugar concentration is measured in brix. And sugar is converted to alcohol at about a 60% conversion rate. So, when the sugar concentration reaches 25 brix, the alcohol potential in the wine is about 15%. Much above 25 brix and the yeast will die off before they can convert all of the sugar to alcohol. Sweet Pinot Noir is not really our thing, nor is high alcohol.
As winemakers, our harvest decision rests primarily on maximizing sensory aroma and flavor at the lowest brix level possible. (And as an aside, we are STILL loving the 2010 and 2011 vintages.) In past years we have relied on our deep rooting 5C rootstock to find available soil moisture. Not so much this year. We are dry as a popcorn fart with no precipitation in the forecast. Nice for the humans now, but the effects of the heat dome will continue to manifest in the vines as we proceed to harvest.
Firewatch
Smoke in the Air! And just like those air-to-air missiles, wildfire smoke can cover quite a bit of ground in a short period of time. Sunday, August 20th we were blanketed by smoke from fires in the northeast corner of Washington state. The heat dome can also impact our environment by fostering existing wildfires or creating conditions that favor new wildfires. We are located just west of Salem and were spared the most significant effects of wildfire smoke.
And for some unknown reason (maybe it was Tropical Storm Hilary in Southern California), the wind shifted in a very unusual way. We normally feel the breeze from the west due to the Jetstream. Albeit south or southwest to north or northwest. But we seldom see the wind from the northeast, and that is what we had. Smoke from our friends in the northeast corner of Washington state. Friendly fire it was not.
And so that throws another dynamic into the mix. Our vines and their clusters were covered in dense smoke for about 24 hours. By comparison, in 2020 it was about a week. The big question now is are the wine berries compromised? And will there be another wildfire event before harvest? There are active fires due north of us in Washington State, along with the aforementioned fires in eastern Washington. Are they lying in wait to make an encore appearance? We are also seeing active fires in southern and eastern Oregon, not to mention California or the annual spectacle that is Burning Man in Nevada.
We believe that most folks (winemakers and consumers) learned a little something about smoke tainted grapes from the 2020 vintage. From our point of view, we see two types of wineries: Those that did NOT release wine from the 2020 vintage and those that WISH they didn’t. Clearly, we are in the former group.
The Numbers
Unrelenting heat followed by wildfire smoke is not good. In fact, we would be so bold as to say it is bad. These are the numbers for the first 21 days of August as compared to the full month historical August. (We will publish the 2023 full month numbers in the upcoming August Climate Update.)
For the first 21 days of August, our high temperature was 106.0 degrees, and our low temperature was 48.0 degrees. We accumulated 478.2 Degree Days through August 21, providing a vintage to date total of 1,906.1 Degree Days. Our target number for the vintage is 2,100 Degree Days, and we are just coming around that corner.
The warmest August on our record was in 2003 and 2017 when we recorded about 690 August Degree Days in each vintage. Harvest was early in both years. To apply the first 21 day rate of heat accumulation to the entire month of August, we would have recorded a record breaking 726.4 Degree Days.
And a word about this pesky climate change. The northern hemisphere climate during the month of August has not really changed in several (hundred) years. It has been, and will most likely continue to be, HOT AND DRY. In the Pacific Northwest, add in a few thunderstorms with lightning, high winds, and a random volcanic event and you have a pretty complete picture. Now what may have changed is our collective approach to how we prepare for this annual event. Everyone knows it’s coming. It is marked right there on the calendar between July and September. Pretty hard to miss it, really.
What Does This Mean and Why Should I Care?
Due to the diligent efforts of a lot of hard-working people who came before us, Oregon Pinot Noir is a brand. In building the Oregon Pinot Noir brand they faced adversity – every successful effort does. As Willamette Valley Pinot Noir winegrowers and winemakers with a new AVA, it is beholden upon us to put forth the best efforts we can in each and every vintage. While we strive individually to do our best, we are part of the Oregon story, and intend to contribute to it in a positive manner.
Vintage 2023 has offered up some interesting conditions as we are about 3 to 5 weeks from harvest. As we assess the conditions we are faced with, here is our plan. Don’t anybody tell Mother Nature!
FIRST of all, Ernie was able to delay the final HEDGING pass until AFTER the heat dome. This means that while the canopy appeared disheveled and overgrown, it was also providing a significant amount of shade to our wine berries. He has since completed that task and the canopy is hedged short. This means fewer leaves using less water. And less leaf surface should slow sugar accumulation meaning lower alcohol potential.
The downside is that all of those leaves providing that cluster saving shade means more water usage. Dry farming helps to make each vintage unique unto itself, and we celebrate that. We strive to capture the diversity the Willamette Valley provides in each vintage. Irrigation tends to mask those differences. In this case, we could use a spot of early September rain, but that is highly unlikely before harvest.
NEXT, this is the time of year when winegrowers start to thin down the amount of clusters on the vine. There are several reasons for this, the most important is to only leave as much fruit as you think you can ripen. Vintage 2023 did not give us an excessive amount of fruit. More of a moderate crop load that with a little thinning here or there we should be able to ripen.
But what now, after the heat dome? Based on the reduced soil moisture and the vines showing drought stress, we are re-thinking thinning. If it is true that the rootzone is mostly depleted of soil moisture, then the only source of water left is the fruit itself. The vine already knows this, we are a little late to the party. The vine has the ability to take water from the wine berries, and that is what we foresee.
So by leaving a little extra fruit (aka water), we are able to slow down desiccation. Our hope is for aroma and flavor development before we hit excessive sugar at 25 brix. Or if not, there may be an artificially early harvest resulting in a tremendous amount of Rosé this year.
The FINAL strategy is triage. If we accept the fact that we are not going to take all of the fruit, then we can prioritize the parts of the vineyard that can best handle the unique ripening conditions presented by Vintage 2023. After 20 some years of this, we have a pretty good idea which are the most drought tolerant vines. By focusing on those sections of the vineyard, we can maximize our wine quality potential. And who knows if we do get rain, well then a rising tide lifts all boats.
Nothing quite like farming. You pay your money and you take your chances. A million things can go wrong, and virtually everything has to go right. If you are an A type, overthinker, well, maybe this is not the best career choice you could make. However, if you are somewhat Neurodivergent you may approach farming from the standpoint that it is all just “a feature, not a bug” of the agrarian endeavor.
Here’s to the Vintage of the Year 2023! It will be what we make of it.
Kindest Regards,
Dena & Ernie