Amalie Robert Estate Situational Review: The Mid-July Stretch and Lag Phase

Hello and Welcome, 

After June’s month end record heat wave, July seems downright pleasant. High temperatures in the upper 80’s mostly, though trending down to the upper 70’s and nighttime temperatures dipping into the 40’s. Our humidity remains in check at about 40% during the day and 90% overnight. No matter, the vines are executing their preordained program. They are just taking a little more time getting it done. That and they are getting older, just like the rest of us.

THE BIG PICTURE 

As we welcome more visitors to the property, we are reminded that not everyone reading this FLOG has 36 acres of vineyard for a backyard - but we do. So, we thought it might be nice to introduce you to THE BIG PICTURE. If you are planning a trip to Wine Country, you can see it all when you get here. Until then, here is a view of the “back 40”.

We are farming the dream, so you don’t have to. Click on the image to view the "Back 40" panorama.

Winemaking: The Continuation of Terroir by Other Means. ®

A FLOG communication(Farming bLOG) by Dena & Ernie from Amalie Robert Estate. Oregon Willamette Valley Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. 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…

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.

Fire Update
 
We will be monitoring the West Coast fire situation as we head into the hot and dry days leading up to harvest. Here is a current image of the Oregon wildfire scene. 

The largest fire by far in Oregon right now is the Bootleg fire (fire number 210321) located near the border with California. The fire was reported on July 12th and as of July 19th has burned over 400,000 acres. For comparative purposes, the state of Rhode Island is 776,900 acres. 

 
This chart shows how Vintage 2021 compares to the past four vintages of wildfires. The state of Connecticut is 3.548 million acres and that is pretty close to our year-to-date average acres burned. How many Connecticut’s do we have left to burn? How much greenhouse gas and carbon are being released into the atmosphere? Maybe it’s time West Coast forest management became part of the national debate. 

 
This graphic shows the Air Quality Index for the Northeast region. The smoke causing the unhealthy air quality is from the West Coast wildfires over 2,500 miles away. With all of that particulate in the atmosphere, someone could make the case for global dimm(witt)ing. We may be going to hell in a handbasket, but at least we’re enjoying the ride.  
Lag Phase and Situational Review
 
The month of July appears seemingly out of nowhere after the flurry of activity in June known as canopy management. Unprecedented growth from rain and excessive heat in June had to be contained in 3 sets of trellis catch wires. Then and only then was Ernie able to execute his first hedge. Some blocks, being above average, earned a pre-hedge before the main hedge. Then there is the obligatory re-hedge. 

Ernie Getting His Hedge on in the Terraced Rows of the Back 40.
 
And the hedging’s will continue until the vines realize it is time to stop growing more leaves and then direct their energy to ripening their seeds. And in so doing develop stunning aroma and flavor in our wine berries. They want to ripen seeds to reproduce; we just want to make the wine! A means to an end to be sure. 

 
But it takes a while for the vines to grow more leaves for Ernie to hedge off. So, we take a week or so to give them some time to grow and focus on updating our own situational awareness. You should see what it looks like from here… 

Hedging the Vines, Back to Front.
 
For the vines, they call this period “lag phase”. Lag phase is an important time in the development of this year’s wine berries. But like skeet shooting low house 6, you need to be paying attention or you will miss it. Lag phase helps the humans figure out about how many tons of wine berries will be waiting for them at the start of The Great Cluster Pluck. This is good to know IN ADVANCE. You know the vines have entered lag phase when the seeds begin to “harden off”. After bloom when the wine berries are first formed, the cells are dividing like rabbits and the tissue is very soft. After the cell division is complete, the next step is enhancing cell wall integrity and growing the cells – including the seeds. At the very center of a pollinated wine berry is a seed. More specifically in wine berries there are pairs of seeds – usually two pairs, but sometimes only one. This is often the result of the weather conditions during bloom. Warm sunny weather favors two pairs of seeds, where cool and rainy weather can create a single pair. The other alternative is no seeds because the flower did not pollinate, and you have no wine berry to ferment the sugar out of. This year, we seem to have a mix of all three scenarios. More of a casual observation at this point as the vines are taking their time entering lag phase. We have not sampled the vineyard and performed the 4 sig-fig analysis and statistical evaluations – yet. But like Yogi Barra said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.” We have clusters with fewer than the historical “average” number of wine berries. This means a greater percentage of flowers did not pollinate this year compared to the average over the past 30 years. For the flowers that did pollinate, we see a wide range in the mix of the two pairs of seeds v the one pair of seeds wine berries. 

Pinot Noir Cluster, Berry with 2 Pairs of Seeds, Berry with 1 Pair of Seeds.
 
Once the seeds begin to harden off, the vines have by definition entered lag phase. Then it is time to sample the vineyard. We do this by selecting a random set of vines, we count the number of clusters on the vine and write that number down. Then we clip one off and put it in a bucket. Move on to the next random vine and repeat. When the sample collection is done, we weigh the clusters and divide by the number of clusters weighed. This is the fun part – getting weighed. The average weight of the clusters at lag phase will double when we cluster pluck them. So if we have a cluster that weighs 55 grams at lag phase, it should weigh 110 grams at harvest. That would mean an average size Pinot Noir cluster where it takes 4 of them to make a pound. Luck favors the prepared mind. Based on our informal observation, we will be lucky to see our FINAL cluster weights in the 100 gram category. More likely it seems that it may take five or even six clusters to make a pound. The marketing people will tell you that it is a short crop of exceptional quality. And of course, it will be… 

 
What does this mean and why should I care?
 
Growing two vintages on the same cluster. From a winemaking perspective, wine berries with a single pair of seeds are significantly smaller and will build sugar faster than wine berries with two pairs of seeds. This comes into play when sampling for harvest. There are at least three conditions for harvest that must all signal “GO TIME!” The first and foremost is aroma and flavor. If it doesn’t taste good on the vine, the chance of an ethereal Pinot Noir in the bottle is pretty remote. 

Clusters Protected from the Sun to Preserve Aroma and Flavor.
 
The second attribute is the chemistry, specifically sugar concentration and acidity measured as pH. Optimal sugar concentrations at harvest are measured using Brix. A range of 21 to 24 Brix will yield a final alcohol potential of 12.6 to 14.4% alcohol. Here is where the single seed pair berries come into focus. If the mix of wine berries on a cluster have a high percentage of single seed wine berries, the sugar concentration will read very high. However, the wine berries with two pairs of seeds are not as mature and they will show a very high concentration of acid, and underripe flavors. This is good to know, but fortunately it is not something we need to problematize today. And the third attribute is scheduling a harvest crew. It is important to remember, there are only so many skilled labor hands to go around. And those skilled labor hands are connected to lungs that will need clean, smoke free air to breath. Just like every other living thing on the planet. 
Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie