Amalie Robert Estate Special Report: Vintage 2025 & Pinot Meunier Shipping!
Hello and Welcome,
This is a Special Report: Vintage 2025, from Amalie Robert Estate. Approximate reading time 0.51 ARB’s (Adult Recreational Beverages); Pictures and video only 0.33 ARB’s.
After 25 years of growing Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, one truth rings true vintage after vintage. “You don’t have to be crazy to grow Pinot Noir, but it helps.”
In This Communication:
Pinot Meunier, the Perfect Fall Red
Looking for a Harvest Window
A Stitch in Time
The Numbers
Other Resources
Pinot Meunier, the Perfect Fall Red
Now Shipping: The Pinot Meunier shipping window is open! Follow the Big Blue Button to secure your 12 bottle case, or 6 pack. Just in time for cooler fall weather, holiday entertaining and gift giving! Go ahead, treat yourself to this limited release wine. Just in time for the end of daylight savings time, you get an extra hour to enjoy wine on November 2nd. Don’t delay, Do it today!
2024 Pinot Meunier
Translucent Carmesi Red attracts in a subtle come-hither manner. Rewarded with perfumed red rose petal and freshly harvested summer raspberry aromas, the palate is intrigued. But not left wanting from the pure expression and exacting delivery of fruit, tannin and acidity served up from a long stemmed wineglass. For no longer than a moment, a pleasant distraction conjures memories from a time gone by and an inkling of the undiscovered dalliances that are yet to be. Unfined, unfiltered and definitely unafraid, Pinot Meunier. 101 cases produced.
Culinary Inclination: Spit roasted quail alongside baked delicata squash, sautéed chanterelle mushrooms in duck fat and garlicky brussels sprouts.
We are offering up to a $40 shipping credit for your fall 12-bottle case selection, and 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. We also suggest using a UPS or FedEx drop point. This allows for a climate controlled facility to receive and hold your wine. Another benefit is minimized travel exposure and ability to collect your wine at your leisure. It is also less expensive than shipping to a residential address.
And it’s better on the A-List! A-List members receive a 10% discount on any 1-11 bottle purchase, a 20% discount on a 12-bottle case purchase, and domestic ground shipping is always included with a 12-bottle case.
Looking for a Harvest Window
Just when we have the vineyard all tucked in and ready to put the “polish” on our ripening wine berries, the early September weather looked like this. All nice and cool and dry. Plenty of hang time to develop aroma and flavor without rapid sugar accumulation – and no rot to speak of. This weather pattern tends to favor very well-balanced wines with wonderful bouquet, textured mouthfeel, silky tannins and moderate alcohol. Pretty farmin’ nice wines.
And then as soon as you relax to pour a glass of Pinot Meunier, THIS forecast appears right out of nowhere. Waft The Fruit!?! Our preplanned defense for this previously identified, potential scenario included NOT pulling the leaves that shade our wine berries so as to shelter them from excessive sun exposure that results in excessive tannin. And hedging a short canopy to help preserve soil moisture so that our wine berries would not desiccate in the heat, resulting in high potential alcohol levels. The Syrah (and Viognier), of course, should be just fine. Thank you very much.
And of course, this turns the smoke machine on for those areas consummating the natural reduction of combustible forest materials, aka burning forests and trees. This is what’s known as a net net loss. The first loss is eliminating the (economically valuable) trees that convert carbon dioxide into oxygen so we can all breathe. The second loss is polluting our environment with carbon dioxide and particulate matter created during combustion contributing to global warming. And that leaves it to all the creatures big and small with lungs to be the “filter scrubbers” of the associated particulate matter. Fortunately, our little corner of the viticultural world is less affected.
A Stitch in Time
If you want to make Ms. Nature laugh, just tell her your plans. Do you remember that lack of September rain we were talking about? Well, it seems Ernie did find his rain dance notes from 2013. And they still work! Ernie may have missed a move here or there, but for all intents and purposes he managed to pull down about 1.73 inches for the month of September. And add another 0.60 inches of rain for the first week of October, just for good measure.
For those of you who don’t necessarily read the tea leaves every day, this means a little more hang time. And hang time, with available soil moisture, means we get to hang our wine berries on the vine a little longer to develop aroma and flavor without worrying about excessive sugar accumulation fermenting into high alcohol wines.
Insider Tip: The way to make too much money on the stock market is to sell too soon. Meaning before the crash. However, in the world of wine, we are always looking for fully developed aroma and flavors in the wine berries before we Cluster Pluck them. And that takes time, if time is a luxury you can afford.
But if you are sourcing from a vineyard of shallow rootstocks, your future may very well be preordained in these post global warming vintages. Shallow rooting rootstocks are great for advancing sugar accumulation early in the season. Match that with a hot, dry summer with very little rainfall and what you have there is a forced early harvest. High sugar concentrations are there, but aroma and flavor maybe not so much. These rootstock choices were all in vogue before the global warming vintages. Not so much nowadays.
We planted Amalie Robert Estate at the turn of the century knowing we would not irrigate. So, we chose deep rooting rootstocks for our sandy, marine sediment soils. Our rootstock of choice is 5C (from Texas, dontcha y’all know), and those roots are going nowhere but down, down, down looking for soil moisture. That means we were able to hang on the vine until we received the aforementioned rains of September. (Note: We don’t ask for miracles at the end of the season, we depend on them.)
Put all that together and what you have there is our 24th harvest at Amalie Robert Estate! Could be the vintage of a lifetime, but it is most certainly the vintage of the year. “Wines True to the Soil, Wines True to the Vintage.®” As we used to say at Microsoft, “It’s better to be lucky than good.”
Always good to check in with our mighty walnut, before scheduling the first Cluster Pluck. This tree is an “indicator plant”. When the leaves begin to senesce, it is an indicator that the Pinot Noir aroma and flavors are ready and that is when we get out the Cluster Plucking buckets.
What to do if you don’t have a mighty walnut to signal the beginning of harvest? Well, you could rely on the arrival of those flocking birds. You know, robins and starlings…
The Numbers
September added 510.7 Degree Days, bringing the growing season to date total to 2,714.4 Degree Days. The high temperature for September 2025 was 103.3 degrees Fahrenheit recorded on September 4th at 5:00 pm, and the low temperature was 43.2 degrees recorded on September 26th at 7:00 am. We recorded 1.73 inches of rainfall for September 2025. This brings the growing season to date rainfall total to 4.29 inches of measurable precipitation.
Our next communication will be the Vintage 2025 Harvest After Action Report. In the meantime, if you want to see what a harvest looks like at Amalie Robert Estate, you can watch that here courtesy of VineStories. Willamette Valley harvest at Amalie Robert Estate.
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.
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 & The Rainmaker
Other Resources
Visit our Website
Visit the FLOG Archive
Take the Amalie Robert Tour
Shop Amalie Robert Direct
Download your FREE Willamette Valley sub-AVA Guide
Alaska Airlines Wines Fly Free