Making up ground at Stanton Vineyard

As I sit looking at a 70 degree late- August day, I have to think "Well, we could have hurricane-force winds" and wish my cohorts in Virginia and New York's Long Island the best.  Late October harvest dates in Oregon are definitely better than grapes blown all over the ground in August.

That said, with last week's even, perfectly mid-80s temperatures, we've finally caught back up to 2010.  Sort of.  We're on the 2010 pace from the standpoint of physiological progression - seeds are all hardened up, shoot tip growth has almost stopped, and the start of veraison is likely days, not weeks, away. The vines are switching over from growing more leaves to ripening the fruit.  From an overall heat unit standpoint, though, we're still behind 2010, and we're still on track for the coolest overall vintage in decades. 

It's never boring making Pinot Noir here.  I can't imagine anywhere else in the U.S. where we can get completely different seasons every year and still produce wines with fantastic depth and complexity.  We are so lucky, we can even go out foraging for Morels while we wait for the Pinot Noir to mature.

STANTON VINEYARD

I spent some time recently in down in the Lorane Valley (SE of Eugene) at Stanton Vineyard.  Charlie Stanton's fruit is truly beautiful and unique.  The vineyard sits up on top of a little knoll with fantastic clear views from SE all the way to the Coast Range (read "All day sunshine").  The soils are rocky with sandstone subsoils - truly different than all our other Pinot Noir sites.

Here are some pictures of the vineyard right after the final hedging of the year:

Note how nice and moderately sized the clusters are?  The higher elevation pushed bloom date at this site into a bit of sketchier weather, which led to a poorer set than other places where we're dropping literally 1/2 of the fruit on the ground.  What does the lighter set mean?  To some extent, it just means there's less thinning to do at Stanton than elsewhere. As an added bonus, the clusters are a little looser, reducing disease pressure later in the season.

For a last inspiring, sunny photo, here's a shot looking West from the top of the Stanton Vineyard.  Smaller vines in the foreground are new plantings that'll start bearing a crop in 2012
.

Time for green harvest 2011

Well, we now know that we had an absolutely perfect bloom and fantastic fruit set this year.  Most of our Pinot Noir is sitting at 5.5-6.5 tons per acre, an amazingly perfect conversion of flowers into grapes.  Unfortunately, we couldn't hope to ripen that much fruit in the best of years (especially when we're defining ripeness by flavor). Even our brothers and sisters to the South can't do that.  So, what do we do?  We go through every vineyard and cut tons of fruit off the vines.   This is all hand-harvesting of clusters, so it's slow and expensive...and it makes a farmer cry when all that fruit lands in the dirt.

But this is the price we pay for wanting to harvest before the late fall rains come.  Right now, we're anticipating picking the FIRST of our Pinot Noir sometime around Oct 25th.  That's about 1 month later than normal and easily 2 weeks past my comfort zone.  Late Oct harvests can produce spectacular vintages (e.g., 2008), but I cannot remember too many Halloweens when we hadn't seen substantial rainfall. And that's what we're talking about this year - Picking between Oct 25 and Nov 1!!  Hang on to your hats, folks. 

Don't get me wrong, this is the type of year I love - It's full of challenge, and it rewards those who make the tough decisions and who decide to put in extra effort to coax delicate Pinot Noir clusters to ripeness.  We're all talking to each other and nervously commenting "This vintage will be made in October", but we're all farmers.  We'd show an unimaginable degree of hubris if we weren't worried about something.  Five years from now, we'll hopefully all look back with much more machismo on how we stood up to the coldest vintage in Oregon since 1976....

In the mean time, check out photos of the vineyards below.  The upside of the cool, even weather is canopies that are dark emerald green and operating at maximum photosynthetic capacity.  We could end up being surprised - All it'll take is a few above-average weeks in Sep, and we'll pull in harvest by a week...which is all we really need.

Shea Vineyard snapshot:

Perfect weather during flowering led to a perfect fruit set.  All the clusters are big, tight, and heavy.

Estimates this week were that we had ~ 5.5 tons per acre, even after our 25% crop reduction earlier in the month.  We're moving forward with a 40% reduction in clusters this week!  Even in a warmer year, we can truly ripen maybe 2.75 tons per acre from Shea (physiologically & phenolically).  If we leave the 5.5 tpa on the vines now, we'll end up with a lot of fruit, but it won't lead to complex interesting wines.  So, even though we're paying by the acre, on the ground it goes.

Walnut Hill snapshot:

The vineyard we're leasing on Walnut Hill is managed by Stiring Fox and his crew at Stirling Wine Grapes.  At this site, the set wasn't quite as perfect (see variation in berry size below), but there's still plenty of fruit.

Here, we're taking a bit more of a manicure approach to thinning.  We'll be reducing the number of clusters on the very heavy-set vines mostly by cleaning up "crowded" areas where clusters are bound together or overlapping and by eliminating all of the wings.  Again here, we'll come back in 2-3 weeks and drop the clusters that are lagging as we hit veraison and things color up.

Growing season catching up, lifting spirits

The warm weather we've been enjoying over the last couple weeks is taking a bit of a hiatus today, but the vineyards are catching up very quickly from where we were just a month ago.  My own personal barometer in Portland is my tomato garden. I now have little Sun Golds ripening away - This is a couple of weeks earlier than 2010!

I was up in Cherry Grove Vineyard last night, and the progress there has been phenomenal.  Third catch wires are all up, and the vineyard is ready for the first hedging pass.  More importantly, bloom happened very quickly - Bob Van Steenberg told me that Cherry Grove went from 5% to full bloom within just a couple of days last week.  This is great news, as it means we've made up another few days of the schedule. 

Even if we have the rather luke-warm summer a la 2010, we still will start harvesting Pinot Noir by Oct 20th or so.  If we get the even warmer weather that's currently in the medium-range forecast, we'll be back to a mid-Oct start.

Don't get me wrong here.  I'm happy for the cool growing season and late fall.  Athena and I have been tasting through our 2010 wines in barrel ahead of summer racking.  We're finding a wonderful range of ripe flavors on a light frame with brightness and length.  These wines are the poster children for cool climate Pinot Noir - It's why we're here!   My heart, however, loves the bit more certainty that we won't start picking in November this year. 

Results from mini-vertical of Boedecker Cellars Pinot Noirs

On Saturday, June 25th, we held a lightly structured mini-vertical tasting of our wines from 2003-2008.  Athena and I would like to thank everyone who participated, as you gave us the reason to taste more of our wines side by side than we had ever done before.

Overall verdicts:
- All the wines still had fabulous fruit and amazing vibrancy
- For the "Do wines age in Stelvin?" crowd, yes, the wines had matured similarly to wines in premium cork finish bottles...and not a single bottle out of all 40 bottles was flawed.
- Leave the 2008 and 2007 wines in bottle for a while longer. They're delicious, but still tightly wound.
- 2003 Pinots are finally tasting integrated. The fruit is still huge, and they are a riper style of Pinot, but they are approaching a state of balance now.
- Of all the wines, only the '04s were starting to show those cool flavor notes and aromatics you only get in aged Pinot Noir. I'm very excited to taste these again in 3-4 years when the foreground fruit drops back a little further.
- No one should be in a hurry to drink any of these wines. Certainly, they're enjoyable, but none of the wines are "peaking" yet. (The '05s and '06s are soooo delicious, it's difficult to resist opening them.)


Here's the ranking from 30 people at our "When we have time every couple of years" vertical tasting. Wines are shown in order of crowd preference. [Note: All wines were decanted for 4-5 hours prior to tasting.]


Flight 1: Athena & Stewart Pinot Noirs


2005 Stewart (Athena's personal "right now" favorite)
2006 Stewart
2005 Athena
2004 Stewart (Stewart's personal "right now" favorite)
2004 Athena
2007 Athena


Flight 2: Vineyard Designate Pinot Noirs [all very close in ranking]


2004 Momtazi
2004 Stoller
2008 Cherry Grove
2006 Momtazi
2008 Stoller
2007 Cherry Grove


Bonus Flight: 2003 Stewart& Athena - The wines that started it all
- As I state above, the wines from our premiere vintage in 2003 are just to the point where Athena and I think they are in balance.  This was such an atypical vintage for Oregon, we weren't sure how they would age.  Pleasingly enough, they are developing nuance with age while maintaining plenty of that juicy, powerful fruit.

Test Google Earth Tour of Boedecker Cellars' Vineyards

Test run of embedded Google Earth Tour

Ending the blogger's block

Trying to overcome the internal editor of the mind and just start writing again is always difficult.  Especially today when so many others are writing, it's hard to get passed the "someone else is probably already writing about this" blockage.  So folks, stick with me as I try to get back on the Vintage 2011 documentation horse.

OK, so how has 2011 been in Oregon so far?  Well, it's been wet and cold. Even with summer weather finally arriving this week, we're running ~ 4 weeks behind normal, and even 7-10 days behind 2010.  That's a little scary, since we didn't start harvesting Pinot Noir until Oct 20th last year.  But, it's early days here in the Willamette Valley, and we can catch up. 

Also, if I look at the other recent vintages that ran late into October (e.g., 2008, 2010), I'll take the extra stress about weather if I can get the beautiful flavors and aromatics that we get during the slow, cool years. Although it's overstated, Pinot Noir really is a cool weather varietal.  The nuance and transparent beauty we get here in Oregon during the stressful vintages cannot be beat.

More on vineyards and progress to come soon.  Also, we're hosting a mini-vertical tasting at the winery this weekend. I'll try to post tasting notes ASAP.

Crop Estimation for 2010 Pinot Noir

Appologies for late posting.  Video upload problems last week:

Aug 26, 2010

While folks in Northern California are actually starting to pick some fruit, we're still about 40-50 days from picking in Oregon. The mild spring and early summer weather led to late bloom and slow maturation.  This means we'll begin picking in mid-October this year.

Because we're so late, and likely pushing up against rain at the end, accurate crop estimation and adjustment of fruit per vine is very important this year.  Crop load differences of 2.5 tons per acre vs 3.2 tons per acre can be the difference between luscious, flavorful Pinot Noir and bland washed out fruit when we have to pick on Oct 30th.

Ideally, vines grow in balance.  The fruit set matches the vine's ability to ripen grapes to an optimal balance of flavor, acids, and tannins. In cool years like 2010, however, we'll  work to speed up ripening by dropping 10-30% of the fruit in August.  When we're looking at picking in late October, reaching maturity 3-4 days earlier can make all the difference.  So we take a bit of a hit on total crop in exchange for quality. 
Here's a quick video demonstrating crop estimation in our Three Trees Lane vineyard:

Early-spring in Eola-Amity

OK, so the post below shows the vineyard in July. Here's what it looked like in March:

It turns out my ability to predict shade hasn't panned out yet...but I maintain by late-Sept. we'll see shadows out into the blocks.  Stay tuned here to find out.

July walk through Eola-Amity Estate

I took a quick walk through our new estate vineyard in the Eola-Amity Hills on Saturday.  Fruit set looked good, and the vineyard looked pristine.  Thanks much to Stirling Fox and the folks at SWIG!

Winter time to write & time to start ML

Really, I just need to write this on a regular basis, but it's always difficult to get started. Here's my new goal - write a little bit every day regardless of what's happening. Edit and publish the next morning.

For those of you not in Oregon, we just went through the longest, coldest winter snap on record. It's warmer now, but here's a quick indication of how cold it was here (those of you in cold climates, pardon our whining about the cold):

We finally started to heat up the winery this week in order to push the '09 Pinot Noirs through the malolactic fermentation. Most years, we would be well on the way to finished with ML by now, but we delayed the start a bit this year in order to get the winery a bit more cleaned up before the giant shuffle.

At the end of harvest, all the wines are in one barrel room, tightly packed together in the chilly (hopefully) ambient temp. That's all the current vintage Pinot Noir and whites and previous vintage Pinot Noir. Before we start to warm up the barrel room, we have to move all the previous vintage Pinot Noir out to the frigid wintery unheated side of the winery (the fermentation side during harvest). In deference to good winemaking practices, this means that we have to get the ferment side cleaned up, get the floors scrubbed and get the drains cleaned first.

More later on how we use temp control in the winemaking. ...Hopefully some more on native ferments, unfiltered wines, and "natural winemaking"

Harvest 09 Wrap Up Post

Forgot to post this last week.

Wow. OK. So my blogging never quite recovered from my sales trip to NYC in the middle of harvest. Lots of grapes, more than we've ever done before. Fantastic!

Here's the final story on Boedecker Cellars Harvest 2009 by the numbers:

• Tons of Pinot Noir - 60.5 --> 153 barrels & 2 puncheons & 3 kegs


• Tons of Whites - 19.5


• Gallons Rose ~ 300


• First grapes into the winery: Hirschy Vineyard, Block C - Sep 22nd


• Last grapes into the winery: Momtazi Vineyard, Block C - Oct 12th
  
  In comparison, 2008 - PN 44 tons, Whites 14.5

We barrelled down the last Pinot Noir on Nov 6th. White wines are still ticking away.

Vintage of the decade?

Strong words and bold pronouncement, I know. But this was a fantastic year for ripeness. We did more whole cluster Pinot Noir ferments than ever before, as we had great phenolic ripeness. Every bit of PN going to barrel was ripe, complex, and like a sea of bing cherries. Most importantly, warm, even ripening weather allowed us to procrastinate and pick each site at the peak of distinctiveness. In two years, this could be called the vintage of the decade.

2009 White wines will set a new benchmark in Oregon. Flavors were ripe without excessive sugar, and deep, rich stone fruit flavors dominated everything. We took advantage from our "experiment" in 2008 and switched over to 12-18 hour skin contact on all of our Pinot Gris this year. The complex, interesting and overwhelmingly cool aromatics that resulted converted me from a "Oh yeah, Pinot Gris, whatever" person to a "Wow! I love Pinot Gris" fanatic. You'll see later this spring...

The folks at the Oregon Wine Board were kind enough to send out some seed questions for all of us. Below are a few of my reflections from this fall:

2009 Harvest Reflections

How did this year's weather affect you?

• The heat spike in August pulled a few things forward in ripeness, so we started on Sep 22nd, about one week ahead of normal. Our last pick came in on Oct 12th, right before the big rains started. (pretty close to average timing for our last pick.) The generally even warm weather through the summer pushed phenolic ripeness with more brown stems and seeds than I've seen in years. We used a lot more whole cluster fruit this year in ferments due to the fact that everything came in looking very clean and nicely ripe.

How are acid and sugar levels?

• Sugars on some younger blocks came in a little high due to some raisining induced by the last big heat spike. Overall, the acidity matched the ripe flavors very well, providing crispness and freshness but not hiding the dark, bing-cherry-like flavors in the Pinot Noir. Based on initial analysis of malic levels, these wines will pick up significant richness as they progress through malolactic fermentation this winter.

What are the emerging flavor profiles for the fruit?

• White wines are spectacular this year, with everything showing ripe stone-fruit flavors. I'm espcially excited by Pinot Gris (which rarely excites me) and Pinot Blanc. Regardless of site, these wines are showing some beautiful apricot and peach notes. The heat did not seem to affect the acidity much in the whites. Even though the flavors are ripe, the acidity is bright and balanced. 2009 should be a standout year for white wine in Oregon.



• Pinot Noirs are inky, dark, and very layered coming out of ferment. Fruit notes are very dark and ripe overall, but the vintage is not as prone to black-fruit and plum notes as, say 2006. Dark cherry and black currant aromas and flavors jump out of the glass right now. Tannins are firmer than 2008, which is a good thing given the overall "bigness" of the wines. Overall, these wines will drink well on release in 2011/2012 and are built for aging , as well.

How would you characterize yields? What is your forecast for tonnage this year?

• We came in ~ 10% over projected tonnage. Some was due to larger than forecasted cluster. Some was due to extra fruit coming on the market. When Dick Shea asks if I want more fruit, generally my answer is "Yes, how much can I have?"

Extras
Oh yeah. Here's a quick flic. of my ferry ride from NJ to Manhattan. While I was enjoying this view, Athena and the crew were sortion our last 10 tons of PN, pressing a bunch of Pinot Gris, and barrelling down the first Pinot Noir ferments.

Boedecker Cellars Harvest Day 13

Sometimes we hit the middle of harvest and, well, just don't quite have time to do laundry. Athena was the first to launch high fashion week in the winery this year.

Seriously, we hit the middle of fruit processing and it's non-stop Pinot Noir every day. All the fruit's looking fantastic, but there are always a few leaves to pluck out of the bins.

Boedecker Cellars Harvest 09 Day 12

Sometimes, the whole cluster ferments can be impossible to punch down with anything other than feet. Seriously...we tried for 20 mins to get through the cap of this fermenter before someone just went in and took care of it.

Boedecker Cellars Harvest 09 Days 9-11

Yeah. So I fell a little behind. It's been busy around the winery over the last couple of days. Lots of picking and picking decisions...More details later today.

Last walk through Shea Vineyard on 9/27. Finally decided to pick on Friday morning. Even with this little misting, the fruit is ripe, tannins are great, and it's ready to come in. I'm glad I pushed my original pick date so far out.

On the same day, I took a quick trip down to Holmes Gap Vineyard, too. The vineyard looks great, and we'll be pulling in all the Pinot Noir and the Pinot Gris by the end of this week.
On the winery side of the equation, I took some quick snaps of the sorting line crew while we were sorting fruit from Cherry Grove, Hirschy, and Shea vineyards. In both the Cherry Grove Pommard and the Shea 777, we decided to go with a 30% whole cluster ferment. We still sort the fruit, but you'll see how we pull the destemmer back to let the whole clusters fall straight into the fermenter.

Boedecker Cellars Harvest 09 Days 9-11

Yeah. So I fell a little behind. It's been busy around the winery over the last couple of days. Lots of picking and picking decisions...More details later today.

Boedecker Cellars Harvest 09 Day 8

Athena and I took a little break from the action last night and poured some fantastic Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris sangria cocktails at the Jupiter Hotel's Indulge fundraiser for the Ecotrust Farm to School program. Fantastic food and bevs from everyone there!

On the winery side, we brought in another block from Hirschy vineyard yesterday. Fruit is now quietly cold-soaking in the winery.

We'll be busy this afternoon with fruit from Shea, Cherry Grove, and Hirschy. Look for some new pix and videos tonight.

Boedecker Cellars Harvest 09 Day 7

OK, so change of plans. This is where I drive my ever-patient growers crazy, but it's where we make the difference between good Pinot Noir and great Pinot Noir.

After sampling through Cherry Grove Vineyard last night, I was somewhat sure we were going to pick Block 8 on Friday. After bringing the samples back, however, Athena and I both agreed that the flavors just weren't ready. Since this is such a fantastic block, and since Bob Van Steenberg has kept the vineyard looking very clean, we're going to leave Block 8 for another 5 days or so.

Here's a quick video of me talking smack about how it's ready to go....before I got back to the winery and changed my mind.

It looks like next week is going to get very busy. There is a small amount of Botrytis in most vineyards, and we now have some cold weather and rain/showers in the forecast for mid-week.

Here's my new picking forecast:

Today, Sep 24th
Hirschy Vineyard, Block D (667/777)
Friday, Sep 25th
Cherry Grove Vineyard, Block 3 (Pommard)
- Picking just every other row here
Shea Vineyard, Block 30 (777)
Monday, Sep 28th
Stoller Vineyard, Block 61.3 (115)
Wednesday, Sep 30th
Stoller Vineyard, Block 61.1 (667)

Up in the air (sometime Mon-Wed)
Shea Vineyard, Block 11
Carlton Hill Vineyard
Cherry Grove Vineyard, Blocks 3, 7, & 8

Boedecker Cellars Harvest 09 Day 6

Abbreviated update again today, as I'm mobile more than not.

Great first day of Pinot processing yesterday with 1.65 tons of fruit from Hirschy Vineyard. Athena posted some good pix on the Boedecker Cellars Facebook page.

I headed up to Buttonfield vineyard late yesterday (great sunset) to check out our Old Vine Pinot Gris. The vineyard looks fantastic (I'd expect nothing less from a vineyard owned and managed by Stirling Fox). Sugars are at ~ 25 Brix, which would usually scream "Pick now", but the flavors are still pretty green. I think we'll try to put off that pick until early next week. I'll head up to resample on Sunday.

Today I'm headed to Stoller and Cherry Grove Vineyeards. More pix, vids, and numbers later today. Athena's in the winery all day with our first fermenter full of fruit!

Boedecker Cellars Harvest 09 Day 5

Quick update this morning, as we have fruit on a truck right now!

Spent yesterday getting the winery ready to go and worked on a bit of sales. Athena in PDX, me in Seattle.

The fantastic weather continues today. It's nice that the projected heat has moderated a bit. This hot, dry weather will push ripeness along on the blocks that are lagging and won't stress out the vineyards that are close to ripe.

Picking schedule for this week:

Tues, Sep 22 - Block C (114) Hirschy Vineyard
Thurs, Sep 24 - Block D (667 & 777) Hirschy Vineyard
Fri, Sep 25 - Block 30 (777) Shea Vineyard
Block 8 (667 & 777) Cherry Grove Vineyard
1/2 Block 3 (every other row) Cherry Grove Vineyard

The rest is too far out right now. More sampling tonight, tomorrow, and Saturday.

Boedecker Cellars Harvest 09 Day 4 (Cont)

I spent the morning and early afternoon out sampling a few more of our sites. Shea and Cherry Grove Vineyards are generally early sites, so I wanted to ensure that I stayed on top of ripening curves at both places.

Cherry Grove Vineyard:

Nice serenades from the bird screamers today as I walked through.

Block 3, Pommard Clone: dark-ish pink color. Very tart cherry flavors. 22.8 Brix
Block 8, 667 clone: Purple color. dilute purple cherries & tea notes. 23 Brix
Block 8, 777 clone: Dark pink/red. Straw notes mixed with cherries. 23.6 Brix
Block 6, 114 clone: Pink. Rich green strawberries/straw. 21.2 Brix
Block 7, Wadenswil: Pink. very tart. 20.4 Brix

Tentative Pick Dates:
Friday, Sep 25th: Pick Block 8W & 8E. Pick every other row of Block 3
I'll go to the vineyard on Wednesday, Sep 23rd to confirm
Tues, Sep 29th: Pick rest of Block 3

Block 6 -- Don't know yet. 10+ days
Block 7 -- Don't know yet. 14+ days

Shea Vineyard:

Block 30, West Hill, 777 clone: 24.0 Brix, Purple juice, brown stems and seeds, green tea notes on rich cherry fruit. Nice brightness in the acid structure still to lengthen flavors.
Tentative Pick: Wed or Friday
Block11, East Hill, 115 clone: 24.0 Brix, dark pink juice, rich cherry and tea flavors, bright acidity.
Tentative Pick: Sun/Mon

Anderson Family Vineyard:

Chardonnay: 21.6 Brix, dark green juice, honey-soaked hay flavors Probably 2 weeks from picking

South Block Pinot Noir: 19.8 Brix, very well-developed flavors for such low sugar levels. This should be spectacular once it ripens. Probably 2 weeks from picking.

First White Grapes?

On top of all this, I got a call from Stirling Fox, whose Buttonfield Vineyard Pinot Gris makes up our Old Vine PG. He's pretty sure his Pinot Gris will be ready to pick by mid-week. I need to get up there now to check it out. This is a bit earlier than I anticipated for white grapes, but it's all good. If the fruit's ready to go, it's time to fire up the press.