Pinot Noir is a historically delicate grape. Processing it is as difficult as growing it in the vineyard. Maceration of the fruit during primary alcoholic fermentation must be done at precise times and in a gentle punch down. We pitched our dry active yeast for our first Pinot Noir from Bennett Vineyard last week. Primary alcoholic fermentation changes the natural sugar in the fruit into wine. Byproducts of fermentation include heat and carbon dioxide (CO2). These byproducts push the berry skins and seeds together towards the top of the tank to form a cap. We then punch down that cap twice a day to gain extra extraction of color and tannins. We do this through the entire ferment, as we monitor the sugar depletion and temperature. Our first tank of Bennett Vineyard Pinot Noir (clone 115) finished the other day.

The next step is to drain the juice, which we call free run, out of the tank and press the remaining grapes to create, you guessed it, press wine. We keep free run and press wine separated because press wine tends to be lower quality. There’s several different directions you can go in now, and we choose to go right into a secondary fermentation called Malolactic Fermentation. Fermentation is just a fancy way of saying that we’re changing one thing into another. In primary fermentation we’re changing sugar into alcohol. In secondary fermentation we change Malic acid into Lactic acid. Why do we do this?

1. Malic acid has a particular tart taste to it. Like a Granny Smith apple.
2. Lactic acid is smoother tasting and promotes a fuller bodied wine and mouthfeel.

Malolactic Fermentation (MLF) is quite a bit more difficult to achieve than alcoholic fermentation. MLF is achieved by introducing Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) into the wine. LAB prefers an environment of 68-72 degree temperature for proper completion. Although MLF can be obtained during alcoholic fermentation, we prefer to let the wine get up to a higher temperature (90 degrees) during primary fermentation. So, we wait until just after primary to start our secondary MLF. MLF is also difficult to monitor. We look for small bubbles and listen for pin pricking noises. You can also sometimes smell a little Carbon Dioxide during the fermentation, but MLF is a much less vigorous ferment than alcoholic fermentation.

We’ll be finishing up primary fermentations and starting up and monitoring MLF’s through the weekend and into the middle of next week.

Our in house whites include Pinot Gris and Riesling. We take the opposite approach with a white wine fermentation. First, we’re not looking for color or tannin extraction with white wines, so we drop the whole cluster fruit into our press and get the juice out of the grapes immediately. We allow one night for solids to settle out of the wine and then move the clean juice into a stainless steel tank for inoculation. Now, a big difference between white and red wine making is in the temperature kept during the ferment. Red wines need maceration and additional heat to fully extract color and tannins into the wine. Therefore red wine fermentations usually go pretty quick. White wines require a slow, cool fermentation that can last a month or more. We ferment our whites between 42 and 49 degrees, to keep the aromatics produced in the wine. Another big difference is that we don’t put our whites through malolactic fermentation. A tart, green apple, note in white wine is pleasing and expected in a crisp finish. Another difference between red and white ferments is residual sugar (RS). We don’t want RS in red wine, but in Riesling it can make a huge difference in the overall varietal character expression. I usually leave a little residual sugar (depending on the acid) to balance the wine and create a wine that is a little sweet up front with a nice, crisp finish. This year I have two distinctly different Rieslings that might end up becoming two different wines. We’ll see…

So, we’re starting to get into the monitoring stage of harvest, which means that I’ll start getting a little more balance with my family and work. But, it also means that we have to take extra care to provide additional nutrients during the ferment. We’ll also be tasting, smelling, and looking for a healthy fermentation all along the way. We’re getting ready to release a new tasting and touring package to our customers that will allow them to take a facility tour, have a wine tasting, and an interactive educational component that shows them the entire process that takes our product from grape to glass.

From a weather standpoint we haven’t seen a growing season like this one…well, ever. Based on weather data available we had 2,100 Growing Degree Days (GDD) this year. We had 1,850 GDD’s last year and in 2010. GDD’s are a measure of heat accumulation, and having too much or too little can be hard on Pinot Noir and other Willamette Valley varietals. The other important factor is precipitation. We had a total of 5.5 inches of rain during the growing season, and never did we have an inch or more of accumulation at one time. These conditions are fantastic for the vitus vinifera. A quick history search on wunderground.com shows us that the year most associated with 2012′s vintage in these two factors is 1998. For those of you that remember that time, 1998 was a vintage that put Oregon on the map as a premier Pinot Noir producing state.

All signs point towards a vintage that we’ll be telling our kids and their kids about for years to come. I’m so happy to be a part of it.

The Gameplan

• Thursday, 10/4 – receive and process 1.4 tons Pinot Noir
• Friday, 10/5
  • inoculate Pinot Noir
  • Receive and process 2 tons Pinot Gris
  • Send crew out to receive in last round of cluster samples
• Saturday, 10/6 – CREW OFF
• Sunday, 10/7 – CREW OFF
• Monday, 10/8 – receive and process all LaVelle Pinot Gris
• Tuesday, 10/9 – inoculate LaVelle Pinot Gris
• Wednesday, 10/10 – receive 5 tons Pinot Noir
• Thursday, 10/11 – receive 5 tons Pinot Noir
• Friday, 10/12
  • receive 5 tons Pinot Gris
  • receive LaVelle Riesling? (7 yr old vines)
• Saturday, 10/13 – receive 10 tons Vineyard Pinot Noir

If you’d like to make sure that there’s something interesting going on please just call ahead at 541-935-9406.

The new crew for 2012 consists of Heather, AJ, Nick, Josh, and Christine. They’re all having fun and learning a lot about the winemaking process. Nick, pictured here, is power washing our crush pad to ready us for the incoming harvest.

We have a few other new growers that we’re working with this year, as we’re trying to rebuild out inventory for current and future wine club members. We had a fantastic start to harvest today with 1.4 tons of Pinot Noir from a new grower relationship started by Matthew with Gene Bennett of Bennett Vineyards. He’s just starting out in the business, and we’re excited to be making wine for him this year.

Heather and Christine, our new lab techs, have been working hard to ensure that our grape samples are being analyzed correctly. When we decide to pick Pinot Noir we’d like to achieve a sugar level of 23.5 brix, and an acid level (pH) of 3.3.

We’ll be testing in our 1.4 tons of fruit tomorrow, but I can already tell you that my favorite thing about this year’s harvest will be…little to no adjustments to any of our fruit.

So, come on out if your schedule allows and watch us bring in another fantastic LaVelle Vineyards vintage!

The type of wine press we own here is an Italian Della Toffola Membrane Press. Most of the press is stainless steel. The membrane (i.e. bladder, bag) inside the rotating barrel will tear from time to time and need to be replaced. This is the story of replacing the membrane. Jeff and Diego with Della Toffola are here to facilitate this procedure, and I am documenting it with the help of Sunset, my Cellar Master.

Our current membrane has lasted seven years. According to Diego we should be getting three to ten years use from a membrane. Five years is average, so that makes me feel good about changing the bag out. The cost is close to $4,000 USD for a new membrane so I want to make sure that we get good life from it. The installation process is the key to getting a long life.

I think the first thing that makes this a difficult project is that you really need two small people to work on it. Myself and my Cellar Master are of the larger variety of humans, so we may have a harder time doing this ourselves. Although installation cost is around $2,000 so next time we may just power through it!

We start by moving the press to an area where we have several yards of space available on the air compressor end. Then we took off the shielding that covers the end of the barrel up above the control panel. Then we remove the control panel and swing it to the side to prop it up on this blue ladder.

Then, we remove the O rings on each end that hold the membrane down to the inner membrane shaft. After we scrunch the membrane to one side we can remove the center section of the inner membrane shaft. After we remove the center section we remove the old membrane.

Then we install the new membrane with new O ring gaskets in reverse order with what we did to get the old membrane off. Putting the new membrane on was by far the hardest part of the process. This is a two person job for sure! Now, I’m just crossing my fingers as we go through a checklist and look at anything else that might need maintenance.

Then, we hit our first snag. The spacers that hold the membrane in place are too wide for the new membrane. So, with a little ingenuity Jeff and Diego decide to cut the spacers in half with a grinder. Watching this at $100/hour is starting to make my back hurt (even more). So, we’re a few hours into our project and the end is near.

Then, we hit our second snag. The first O ring went on without a hitch. The second O ring, to my surprise, had a nut on it that was not quite threaded correctly. Sunset (or, well her husband Rivers) to the rescue! She ran home and got her husbands die tap kit and we had to rethread the inside of the nut that’s welded onto the O ring. So, another undisclosed amount of time is spent discussing and fixing this problem and then Diego and Jeff are back inside the barrel of the press strapping down the final O ring.

To sum things up for this project if there’s anyone out there that wants to come and do this with us next time please don’t hesitate to call me. These little pre-harvest projects are not much fun, but the ROI is in the glass of wine I’m drinking right now!

• Inn at the 5th Hotel Construction
• The recent economic conditions in the wake of the recession
• Two cold and wet growing seasons in 2010 & 2011

With 2012 on the mind as our first year back in the swing of things I set out to make some changes:

• More Wine Club Parties
  • Better Entertainment
  • Better Food
  • More Prizes, Contests, and Give-a-ways
  • Better Decorations
  • Online Registration System for all events
• A return to Music on the Garden Plaza at the 5th Street Market
  • Better trained, more wine oriented staff
  • Better Entertainment
  • Better Food
• Printed Calendar of Events (The Entire Year)
• A stronger overall brand here in the Eugene Area

If the Mayans are right about 2012 then I will be happy to go out with a bang. This has to be the best year in recent memory for our business on so many levels. I’m proud to say that I’m really starting to feel a sense of accomplishment with our most recent Wine Club Island Party last weekend. We had a jam packed lawn with 240 confirmed guests last Saturday. Following up our first two sold out indoor Wine Club Parties seemed like it might be difficult, but our club members did not disappoint.

Chris Erben, from 5th Street Market’s El Pato Cafe, came out for his second wine club party and prepared all of his Big Kahuna Macho Steak Skewers on site and fed everyone at the party. He also served grilled veggies and coconut rice for a little bit of the Island theme. I had very little negative feedback, and I’m looking forward to having him back again for our three course Winemaker Dinner on Saturday, August 18th.

The Cheeseburgers kept the crowd swirling, sipping, relaxing, and dancing for four hours straight as they played all sorts of island rock music throughout the evening. We had two large groups of 25 people each celebrating a birthday and a retirement. We had so many people on site that we had to open up the cellar and seat people inside and outside. We finished off the evening with a bunch of raffle prizes and a hula hoop contest that turned into a two part contest with a final hoop-off! We couldn’t pick a winner so we gave both contestants a one night stay at the Inn at the 5th Hotel.

I want to finish this blog with a big thumbs up to our staff. I have watched a fairly new staff blossom into a fine bunch of people. Led by Eric, Evan, and our Wine Club Manager Gisela this 2012 year is really our best year yet at LaVelle Vineyards! We’ll hope to see another packed house at the Harvest Party in September.

Subjective Viewpoints

There are different ways to do everything in this business, but what we do in our vineyard goes back to the orientation of our plantings. We plant our rows North to South for a reason; well, for several reasons actually. We like to pull the leaves in the fruit zone on the Eastern facing side of the row at Fruit Set. This allows the grape skins to toughen up, or build up a resistance to hotter temperatures in July and August. This leads to less berries splitting and more photosynthesis. Although a lot of photosynthesis takes place in  the leaves of a grapevine, there’s a lot of positive data out there that shows photosynthesis takes place in the grape skins as well. So, why don’t we pull leaves on the Western facing side of the rows? The answer is because the sun gets too hot in the afternoon. The afternoon sun will literally bake the grape skins and cause off flavors in the wine (think burnt jam; we’ve all tasted this before in Pinot Noir from warmer sites). Afternoon sun can also cause berries to split which can cause other problems in the vineyard and a loss of fruit.

Pinot Noir Fruit Set

Our Fruit Set looks about the same as it did last year in our Pinot Noir. This is average, which is good for Pinot Noir. Pinot is the most susceptible varietal to overcropping that we grow in the Willamette Valley. Probably even in the world! Let me explain. Varietal Character is the term that describes anything that a wine taster can see, smell, or taste in a wine. That can be as simple as acid or sugar, and then get more complex as we talk about fruity or earthy character. There are lots of other varietal characters out there like horse tail, sweet pickle, leather, chocolate, etc. This is another really subjective area of wine as we all have different palettes. After all, we are all our own little snowflakes as Mom used to say! Pinot Noir, if overcropped, loses some or all of it’s varietal character. This is a disappointing characteristic of Pinot Noir, but nonetheless true so we have to respect that as a grower. We believe that Pinot Noir cannot be cropped at more than 3 tons per acre. Cabernet Sauvignon, for instance, can be cropped at levels of 3-8 tons per acre and depending on the site still maintain it’s varietal character. So, where are we at now at LaVelle Vineyard? My estimation is 2.4 tons per acre. This is in a good space for our site. I can take this number along with petiole sample results at bloom and some weather data on Growing Degree Days and precipitation and make an educated guess at:

1. How much fruit we will grow by the end of the year
2. What (if anything) we need to do in the vineyard to make changes
3. Get some physical and mental exercise that’s much needed!

We’re still in the middle of counting data plants to come up with numbers for our Riesling and Pinot Gris. So, why am I so excited about all of this?

Another 2008?

The 2008 vintage on our collective of vineyard sites was fantastic! We had a nice, long, warm summer with little rain and good hang time in the fall that helped us produce an outstanding Pinot Noir. I’ve collected data on Growing Degree Days (GDD) from April 15th through July 22nd in each of the last ten years along with precipitation. Two things that seem to positively affect our crop are relatively warm summers with little rain. I also went back and checked our yearly milestone data (bud break, bloom, veraison, and harvest) for the last ten years and so far this years data correlates with the 2008 and 2006 vintages most closely. That means that this year (so far) has the makings of a really good year for our Pinot Noir program. Fingers crossed, knock on wood, say your prayers, whatever it is we’re doing it right this year which has me very excited about the 2012 growing season!

Red Mountain started in 2001 as a sub-AVA of Yakima Valley, which is in turn a sub-AVA of Columbia Valley, the largest AVA in Washington state. This AVA was named for it’s cheat grass, which changes to a red color in the Spring. Known for many varietals, but I am specifically looking for new relationships with our Cab, Merlot, and Syrah program.

I had the pleasure of meeting with Charlie Hoppes, owner and Winemaker at Hamilton Cellars, for a business meeting and a winery tour. He’s leasing a fairly new, but renovated beer distribution building. He’s producing 7,500 cases of wine per year under his labels, and then works with several other individuals to do custom crush work. They buy the grapes and he takes them through to the bottle for them to have and sell. One of the really unique things about Charlie’s business is his winery. as I mentioned before, Hamilton Cellars used to be a distribution center for beer. He has several large rooms with temperature control that he uses to barrel age all of his wines. His main label is Fidelitas, and I went to visit the tasting room later in my trip where I decided to join his wine club. Charlie’s really doing something special with his Red Mountain wines. As most conversations go with Winemakers, Charlie told me that his grape sources are the real reason behind his high quality wines. He gave me a full facility tour and showed me several stainless steel fermentors, a couple of different wine presses, and a brand new cross flow filtration system.

Most larger wineries have moved to a cross flow filtration system, and away from dead-end filtration systems. To see a cross flow system in a winery producing 7,500 cases annually was strange. They are very expensive systems. The difference is that a conventional dead-end filter press (like our Della Toffola), pushes wine through a set of paper filter pads with varying sized holes. The filter cake builds up (from solids being filtered out) and then you have to stop filtering to change the blinded pads out. With a cross flow filtration system the wine is moved across the filter membrane tangentially, or along the side of gently and the filter cake gets actively diverted from the inline wine stream. This causes many beneficial side effects including:

• Filter pads last a much longer period of time
• wine volume loss is greatly minimized
• Makes filtering a continuous process, rather than a batch process

I’ll have to put one of these things on my “pie in the sky” list, which seems to be ever growing! We went on and visited several different wineries within the region.

Along the way we stopped at several different vineyards and took some photos. the differences between the Red Mountain AVA and my hometown Willamette Valley AVA are many. Take soil type for instance. Willamette Valley soil types are relatively high acidity (low pH), with sand and clay content, providing a well drained soil that makes irrigation optional. In Red Mountain AVA, soils are gravelly, with high alkalinity (high pH) and high calcium carbonate (chalk) concentrations. Grapevines in Red Mountain must be irrigated. This allows growers to dial in their growth cycle for a given vintage.

Another big difference between Oregon and Washington vineyards is harvesting, pruning, and trellis systems. Red Mountain AVA vineyards are most machine pruned, which means that they use a spur pruning system as opposed to our cane pruning style here in Oregon. As pictured here on the left, a spur pruned grapevine has arms off of the trunk that are just as thick as the trunk itself. That’s because in the winter a machine comes along and prunes off all of the growth from the previous year. In a cane pruned system like the one’s we have here in Oregon, all of the shoot are pruned by hand and we select two canes from the previous year to lay down and use for all the growth for that year. Spur pruning is less expensive and generally produces more shoots for a growing season. Unfortunately, due to the Willamette Valley’s cooler climate and powdery mildew issues, we cannot use a spur pruned vine system. Another surprise was how difficult it was to find really old vines. Most of the vines in the area I viewed were three years old. After asking around at the local wineries I found out that a few years ago Robert Parker (The Wine Advocate) rated a Red Mountain Cabernet Blend at 100 points. This perfect wine rating has only been given to fifteen other wines by Parker, and they’re all in California. Ever since people with resources have been setting up shop in Red Mountain.

I thought I’d add in a photo of my beautiful wife and children here. We took this in front of some lavender and sage brush (there’s a lot of sage brush here!) outside of Hightower Winery.

While in town we made stops at Kiona Vineyards and Winery, Hightower Cellars, Tapteil Estate, Gooseridge Winery, and Fidelitas Winery. I would highly recommend a trip to this area if you’re into Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. It’s about 30 minutes drive West of Walla Walla, tucked inside the Yakima Valley AVA and Columbia Valley AVA.

Bloom, as defied by Wikipedia, means one or more flowers on a flowering plant. While

25 Percent Bloom

we’ve been doing these vineyard tours, I get a lot of strange looks from people when I mention bloom as a growing stage in our vineyard. Weather you’ve ever been in a vineyard or not, most people are hard pressed to ever remember seeing flowers on a grapevine. I guarantee you they do exist as you can see here. It’s just not a really visually interesting part of the growing season. It is however one of the most important parts, and that is why everyone in the wine industry mentions it. As you can see in the photo here taken today at 25% bloom, the flowers are tiny and white in color. Before you have grapes, you must start with flowers. The unopened flower clusters on a grapevine look like little tiny grape clusters, and that’s why I’m getting some confused looks out in the vineyard.

Pre bloom flower cluster

As you get closer to bloom each flower puckers up with tiny red lines around it. Look closely at this macro view and you can see the flowers puckering up and getting ready to burst. As soon as you can see the tissue covering open, know as the calyptra in flowering plants, the pollen is freed and pollination occurs. Pollination via insects and wind can happen, but vitis vinifera are one of the few flowering plants with both the male stamen and female ovaries. Grapevines can and usually do self pollinate. Cross pollination between species is possible and has happened throughout history. Two of the most popular examples of this in wine history are Cabernet Sauvignon (parent vines are Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc) and Petit Sirah (parent vines are Syrah and Peloursin). Not every flower on a grapevine will get fertilized. In fact the average is about 30%, and that’s why it’s an important little flower. Low humidity, high temperatures, and water stress can all severely affect a vineyard during bloom. Based on our weather during bloom this year LaVelle Vineayrd, and I suspect most of the Willamette Valley, is looking at a relatively higher percentage this year. As compared to past vintage averages we are about one week behind for bloom on our site this year. However, compared to the 2010 and 2011 vintages, in which we were one month behind, we are more than happy to be one week behind this year.

Bloom lasts a relatively short period of time, and in a week or so we’ll be able to see our

Grapevine shoot, petioles, leaf, and flower cluster

fruitset. With fruitset comes our mid-season checkpoint. There are a few things that we can look at in the coming weeks, but the two most important are:

1. Taking a look at our macro and micro nutrient levels in the plants
2. and collecting data on how many fruit clusters we have

we can take a look at the nutrients in the plant by collecting a random sampling of petioles. A Petiole is the stalk of the leaf that attaches the blade to the shoot of the grapevine, as pictured here. By collecting petioles specifically located across from the flower clusters you can send them into the lab and have them analyzed for a nutrient report. There are macro and micro nutrients that grapevines need to produce high quality

Petiole and leaf blade in hand

wine grapes.

• Macronutrients consist of Potassium, Phosphorus, Nitrogen, Magnesium, Calcium, and Sulphur
• Micronutrients consist of Iron, Zinc, Manganese, Boron, Copper, and Molybdenum

Vines need large quantities of macro nutrients, and the opposite is true of micro nutrient needs. All of the nutrients are important though as they are used for different processes within the vines. By analyzing petioles during bloom we can have the equivalent of a mid-season checkup on our nutrients. You can take soil samples to find out what you have in the soil, but petioles are very important because they let you know what’s getting up into the plant and being used to ripen fruit. Analysis of nutrients varies by vineyard site depending on vigor.

Leaf petiole in hand

LaVelle Vineyards is low vigor and therefore we read our numbers on the high side of average. Understanding the vigor of your site and balancing it with the proper plant spacing, rootstock, and nutrients is the key to more fruit concentrated, high quality grapes. It’s almost more art than science though, as debate continues over the subject. In my next installment I’ll go over a current once in a lifetime project now going on in the vineyard, our replanting project.

We had our first cooking class together yesterday and it was for Spanish Paella. Chris, the chef at El Pato Cafe explained to us that recipes are not that important when it comes to Paella. We made two different Paellas, one with seafood only and the other with seafood, diced hard chorizo and ham.

Chris showed us several different tips and tricks. Essential paella ingredients are white rice, diced onion, diced tomatoes, saffron, and green peas. Everything else is really up to whatever you have in the fridge and the pantry. He showed us that stirring the white rice in a paella is a bad idea. It releases to much of the starch in the rice and leads to a mushy, soupy paella. He also showed us the easiest way to get skin off of garlic and how to roast a bell pepper directly on a stove. (Not really a great idea unless you have a hood exhaust).

We sipped LaVelle Vineyards 2011 Pinot Gris during the class, and then tried to pair it with the paella along with a 2009 Merlot. Both wines paired well with the dish for different reasons. The fruit really came alive in the Merlot, while the bracing acidity of the Pinot Gris seemed to make that pairing a favorite.

There are several more classes to come in the next six weeks. Here’s an outline of what to expect. You can call Hartwicks to purchase tickets and ask additional questions.

$60 per person (Limited to 12 per class)
5:30 – 7:30 PM

June 8th Mexican Fiesta – make your own chips, nachos, salsa, etc.
June 22nd – grilling techniques, different sauces, etc.
June 29th – tapas party
July 13th – farm to table – Chris gets whatever’s available at the local Saturday Market and makes a variety of dishes.

1. A fantastically dry, long period of time that gives grapes time to mature their varietal character.
2. Just another four-letter word that begins with the letter “F”!

Last week Fall was just another four-letter F word. This week I’m starting to regain my confidence in Fall. In fact, we’re going to start taking grape samples this weekend and look at next week for a possible harvest window!

This is the time of year that we sit and watch every type of weather report we can find, looking for the perfect time to pick. Being a small, family-owned business that uses all of our estate fruit for our own wines is a huge advantage in the end product. We can let the fruit “hang” out until the last possible moment to get the full maturity of the grape before we make our wines. Larger operations have to stage their harvests so that they have enough time to process everything before the fruit begins to rot. That makes it difficult to provide a consistently high quality product, and gives the smaller operations a distinct advantage.

Right now, the weather (knock on wood) looks fantastic for the next several days. With the rain that we had last week there is still a lot of water in our fruit. We go out and taste the berries every day to figure out when we start getting sugar back in them. Let me back up a second and explain what we’re waiting for.

Scientifically, there are three growth stages after bloom for the Vitis Vinifera (Common Grape Vine). The first stage and the last stage are where we see the most physical change in the grapes. After Veraison (color change), the fruit is around 12 or 13 Brix (percent) sugar. As we go through the end of summer and into Fall, that percentage increases, and we take random cluster tests waiting for the fruit to get around 23-24 Brix.

Last week, we received a pretty fair amount of rainfall from Mother Nature. In fact, there’s still some on the ground today. As the grapes soak up that water, our ability to accurately track the sugars becomes difficult. We get “set back”, in the sense that we cannot bring the fruit in to process it and make wine until it completely dries out. Now, the sugars in the grapes are still developing during this period, it’s just difficult to tell how much.

Hardened, brown stem is a sign that this Pinot Noir cluster is getting mature

The last day of rain we had was Tuesday, October 11th. What we need now is a full five days of dry weather to take another sample and see where the sugars in the grapes have advanced to. So, at this point it looks like we’ll go out and collect samples again on Sunday, October 16th. Based on the results of those tests, and the weather forecast at that time, we’ll probably start to plan a schedule for bringing our fruit in and beginning the harvest.

In a cold year like this one, acid is almost more important that sugar.

Green stem on this Pinot Gris cluster is a sign that the fruit has not completely matured yet

By testing the pH of our grape juice samples, we can check to see how mature the fruit has become. Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris juice that have a pH of between 3.2 and 3.4 are signal that there’s a good level of maturity in the fruit. You can’t really see maturity in a sugar sample. There are a couple of other ways you can check for maturity in your grapes:

1. Check for dark brown color in the seeds of the grapes
2. Check for a dark brown stem near the top of the grape cluster (See Photos Above)

That’s it for now. we’ll try and get you some new photos over the weekend and an explanation of how we take grape samples.

• Weather
• Fruit Set
• Nutrient Balance
• Spray Program

Of these four things, there’s only one that is completely out of our hands. The weather. My Dad told me last week that of the 17 years he’s been overseeing this property, this year is the furthest we’ve ever been behind. We had bud break late. Bloom and fruit set late. Veraison late. And this will certainly lead to a late harvest. In this part of the world we start getting ready to receive grapes the last week of September. However, this year we’ve been waiting until the last week in October to receive our Pinot Noir even from the warmest of sites.

Weather

Jim McGavin, who owns Walnut Ridge Vineyard outside of Junction City, contacted me recently to share with me a fantastic free tool on a weather website that keeps Growing Degree Days (GDD) information accurate every day for the last ten years. GDD are calculated by taking the average of the daily maximum and minimum temperatures compared to a base temperature. It’s a simply understood concept that hides behind a very confusing term.

If you don’t have a weather station on your property (and we don’t), you take a look at Growing Degree Days (GDD) in Eugene, Oregon (based on the weather station at the Eugene Airport). Between April 1st and October 20th in 2010 we had 1,912 GDD. Comparing that to this year’s data we’re at 1,920 GDD, which is a little ahead of where we were last year. If you delve further into the past with GDD’s from April 1st until the day we began our Pinot Noir harvest , you end up with these numbers:

• 2011: 1,920
• 2010: 1,912
• 2009: 2,089
• 2008: 1,960
• 2007:
• 2006:

The other interesting aspect of the weather data I’ve been looking at this year is the precipitation total in inches, or rain:

• 2011: 7.47″
• 2010: 12.60″
• 2009: 8.8″
• 2008: 5.42″
• 2007: 7.5″
• 2006: 6.14″

In more recent years, we’ve had more rainfall during the growing season. This year has been cold, but not particularly wet. Last year we had lots of problems with botritis rot, and I think we can safely attribute that to the 12.6 inches of rainfall during the growing season.

All in all, the weather is a huge factor every year. And this year has been particularly cold. To me, that means that if you have any chance to make it with your vineyard in a year like this, you have to make some fairly liberal farming decisions with regards to your fruit set, nutrient balance, and spray program.

Fruit Set

Our fruit set is not fully recognized until the end of a growing season, but there are a few tricks that farmers have developed over the years to estimate their crop and make adjustments accordingly:

• Data Plant Cluster Averages
• Lag Phase Estimates
• Dropping Fruit

There are five key times in the year that we look for and track to help us make decisions that lead to our end product:

1. Bud Break: Seeing the green buds break open from the dormant brown vines.
2. Bloom: Tiny white flowering, followed by self-pollinating
3. Fruit Set: First visual development of grape clusters
4. Veraison: Color change from hard green berries to soft, sugary grapes
5. Harvest: Time to make wine!

Every year here at LaVelle Vineyards, we go out and count every cluster of every plant as soon as we have hit Fruit Set. Well, that’s not exactly true. We count the clusters on about 15 random plants per acre, and then create an average for each block of the vineyard. This gives us a Data Plant Cluster Average to take an educated guess on how much fruit we have hanging out there in a given year. The big variable in this equation is the individual cluster weights.

Take Riesling for example. I’ve had years where the average cluster weight has been 90 grams. I’ve had other years where the average weight has been 140 grams per cluster. This is a real nightmare for vineyard owners. Especially with varietals like Pinot Noir that tend to lose a lot of varietal character when over cropped. So, one way some farmers are estimating their crop more accurately in a current year is to do a Lag Phase Estimate. The Lag Phase estimate is a cluster weight estimate taken exactly halfway between bloom and harvest. You see, harvest cluster weights are very difficult to predict during the year because they are dependent on growing conditions throughout cluster development for that year. At the halfway point between bloom and harvest, or the lag phase, most of the variables that effect cluster development for the year have already occurred. So, a really smart person named Price (1992) figured out that there are three phases of growth that a grape cluster goes through during the year. The first and third phases have the most actual berry growth, and the second, or middle lag phase, has the least growth and is therefore about 50% of the final cluster weight. The physical characteristics of lag phase are a hardening of the grape seeds. Lag phase varies from site to site, and going to this level of crop estimation can give you pretty accurate numbers for harvest cluster weights.

So now we know what we have hanging out there. Is it too much? Too little? Now what? Well, in 2010 we had too little. So, we did nothing. We can subtract, but we cannot add. This year, however, we had a much nicer looking fruit set. Based on my estimates we decided to drop some Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, and Riesling. Dropping Fruit is the best thing we can do to assure that what fruit remains gets an adequate amount of nutrients and varietal character.

I think I’ve gone on long enough about this year’s harvest. As I told Julia Crowley, our local area Wine Writer, recently, we remain cautiously optimistic about how we finish this super late 2011 vintage!