Lenné Estate

Those are picking numbers.

It is all about September in Oregon and sometimes about the first part of October as well. On the 24th of September, in the sun,  we took samples and were sitting at 23.6 brix on all of our blocks of Pinot Noir. Brix is a measurement of sugar and normally 23 to 24 is where we would want grapes to be with a ph of about 3.4, which are picking numbers. After a couple more nice days, I was sure our sugar was pushing 24. I was ready to pick. Not so fast.

David O'Reilly from Owen Roe buys fruit from Lenné  which goes into his Pinot Noir from the Yamhill-Carlton District called the Kilmore. He has been a great mentor and all he did after I told him we had picking numbers was smile and say, "rookies." The other thing he said is that we should pick when the grapes are ripe. The right sugar and ph numbers, doesn't mean the grapes are ripe. So David and I tasted through all the blocks on a sun filled Wednesday, deciding on which blocks to pick before the rain set in for good. After tasting through the blocks, David said go ahead and pick your grapes, but I will wait on mine.

That told me pretty much all I needed to know to make a picking decision and I agreed completely with his thoughts on when to pick. The block behind the tasting room was ripe because the vines are younger and didn't have as much fruit as the rest of the vineyard. That block was ripe and ready to pick and we did pick that on Thursday and got over 4 tons. We left the other 22 tons hanging on the rest of the vineyard. What we were waiting for was flavor development, we had enough sugar.

If you have looked at a weather map lately you can see that we have had a fair amount of wet weather. Our vineyard was ahead of almost everyone in terms of ripening because we are a warm site. I have always thought that in this part of the world, better to be a warm site than a cool one in spite of the global warming hype. I'm not saying that global warming is hype. But, it doesn't mean that much at the present and near future with respect to Pinot Noir unless our Septembers start getting as hot as August. Maybe global warming will mean wetter, cooler Septembers for us!

We certainly got our cool September this year with the first wet vintage in a decade. Some growers panicked, growers who were far less ripe than us, and picked before the rain. That is fine if you want to make an average wine, but our site is a site capable of making great wine, that is why we choose to let the fruit hang. We have some other advantages in that our site dried out quickly because of the wind, slope and soil.

We finally picked on the 7th and 10th of October, after a couple weeks of rain showers. It was muddy and my biggest worry was how we would get the bins out of the vineyard if we got much rain on picking day. But it all worked somehow. We still had the sugar we started with, but we had something else, flavor. The seeds had turned brown and the green astringency in the skins gave way to the kind of softness that produces velvety wines. I learned a lot about our site this year, how it can withstand some rain, how the wind and steep slope dries it out  and helps guard against water absorption and rot.

A lot of growers had rot and botrytis issues, not to mention under ripe grapes. This year will be a mixed bag for wine producers in the Northern Willamette Valley. There will be a lot of sugar consumed in Willamette Valley wineries this year. But, if anyone should make great wine from this vintage, we should. I will have a pretty good idea of that in January when the wines get through their secondary fermentation and we know what we have. But my guess is, I am damn happy I didn't pick by the numbers.

Global Warming didn't visit here this year

For the most part, we have been on a run of warm vintages since the 1998 vintage here in the Northern Willamette Valley. People forgot, this really is a temperate climate and you just can't go planting vineyards at 1000 feet and not expect to get stung.

At this point, the Pinot Noir vineyard at 1000 feet is in for an interesting ride. They can only hope that we get an Indian Summer with a couple of warm weeks in the middle of October. The beginning of October looks wet. Early rain makes for some hard choices for other Pinot growers as well. Do you pick before the rain or wait it out.

I suppose it all depends on what kind of flavors and numbers you are getting out of your vineyard. The minute I stepped food on Lenné back in April of 2000, I felt it would be a warm site. History has proved me correct and a week ago, the numbers were in line with where we would normally pick. But flavor wise, only one block of younger vines was ready to pick. But by Thursday of last week, panic picks were happening all over at maturity levels far less than those at Lenné. A couple inches of rain at this time of year can play all kinds of havoc. Botrytis, the noble rot,  can take a hold of a vineyard, fine if you are making a late harvest dessert wine, not so fine with Pinot Noir. As vines absorb water, the now softened berries split further aiding the botrytis problem.

We only picked one block and decided to wait out the rain. An advantage we have is that our vineyard drys out very quickly because of the constant wind and severity of the slope and it's exposure to the west.  Most growers have no choice but to wait out the rain as this year's cool summer hasn't produced the kind of ripeness they are looking for. Luckily, our sugar levels are there, we are just waiting for the kind of flavors that make great wine as opposed to good wine.

It is an interesting vintage to be sure, reminding me what is so unique about the Northern Willamette Valley in American viticulture. There is no other place I would rather grow and make wine, even with a couple inches of rain on the ground and grapes on the vine.

Guess we will have to wait until next year for global warming to force us to all start planting Syrah.