2009 Fall Review

Photo Gallery

Amalie Robert 2009 Fall Review Published November 21, 2009

P. O. Box 395

Dallas, Oregon 97338

Phone/FAX

503.831.4703

E-mail

amalierobert@msn.com

Web site Address

www.amalierobert.com

Hello and Welcome!

This is the 2009 Amalie Robert Estate fall review. We would like to take this opportunity to tell you about the 2009 vintage, what is happening in the cellar, recent media exposure and our new releases.

As a change of pace, we thought a photo essay would be a wonderful way to share the 2009 vintage. Here we go! (For a more detailed view, check out the Julian calendar.)

2009 Vintage Review in 8 frames

1) The 2009 vintage began with bud break on April 22^nd. This is a special day for 2 reasons – first it is Earth Day and second it is the vineyard’s 10^th anniversary.

Look closely, and you can see the tips of what are about to become Pinot Noir clusters in but a few short weeks.

2) Ernie is a busy man during the last part of April and early May. This is when he sets the vineyard floor program to recycle last year’s canes with the winter cover crop and to drill in the new summer cover crop.

Each vineyard pass is about 35 miles, the hard way. To learn more about the A.R.E. recycle cover crop program, follow this link to our FAQs.

3) The next big thing is flowering. This is where Mother Nature decides how much fruit she will put on our vines. Winegrapes are self pollinating, and do not require insects to set fruit – how convenient!

Our fruit set is usually more than we need, but not always. Dena’s birthday was right in the middle of flowering this year – quite a bouquet!

4) Canopy management is what it is all about. Keeping our shoots thinned out and growing straight is the key. This allows good sun exposure and air circulation around the fruit. Many viticultural practices are site specific. Knowing your own vineyard becomes really important in cool vintages that have to hang fruit through a little rain.

5) Leaf plucking helps to get a little more exposure on the grapes. We strive for a little less exposure than most to reduce the overly bitter and harsh tannins, also called phenolics. We use whole clusters in our fermentations which also contribute tannins to the wine. We choose to enhance the rich fruit with less leaf plucking and balance that with the tannins and spice of whole clusters. Nice shoot positioning!!

6) Looks like Mother Nature left a little extra fruit this year. Crop thinning helps assure the vine can mature the fruit before the ripening window closes. The vineyard is spaced such that we have 1,452 vines per acre, or about 1 bottle of wine produced from each vine.

7) The finishing touch is the removal of unripe berries on the cluster. This portion of the cluster is a “fruiting tendril”, or wing. The wing flowers about a week later than the main cluster, and subsequently ripens late. Note the high proportion of green berries.

We choose to remove this wing and its unripe flavors in the field before harvest.

8) The big day is here! This is just like Christmas, except we have about 45,000 vines to attend to. Each vine has about 10 to 12 clusters.

Here, Ernie is sampling the quality of the vintage!

A bucket of grapes weighs in at about 20 pounds, or about 6--7 vines worth. We harvested about 45,000 vines. Now, that’s a whole lotta buckets!

Harvest began on September 27^th and concluded with the Syrah and Viognier on October 24^th. We accumulated a moderate 2,072 degree days. Fruit quality was excellent! Flavors were very developed with balanced sugars and acids. and we expect beautiful wines from the 2009 vintage.

Bonus Material The real show began after we took the fruit from the vine. The fall colors were outstanding this year.

We conclude with the eye test. Can you see the dolphin?

Cellar/photo Ops

The cellar is now full of the 2008 Pinot Noirs awaiting blending trials and about 100 newly filled barrels of Pinot Noir from the 2009 vintage.

The winemaking and maturation schedule follows the vineyard schedule. After our fermentations are complete, the Pinot Noir gently flows below ground to barrel. The wines remain in barrel undisturbed for 12 – 18 months, depending on the vintage.

This extended aging provides several benefits. The most important is that it gives the wines time to fully integrate the stem tannins from the whole cluster fermentation. This lets the harsh tannins precipitate to “the bottom of the barrel” and that is where we leave them. The result is a nuanced wine with great bottle aging potential.

The second advantage of the extended maturation is the enhanced “barrel bouquet.” By letting the wines age in barrel undisturbed, they become more concentrated and develop very intense aromas.

As the 2009 vintage is tucked in for a long winters nap, we will begin our blending trials for the 2008 wines. Based on our evaluation of the cellar this year, we are confident that a Wadenswil clone bottling will emerge from the 2008 vintage. The last time we produced a Wadenswil clone wine was 2003.

Amalie Robert goes Hollywood with RKW Productions!

Over the summer, we had the opportunity to help an inquisitive director learn a little more about wine growing. His name is Bob Wittenberg and his production company is RKW Productions. You can follow this link to view the Amalie Robert Estate video and tour the VineStories site to see more.

Here are a few “behind the scenes” shots of Dena shooting the director shooting the winemaker.

A funny thing happened this year on our travels to Manhattan. While we were pouring wines at Gotham Hall again this spring for our New York distributor - Polaner Selections, a man tried the wines and showed more than just passing interest. He explained he was doing a tasting of “sanely priced Pinot Noirs” the next day and was wondering if we would be interested in providing a sample for the tasting panel.

It turns out he was tasting for the Executive Wine Seminars which is posted on eRobertParker.com – who knew?! The results were posted this summer with Amalie Robert “Amalie’s Cuvée” taking the number 2 spot and the highest rated Oregon Pinot Noir from the 2006 vintage. Get the full story here: EWS Tastings – Sanely Priced Pinot Noir

#	Wine (14 voters)	1st Place	2nd Place	3rd Place	Total Points
9	2006 Volnay 1er Cru “Clos des Chênes” (Louis Jadot)	8	2	0	28
15	2006 Amalie Robert “Amalie’s Cuvée” (Willamette)	2	3	1	13
4	2006 J. Rochioli Estate (Russian River Valley)	2	2	0	10
2	2006 Beaux Freres “The Beaux Freres Vineyard” (Ribbon Ridge)	1	2	2	9
10	2006 Penner Ash (Willamette)	0	1	3	5
1	2006 Morlet Family Vineyards “En Famille” (Sonoma Coast)	1	0	1	4
8	2006 Ken Wright “McCrone Vineyard” (Yamhill Carlton District)	0	1	2	4
14	2006 St. Innocent “Shea Vineyard” (Willamette)	0	0	4	4
11	2006 Williams Selyem “Coastlands Vineyard”(Sonoma Coast)	0	1	1	3
5	2006 Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru “Lavaux-St.-Jacques” (Gérard Raphet)	0	1	0	2
7	2006 Privé “Le Sud” (Willamette)	0	1	0	2
3	2006 Craggy Range “Te Muna Road Vineyard” (Martinborough, NZ)	0	0	1	1
6	2006 Marsannay “Les Longeroies” (Denis Mortet)	0	0	1	1
12	2006 Nuits-St.-Georges 1er Cru “Les Pruliers” (Henri Gouges)	0	0	0	0
13	2006 Peay “Pomarium” (Sonoma Coast)	0	0	0	0

¡Salud! The Oregon Pinot noir Auction

¡Salud! is our opportunity to give back to the workers that help make the Oregon wine industry what it is. In this year’s event, we featured a barrel selection of Wadenswil clone Pinot Noir. It was fairly popular with the high bid for a case of this exclusive 5 case lot of ¡Salud! cuvée fetching $750 a case. Follow this link to vicariously taste our 2007 vintage ¡Salud! Cuvée.

Note that this special ¡Salud! cuvee is different than any Wadenswil clone bottling we will release.

Fall releases

We debut the 2007 vintage with the “Vintage Debut” over Thanksgiving weekend!

As is the case with all of our wines, this bottling is 100% Estate grown and hand harvested Pinot Noir. The wines were fermented with whole clusters and indigenous yeast from the vineyard. In the cellar, we aged the individual lots in French oak barrels for 12 -18 months. The blend is a reflection of our soils, microclimates and stewardship of the land.

Please follow this link to review the Amalie Robert holiday wines offer: Order Wines

Along with tasting the 2007 Vintage Debut and 2006 Reserve Pinot Noirs, we will be releasing the 2008 Viognier (17 cases), 2008 Pinot Meunier (70 cases) and 2007 Syrah (25 cases.) These limited production wines are always offered to the A-List first.

Follow this link to learn more about .

As we come to a close, we are reminded of the holiday season and the opportunities that come with a new year. We wish you the best of the season and a fruitful 2010.

Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie