The sudden cold snap in the country has caught everyone a bit by surprise and Eastern Washington has not escaped the artic weather. We are seeing some nights below 0F and obviously at that temperature we start to worry about winter injuries on our vines.

The cold can kill the buds that we need in order to grow a new canopy in the spring and it can damage the trunks by killing the phloem or the xylem that carry the sap (more on that later if you don’t know what I am talking about). So how low of a temperature can our vines take before we get injuries that would compromise our yields? Well, the Yakima Valley farm extension of Washington State University has a method forecasting the cold hardiness of buds and vascular system (phloem and xylem) of each grape varietal in Eastern Washington. At this point, it looks like our Riesling bud are safe until -7F but would be 90% destroyed if we get below -12. The concerning area right now is the phloem cold hardiness which is rated at 0F (the xylem is OK until -14F). So it looks like that we should expect some phloem damage but we should be fine with bud and xylem damage.

The Phloem is most important because it carries the sap in the middle of the trunk and does not renew every year unlike the xylem (the xylem makes those rings every year on the plant). If the phloem on our vines gets damaged we will have to cut them to the ground and grow the vines back from the roots (which is fine since we are on our own roots with no rootstocks). Usually, when we cut our vines down we expect a shorter crop. Stay tune for more information.

As 2008 comes to an end, I thought about all the great things that we have done as a wine company this year. I’ll remember 2008 as a year of transformation for Pacific Rim as well as a year of great successes.

This year saw many new wine births and one resurrection. We have started mid year with the launch of our 2007 Single Vineyard series for which we have received so many accolades. We are all humble by the overwhelming reception:

• Riesling Wallula Vineyard Biodynamic (certified Demeter): 93 WE, 90 WS, Top 100 wines of 2008 WE, Top 100 wines of 2008 SF Chronicle. A fantastic wine and our first Biodynamic effort in Washington
• Riesling Solstice Vineyard: 92 WE, 90 WS. A gem of a wine from a great Yakima Valley site
• Riesling Wallula Vineyard: 90 WE. A great wine at a great price expressing the classic Washington characteristics
• Riesling Vin De Glaciere:89 IWC. This is our best Vin De Glaciere to date, refreshing, lively, a pearl.
• Riesling Dauenhaur Vineyard: Great Kabinett style from the Willamette Valley produced in small quantities

We are finishing the year with a few other precious new wines from the 2008 harvest ready to market in 2009: A Riesling made from Organic grapes (sl off dry style), a sparkling Riesling from Selenium Vineyard and the famous Framboise (that would be the resurrection of the year). All of those great new wines should be coming out sometime during the first quarter of 2009. Congratulation to all our staff and partners for growing the grapes, making the wines, developing great packaging and of course providing a way to get it to our consumers. All those wines are stunning and will keep showing Pacific Rim’s commitment to quality.

2008 has also been a year where our position as a Riesling leader in the world has been reinforced greatly. We have received an incredible amount of fantastic third party recognition for our Sweet Riesling (89 WS and one of the top 20 wines under $40 for 2008 for the SF Chronicle) and our Dry Riesling (too many medals to mention). We also were invited to many event to talk about Riesling or just to represent the Riesling community at large. May be more important is the amazing success of our Riesling Rules book, our contribution to the Riesling world.

This year we also have welcomed a few more folks on our staff. A special thank you to them for joining our growing company: Steve, Debbie, Irene and Tom, all good looking folks, all in sales. Our company is so much stronger with you four on board.

Beyond making great wines, getting tons of press and welcoming some key staff in 2008, we also did some great work internally to make sure we can stay the innovative company the we are. We’ve been hit by many cost increases this year forcing us to look deeper at our costs and we have been able in many cases to mitigate inflation in some manners. We also have relied heavily on optimizing our information technology tools and we will keep pushing in this area in order to provide great service to everyone and keep our costs in line.

All in all a challenging but rewarding year for Pacific Rim. I am very bullish for 2009 even if the current economic environment is less so. We will keep making great Riesling and keep exploring new ways to make you all discover how great this varietal is.

Thank you for your support

December 5th 2008: Prohibition was abolished (thank you Utah for your decisive vote) 75 years ago today. There is still much restriction on the trade of alcohol today, but at least we can all get our favorite wines somehow. May be in 25 years we will have a totally free alcohol market like most European countries and prohibition will be truly over.

Tonight I’ll celebrate this great milestone with a nice Riesling of course.

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2007 Pacific Rim Sweet Riesling is named one of the top 20 wines under $40 for 2008 by the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine.

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2007 Pacific Rim Wallula Vineyard Biodynamic named one of the top 100 wines of 2008 by the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine.

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Wine Enthusiast gives 3 Pacific Rim Single Vineyard wines 90+ points.

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