Alright, I have a secret projet going on and I am now ready to share a picture:

Any idea what that is? About what are we going to do with it?

Tom, our fearless southeast regional manager, has just sent me a beautiful picture of our Sparkling Riesling stacked at the Whole Foods in downtown Austin. I cannot tell you how much I LOVE those pictures. They are the living proof that we are so right to seriously believe that Riesling will take over the w0rld of wine. Tom, thank you for the pic. Of course big thank you to the whole food buyer at that store (Jen Powell). Jefory Banta (of whole foods as well) is on the picture in total admiration in front of the stunning display.

Thank you guys!

Every year I receive the suggested price list and the estimated crop size from the Washington Association of  Wine Grape Grower (WAWGG for short and simple). There is plenty of information and fun comments in this very official release.

First there is an estimated crop size which WAWGG insist is not a harvest estimate. I am not sure I know the difference between an estimated crop size and a harvest estimate, but in for 2009 the estimated crop is 149,373 tons (about that for an “estimate”, glad they did not go 2 digits beyond that). That would put the crop size 3% over the actual 2008 harvest. It looks like we might have a fair amount of extra grapes on the market putting pressure on price (sounds like the car industry doesn’t it? about a cash for cluncker wines to help us out here?). The grapes with the most imbalance appear to be Riesling, Syrah, Merlot, Pinot Gris and Semillon. Cabernet and Chardonnay look to be in balance (hey guys, a bit of Riesling in your Chardonnay will make it taste great! Call me if you need any).

Second there is a list of prices per ton for each major varietal. I won’t reproduce here the list because there is an underlined statement  ”for members only” at the top and a couple statement on the bottom like “NOT FOR PUBLIC USE” and “NOT FOR MEDIA USE”. Sounds pretty secretive doesn’t it? Since I don’t want to be shot by Joe and Moe (both officially “customer service representative” for WAWGG) I won’t go into the details. Let’s say that prices are a bit softer this year on average.

Finally there is a break down of the “estimated crop size” by varietal. Good to see the Riesling is clearly #1 with a good 2,000 tons lead over good old Chardonnay. No other breaking news.

Hope I did not reveal all the secret… Please don’t send Joe and Moe….

I am so glad that we are now at a point where we can grow great canopy sizes for our Riesling. This will be a major asset with this year’s heat wave. Here is a picture of Selenium Vineyard where our grower is doing a great job (thank you Dan). With big canopies we can protect our grapes from the hot sun and keep a high level of elegance and acidity in the grapes.

I was invited this week to the 2009 Michigan Wine and Spirit Competition to judge Michigan wines along with some 30 other judges. I have tasted a great diversity of wines and several great wines. The whites were good but the reds were surprisingly excellent. For me it was also the opportunity to taste some amazing cherry wines (the Longview Winery Reserve Cherry wine was amazing) as well as some hybrid wines I am not used to try. The wines of the day for me were the Left foot Charlie Pinot Blanc, and most reds from Brys Estates though the Merlot 2007 was especially nice. On the Riesling side, some great semi -dry Riesling (45 North Vineyard 2008 Semi Dry, Chateau Grand Traverse 2008 Semi-Dry, Bel Lago Semi Dry). The Dry and Ice Wine were OK, but not stellar. Overall inspiring wines, great job Michigan!

Minimally Pruning has been successful for many years in Australia. Thisviticultural technique is achieved by not pruning the vines and rather form a sort of basket with the canes. This obviously leaves many buds on the vine and is conducive to a very vigorous grape vine. The theory goes that the vine will self regulate itself after a few years, the vigor slows down and the crop load settles down. The benefits of MP (for Minimal Pruning) is lower labor cost (read no need to prune!) but also more shading for the grapes (from a larger canopy), good airflow by the creation of a “dead zone” in the center of the canopy and smallclusters. I have seen several successful trials in Washington but I was not expecting seeing a MP vineyard in the Mosel (more on the not-so traditional Mosel viticulture in a later post). Guess what, I found one and the owner loved it and thought this might be the way to go for him (pictured above). This vineyard was only slightly converted since it was retrofitted on a wire system from the traditional post trellis system (note the vines were very low to the ground which I had not seen for MP vineyards). May be time for us to do our own trial in the Yakima Valley?

I know, you should never rush through the Rheingau…

Another stunning wine region with a beautiful south facing slope. My two visits there were Schloss Johannisberg (the mother of all Riesling wineries!) and Weingut Spreitzer. Two different businesses in their structure but both primarily Riesling and both 100% estate.

I went through a very interesting tasting at Schloss Johannisberg with a good technical conversation (picture of the great tasting below).

I focused on winemaking on that day (though I saw the vineyards at Schloss Johannisberg) and toured the beautiful wineries and focused on their winemaking techniques. The wines in the Rheingau are mostly “Trocken” so very different from the Mosel. Below is the new tank room at Schloss Johannisberg, a very nice set up to make great wines (plenty of small tanks to keep every parcel separated). A Riesling geek heaven of some sort…