Obviously one cannot be sad enough for the terrible quake that shook Chile this week. It is all more important to me because the earthquake hit a wine producing region in the middle of their harvest. I just cannot imagine the added chaos at all those wineries. I was listening to my favorite podcast while on my bike ride this morning, and the topic of the amount of wine lost last week in Chile came up: 125 million liters. Once in the office I took my calculator to put that number in prospective, that is 33 million gallons or about 194,000 tons of fruit. Well, that is more grapes that we harvest in Washington in a whole year (we’ve harvested 156,000 tons in Washington in 2009).  If that is not enough to put things in prospective, the interviewed person from the Wines of Chile association mentionned that it was “only” 12.5% of the wine they had on hand at that time. We are just a drop in the bucket, aren’t we?

Grape sourcing:  Our Chenin comes now exclusively from the Yakima Valley around Prosser. We have two vineyards but one (Hahn Hill) is by far the largest. Since those vines are old they are on an old trellis system (call the fan) that is not used anymore. Below is a picture of that system:

Our style: we use to make the Chenin a bit sweeter but with time passing we have settled for a drier style, closer to a Loire Valley style rather than a CA Chenin. Those wines usually change in the bottle going from a tight and fruity (pear, melon) style to a more exuberant (hay, passion fruit) style after 2-3 years in the bottle (I prefer them with some bottle age to be honest). I believe our Chenin totally rocks. We make 100% Chenin Blanc, no blender.

RICHLAND, Wash.– (BUSINESS WIRE) — Many “experts” believe these are times to avoid risk and survive the economic storm. At Pacific Rim Winery, the founders have taken a radically different tack by making risk-taking a pillar of their company culture. In just three years, their strategy has paid dividends – and, in the process, they’ve left an indelible mark on the wine industry.

Three years ago this month, a small band of Bonny Doon Vineyard expatriates founded Pacific Rim Winery. Their challenge: Create an entire brand around the success of one wine (Dry Riesling). Bonny Doon Vineyard has a rich history of innovative and creative thinking, and the winery’s founder, Randall Grahm, is widely recognized as the force behind the democratization of the wine industry over the past two decades.

With this pedigree, it’s not surprising that the team who founded Pacific Rim would challenge industry conventions and redefine a few “tried and true” wine industry rules along the way. Because of their innovative thinking, aggressive growth, creative marketing and – of course – award-winning wines, Wine Business Monthly (the industry’s preeminent trade magazine) has named Pacific Rim the #1 HOT SMALL WINE BRAND OF 2009.

Pacific Rim received the HOT BRAND honor largely because of a passion and commitment to do things differently and a willingness to take risks. The biggest risk taken by the Pacific Rim team was to commit to a single wine variety, RIESLING. In an industry where wineries spread risk by investing in multiple wine varieties, the team at Pacific Rim wanted to make a statement. That statement was: Do one thing and do it better than anyone else. In fact, Pacific Rim crafts ten Rieslings across flavor profiles – comprising 90% of the winery’s production. Affirming the wisdom of their singular Riesling focus, Riesling was recently named the fastest growing wine variety by AC Nielsen (even surpassing Pinot Noir).

Their risks have paved the way to 40% growth year-on-year and total sales approaching 150,000 cases. This is growth that would make any business proud in today’s challenging economic times. And all of this has occurred during a time where wine brands are shrinking or dying and growth for the overall wine industry has been flat.

But the brand’s singular commitment to Riesling is only part of the story. Pacific Rim demands innovation across all their efforts: from vineyard management to package design to communications programs.

·         Last year, Pacific Rim released a Riesling Made with Organic Grapes. The grapes are sourced from their Wallula Biodynamic Vineyard – the first and ONLY Demeter certified Biodynamic vineyard in Washington State. The wine was awarded the #3 TOP 100 BEST WINE BUY of 2009 from Wine Enthusiast. Subsequently, demand for the wine has exploded.

·         The brand’s packaging is unlike anything in industry. Transparent labels with progressive artwork promotes the beauty and clarity of Riesling while telling a visual food pairing story (e.g. a dragon portrayed on their popular Sweet Riesling label blows fire onto an iron caldron – communicating the wine’s perfect balance with spicy fare).

·         Pacific Rim published the Riesling Rules Book (a fun and information-packed exploration of all things Riesling). The book’s objective voice and subtle branding has earned it broad recognition (even a review in USA Today). The book is available FREE on Pacific Rim’s website www.RieslingRules.com and 35,000 copies of the book have been distributed to date. Content includes: wine styles, food pairings, global growing regions – even the Top Ten Movies to Enjoy with Riesling.

·         Other recent programs have included: SAVE WATER/DRINK RIESLING (a sustainable program in partnership with the Wild Salmon Center) and RIESLINGS GREETINGS (a Holiday retail chain POS stack-and-go concept).

Being true to their innovative spirit, Pacific Rim promises a few more innovations this upcoming year: launching a content-rich social media strategy, Riesling Rules online animations and Rieslings Greetings 2.0.

About Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim celebrates Riesling in all its wondrous forms. The winery is owned by Randall Grahm and located in West Richland, Washington. All vineyards are located within the Columbia Valley. For more information, see www.rieslingrules.com.

What do we do to have a certified “Made from Organic Grapes” Riesling: to be organic the wine as to 1) be made from certified organic grapes 2) be made in a winemaking facility certified to organic standard 3) follow a process filed with USDA that is organic. Pacific Rim is certified by the Washington State Department of Ag which, in turns, is certified by USDA. The process is fairly restrictive, expensive (we pay a percentage of sales to WSDA) and requires yearly inspections from WSDA and yearly filing.

Why is our wine labeled ”Made From Organic Grapes” rather than “Organic”: Everything we use in our winemaking is certified organic. We actually go beyond the regulation because 1) we do not use commercial yeasts 2) we do not add any acid to our wines. The only non organic element we use is sulfur dioxide know as sulfites (not to be mistaken with sulfides which is a term gathering a bunch of stinky rotten egg compounds sometimes found in wines). Sulfur dioxide is a very common preservative in dry fruits, pre packed vegetables and juices. It is authorized in wines up to 350 mg/L but in Organic and biodynamic winemaking it is limited to 100 mg/L which is why at Pacific Rim all our wines are bottled with less than 100 mg/L of sulphur dioxide – guaranteed. We bottle the Riesling MFOG at around 90 mg/L (or ppm). Therefore the non organic fraction of the Riesling MFOG is really 0.009%. So it is quite a pure organic wine but since it has 0.009% of non organic product we have to call it MFOG.

Why use sulfites in wines by the way?: Sulfites act as 1) an antioxidant which is very important in white wines (we don’t need much for that purpose because we use air tight screwcaps and we make sure that our wines have no dissolved oxygen when they go in the bottle) and 2) an anti bacterial and anti fungal agent which is important for us because we have residual sugars and residual malic acid (we do not do malolactic fermentations). A last bonus of sulfites is that it is a bit like salt with food (Just like sulfites, salt is not healthy if you eat too much of it!) as it highlights and focuses the aromas and flavors of a wine. Finally note that sulfites are naturally produced by yeast in the 30ppm range usually - so even an Organic wine probably contains a small amount of sulfites. 

Our style: The grapes are picked around 22 Brix which would qualify for a very ripe Spatlese in most German regions. We make it in a definite sweet style but beware the acid on that one! About 0.78 TA, 3.04 pH and 3.5%RS. I think this is a very balanced wine with always very refined aromas of fresh white flowers and some peach. This is really a chameleon wine as far as pairing goes and at 10.5% Ethanol it is easy to drink!

Yes, it has been three years already since we have embarked on our ambitious project of becoming the best Riesling producer in the world. I was reminded of the time gone by last week during a vertical tasting of two of our dryish style single vineyard Rieslings: The Wallula Vineyard Riesling and the Solstice Riesling.

Wallula is our Biodynamic vineyard located in the Horse Heaven Hills appelation. It is planted at about 1,300 feet of elevation, above flood levels. Wallula is a high density, pergola like, planting that is usually quite ripe and very Washington like. Our Single Vineyard from Wallula is certified biodynamic. The 2007 showed nice peach, very clean wine, yeasty, straight, showing a lot of youth. The 2008 was more on the pear side, but very similar to the 2007, clean, may be a bit sweeter right now on the palate with a big structure. The 2009 was very floral and dry, a winemaker’s wine definitely. Those wines showed great balance and even if they are different I could tell they all came from the same vineyard.

Solstice is an old Riesling planting (40 years old vines) in the Yakima Valley. It produces a very minerally styles. The 2007 was clean with some petrol notes, very sharp and concentrated, great serious wine. The 2008 vintage was crisp, hard and sharp, a very young wine with tons of aging potential. The 2009 had some slight green apple, very pure Riesling style, very similar to the 2008. I love solstice because it is a very honest see through wine.

Congrats to Whole Foods Austin for their beautiful White Flower sparkling Riesling display. Looks so beautiful it made us very happy in the office! thank you guys.

Just coming back from a quick trip to raspberry land also known to us as Mount Vernon in the skagit valley of western Washington. It is there that Mike and Jean Jungquist grow our special selection of Raspberry that we call internally the “Morrison”. We’ve selected that raspberry varietal because of its low seed bitterness and its crazy high raspberry flavors. Mike and his family gow one field for us (picture below) so it is really a single vineyard raspberry! It is a major commitment from our team but this is what it take to make a primo raspberry infusion like framboise. The field yields about 40 tons of raspberry every year. We’ve discussed experimenting with a few newer selections this year, so I might be up for a raspberry clone tasting this summer (they breed about 180 new clones every year) - raspberry fans send me a note and I’ll take you up!

Noteworthy: Washington is now #6 from #7 (YEAH), Alsace has dropped one place. Baden is the only region in the top ten to lose acreage. Note the growth of Washington State +23% - top growth in the top ten!

For those of you guys that really enjoy digging into German laws and regulation here is an excellent blog entry from Dr Christian Schiller about sugar levels, labeling laws and chaptalisation in Germany. A must read: http://schiller-wine.blogspot.com/2010/01/german-wine-basics-sugar-in-grape.html

We are releasing a new Riesling this month- we have now up to 10 different Rieslings in our lineup . This new release is a 2009 Riesling that we made in what I would call the “traditional” Johannisberg style (I know, I know, we are not supposed to use this term anymore). So, what is a “J” style? Well, it is usually a 2% residual sugar Riesling picked around 22.5 Brix (Auslese ripeness level) with about 12.5% of ethanol. It is the most proeminent style in Washington State. Ours is slightly different (of course) in the way that it is about 2.3% residual sugar and 11.5% ethanol therefore picked at 21.5 Brix (a ripe spatlese ripeness level). Like all of our Rieslings we like to pick grapes earlier than most folks in order to contribute a lot of natural acidity to balance the sugar and also to keep a lower alcohol content. The grapes come from the Yakima Valley, a cooler climate more appropriate for this style I believe. The wine is very fruity (think mango, guava, apricot with a hint of floral notes) and refreshing, a nice addition to the portfolio that does not replicate any other Riesling we make. When I was looking at the Riesling line up a few weeks ago it dawned on me that we have a geometric RS series in our portfolio: 0-2-4-8-16! 0% RS is our Dry Riesling, 2% RS is our new Riesling, 4% RS is our Riesling made from organic grapes, 8% is our sweet Riesling and 16% is our Riesling Vin De Glaciere Selenium Vineyard. Pretty fun, no?

This is the time of the year when we are bottling our first Rieslings blends. This year, the first blends to go to bottle are our Riesling made from organic (4% Residual Sugar), our Sweet Riesling (about 8% Residual sugar) and our new Riesling (2% Residual Sugar - another post about this Riesling later this week). It is always very satisfying to come to this point after months of work in the vineyard and at the winery. The challenge, and somewhat the fun part of the job, for a Riesling winery like us is blending smartly the different vineyard lots we produce in order to optimize each style we make (we make nine different Rieslings). In order to have plenty of options for blending we make many different lots of wines that are based on the vineyard they came from. The selection for those lots starts during the growing season where we usually sort each vineyard based on their intrinsic potential that year:  sparkling base potential, dryer Riesling potential and sweeter Riesling potential. Based on that designated potential, the grapes are picked either earlier in the season (for the sweeter styles so they have more acid to balance the sugar) or later (for the drier styles).

When the grapes are picked, the juices are evaluated pre fermentation to make sure that the designated style we had of this particular vineyard still makes sense. At that point we also refine the target style beyond sweet and dry based on flavor profile, sugar content, acid levels, phenolic content and the Biodynamic or Organic status of the juices. For Dry styles we divide the juices for sparkling, Dry Riesling, Solstice Single Vineyard and Wallula Biodynamic Single Vineyard. For Sweet styles we divide the juices for Riesling (2% RS), Organic and Sweet Riesling. Each lot is then allocated a target final residual sugar and we stop the fermentations based on our juice evaluation in most cases. Finally comes blending times where we pretty much review every single fermentation lot and we always tweak the blends left and right based on our desired final flavor profile, acid level, phenolic level and sugar level. That makes usually for a busy November/December.

I was reading Steve Heimoff’s blog this morning and he had an interesting question about revieweing wines: should the wine be reviewed with the winemaker or should it be reviewed blind with no context. I have, as usual, an opinion. The more time I spend in our wine industry, the more I think that it is difficult to separate the winemaker (I use winemaker as a broad term, not the individual, but the set of circumstances that leads to make a particular bottle of wine) and the wine itself. Of course one can try to be very analytical and cold about wine reviews and that is a viable way to test a wine no question. But there is so much more in a bottle of wine than just the taste - how was it made (what techniques were used), where are the grapes from, what was the intent behind this wine. The value of knowing the tid bits are as important to me as the wine itself. I relate wine to Classical music; some folks just like to listen to a piece and give it a thumb up or down while others want to know how was this written, why was the composer pushed to write this - sometimes a not so good sounding piece of music becomes interesting once one knows the reason for its being. The details are not for everyone, many people just want to know the score and that’s it and we should respect that. For the few for whom the context matters, wine should be reviewed with some emotional background and I would love for us to keep some of that.

I am blessed to live in a city where local food is just as common as stop signs. I have been a bit frustrated lately to find that so many places that claim their dedication to local food have no local wine on their wine list - that’s right zippo localo vino, no American wines, only Europeans. Some say that it is because European wines go well with the food and that domestic wines are too heavy. Well, to that I say booooguuuus - they are plenty of great balanced wines made domestically. More likely it is because foreign wines are easier to mark up because patrons can’t recognize the names or because the wines are not available else where (make the mark up invisible). This mark up shell game is silly - think about the cost of a coke, or a coffee, or anything on the menu for that matter, do you think the customers does not know there is a markup?

Why are restaurant owners keep ignoring the fact that in grocery twice as much domestic wine is sold versus imports (and the trend is accelerating)? And why not having local wines or your menus? When I go to Michigan - I want to try a Michigan wine, when I go to New York - I want to try a New York wine. The last two times I went out I had only European wines on the menu and I ended up drinking water in one instance and beer in another. Not that I don’t like foreign wines at all (I buy and drink my fair share) but in a local restaurant I want to have the possibility of drinking a domestic wine. I am not suggesting boycotting foreign wines but at least give them a shot on your wine list and see what happens. Gee, you might sell much of it.

“Meanwhile, my personal wish for 2010 is to drink more and more Riesling. It is relatively low in alcohol, high in flavour, develops beautifully in bottle, expresses terroir and goes very happily with so many of the foods we eat now. It doesn’t have to be sweet either.”

I say amen to that statement, less alcohol, more pleasure, light wine like the food we eat those days… We must be twins Jancis and I…

I have read so many top 10, top 100, top whatever that I thought, may be I should have a top something as well. I was not sure how many “tops” one should have though - 10 - 20 - 5 up/ 5 down - so I have settled on a list of cool achievements that have allowed our company to climb to the top (sorry could not resist another “top” word, might be over the t…).

Before we run through this top secret list of top of mind super top happenings, let me thank every customer that has purchased a bottle of our wines in 2009 - as they say in the airline industry, “we know you have many choices out there and we thank you for flying with us today!”. Without consumer support, our small Riesling winery could not grow and prosper. Thank you also to our distributors for carrying our wines throughout the country, our importers for representing us in our export markets, our grape growers for providing us with top quality year after year and of course our top employees (13 total!) for shaping the wine company we are today.

Alright, now to the TOP:

- Top performance: in 2009 Pacific Rim has grown 38%! Wow, not bad for 13 folks making Riesling. This is outpacing the wine category and the strong Riesling Category - Great job!

- Top three new wines this year with smashing success - Riesling Made from Organic Grapes (92 Points from Paul Gregutt!), Sparkling Riesling (SOLD OUT!), Autumnus Red (great Italian style wine from WA).

- Top Dry Riesling named best wine of the year by the Sommelier’s Challenge!

- A Tip-Top 2009 harvest with two new Rieslings in the portfolio

- Four babies born in 2009 - Top baby/employee ratio

The ice cold temperature is not bad for everyone, at least not for Pacific Rim. As you might remember, we had left some grapes in the field this year in the hope of making a TBA of sort i.e. a botrytized wine better known as noble rot wine. It got too cold to produce a 100% Botrytis wine (though we got a good amount of botrytis) and in exchange we are getting several nights below 10F which is allowing us to make a true ice wine this year! We just got done picking today and received 6 tons of frozen grapes with lots of botrytis (yum yum). We are pressing tomorrow morning and we hope to get 500 gallons of the precious high Brix, complex juice. This should be a very very interesting wine (and yes another style of Riesling). A picture of the vineyard yesterday is above - amazing that such a odd looking bunch produces such an amazing wine.

Let me make a case for Riesling as the perfect Holiday Food wine. Allow me to take an economist approach to the holiday which would be something like “how can one reach the highest level of pleasure during the Holiday at the least cost”. The classic problem that arises with Holiday food is the richness and abondance of the food available coupled with the desire to celebrate with the family. Think about the traditional Thanksgiving dinner (Sweet cranberries, rich potatoes, pumkin pie, poultry…) or about a Christmas meal (at my house generally crab cakes, lox, a huge chocolate sponge cake with lots of Xmas decoration on it). All those meals are about large amount of food, something sweet and something salty, lots of time at the table, talk with family and hopefully a good card/board game to prolong the evening. I have done too many holiday parties were the richness of the wines clashes with the food and most likely send you to a lethargic state well before the end of the party. By now you should know that my antidote to all your problems in life is Riesling and that indeed it will provide you with the greatest pleasures at the most reasonnable price. First Riesling has high acid cutting through the fat and handling sweeter or spicy dishes very well, it will go perfect with most food and is a true chameleon adapting to the food you match with it. Second, Riesling has gentle alcohols and sometimes low alcohol by wine standard (you should be able to find Rieslings between 9 and 12% alcohol) helping you to enjoy a glass while not falling into the arms of morpheus in minutes. Thirdly, Riesling is elegant and not oaked which makes it an enabler wine, a bit like salt or pepper, Riesling does not take the center stage, it helps the food to take the center stage. As far as which Riesling works best, I would recommend trying a Dry Riesling or choose a slightly off Dry (up to 4% Residual sugar) if you have to choose a silver bullet wine - one size fits all. For Riesling explorers (neophytes or fanatics), the Holiday meal is the perfect occasion to do a full Riesling dinner - where do I sign? should be the natural reaction to this revelation. Here is a sequence of pleasure that you should consider: Sparkling Riesling for the aperitif, a Dry Riesling for the main course and a salad if you have one, a 2-4% residual Riesling (like our Riesling made from Organic Grapes) for a cheese plate, you can finish dinner with it or open a sweeter style for dessert such as our Vin De Glaciere. For those 4 Rieslings (Sparkling, Dry Riesling, Riesling made from Organic and Vin De Glaciere) you would spend $50 on wine and you would have a 100% chance that the selection will go with the food. As an incredible bonus you would be having a complete Riesling exploration with the family; full pleasure at a great price.

Last Friday night I had the opportunity to present our wines at the Beaujolais Nouveau party at the Heathman Hotel downtown Portland. The event was sponsored by the French American Chamber of Commerce as well as the Alliance Francaise of Portland. This was a very well attended (sold out) event in a perfect location with, quite frankl,y some of the best food in the city. The chef (Daniel Boulud) and the sommelier of the Heathman (Jeff Groh) were present and kindly accepted a couple glasses of wines of Washington wines lost in a sea of Beaujolais Nouveau (I did not give them a choice). We were the only white wine poured, so I got lots of attention and since the event was four hour long, I had the opportunity to tell our story to everyone that wanted to hear it. All our wines were a hit and I ran out quickly of Sparkling and Dry Riesling. Many people were having fun tasting different sugar levels and trying to find their “sweet spot”. Interestingly enough, I had plenty of people coming to me for our Autumnus red (tired of Beaujolais nouveau already?). Great event in the Portland area, I recommend it highly.

Note:  That same week end we were also pouring at two Cost Plus in the Portland Metro (thank you Shawn and thank you Brian) and on Saturday night Chris was pouring at the 20 something event in Seattle. Busy week end for the team.

Just back from a quick trip to Hong Kong to gauge the local market. The opportunity presented itself with an invitation to participate to the Hong Kong Wine and Spirit Fair at a much reduced price and I cannot say no to a good deal. Beyond the good deal, Hong Kong was an interesting market to understand for several reasons. Firstly, a large contingent of US citizens live in Hong Kong (about 30,000) in a city of 7 millions and those folks like wine and are good ambassadors for US wines. Secondly, the average income is relatively high and years of British occupation have raised the awareness of the population to wine and food (and what is better with Chinese food than Riesling, eh!). Thirdly, they are no taxes on alcohol and no sales taxes on any goods; additionally the Hong Kong dollar is 100% pegged on the US dollar - no currency risk for US companies. All that to say that Hong Kong is probably the best market for US wines in Asia right now and an entry door to mainland China. That being said competition is fierce and finding a good agent is tough (I feel fortunate to have a decent importer myself). FOr me the highlight of the trip was definitely the last day of the show where exhibitors could sell their stock at what ever price they wanted (I made $300 that day!). Beyond the amusing fact that it felt like behind at the farmer’s market on that day, I gathered two very interesting learnings.

To start, there is something very refreshing about having a free market for wines: no price fixing, no third party, no licenses - I have noticed that prices would fluctuate out there and often were low which is great for consumers. I guess this fact points out to what a free market can do to prices (remember that Hong Kong has been ranked as the “freest economy in the world” for 12 years in a row by the Cato institute - the USA ranks 6th). That made me think about the US system and all the monies that go to government (think taxes) and to the distributors (think distributor margins) that really inflates the price of wine and brings up barriers to competition because not all wineries can afford that burden of taxes and margins and stay competitive.

Secondly, no one was drunk and, even if they were some drinking ,everyone behaved very well. Same in the streets, never saw a drunk person. That goes to public safety concerns that often are raised as a reason for our US alcohol market control system. It seems to me that there is no a great correlation between the level of control and the behavior of the population.

It reinforced my belief that a free market is totally the way to go for any goods and alcohol should be no different (especially wines and beers). If a tax is levied it should go 100% toward educating the population about alcoholism and the potential negative impact of alcohol on one’s life (our industry would support this 100% and it would allign everyone on the same goal ie safe consumption of alcohol). I would for sure keep the distributors (we could not live without them really) but open the doors to competition and alternative channels of distribution - looks at California, it has allowed many wineries to compete in many different ways keeping intact the distributor system - this is possible.

Big thank you to Cost Plus for the great partnership and especially the great support during the holiday period. We already had our Dry Riesling nationally in all of Cost Plus’ stores and now we will have the Sweet Riesling as well. Additionally several States (CA, WA, OR, FL, TX, IL) will be carrying our White Flowers Sparkling Riesling for the holidays. At Pacific Rim we truly appreciate the opportunity that Cost Plus if offering smaller brands like us to expose our great wine on a national level. So, pick up a bottle of Pacific Rim at cost plus for the holidays!

Here you can see that 2009 (the black line) was behaving much like 2003 (warm year standard in red) until the freeze in early October and from then on there no degree days that have been recorded and we might end up close to the long term average (in teal). Pretty dramatic, no?