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.