Let me remember 2010…

A cool growing season

My first harvest in Washington was 1998 (5^th warmest season on record ) and if you take out 1999 (The 4^th coolest season), it has been the coolest season in many years. The seventies and mid-eighties were very cool years as well but really for the past 20 years we have been used to 2,400 GDD (Growing Degree Days) every year. Well, not 2010. We had to go through a cold early spring and really a uber cool end of season – it almost felt like Burgundy at times. A cool season like 2010 brings its load of challenges in the vineyard especially late ripening, low maturity, low yields and potential for rot.

Winemaking to the rescue

The challenges the season brought us had to be dealt with at the winery, this is what they call a “winemaker’s vintage” – aka I will not sleep for 60 days and chew my fingernails to the bone. In challenging vintages, such as 2010, the trick is to accept that there will be compromises and to choose them carefully. The first compromise we made was to bring some fruit below optimal ripeness and avoid having to pick everything at once (it is challenging to bring too much fruit too fast). The second compromise we’ve made was to accept grapes with far higher noble rot levels than we usually do. The third one was to pick almost exclusively on acid level – we would pick once the acid level would go right below “deadly”. Still this was not enough to get away with such a cool season. We had to get out a few tricks out of our Magic Riesling Compendium book namely leaving grapes on cold soak to enrich the juices in potassium (thereby dropping some tartaric acid out of the wine), selectively de-acidify some lots, decide to not make any dry styles from the 2010 harvest and separate lots with higher botrytis levels for Sweet Riesling.

The wines we’ve made

Now we are just releasing the wines we’ve made from the 2010 vintage. They have in common a great high acidity, some level of noble rot (think about waxy, complexing aromas and flavors) and overall a tid bit more sugar than usual to rebalance the extra acid (and of course de facto lower alcohols). Below is a list of the wine we’ve made in 2010:

-        Riesling “Phoenix”: This is our Johannesburg style. We left a tid bit more sugar than usual to rebalance the wine (2.8% instead of 2.5%). Surprisingly close to the 2009 with some added acidity

-        Sweet Riesling: OK, this is a very very nice sweet Riesling; it has about the same sugar than usual (7%) but has a layer of botrytis that I have been fighting to get for years. I would say about 20% noble rot.

-        Riesling Made from organic Grapes: Watch out, this is our best to date (our first vintage was 1998). With a great natural acidity and the slightly above normal sugar level (3.8%) this is a very pure and somewhat crystalline Riesling – very different in the lineup and very cool.

-        Vin De Glaciere – Wallula Vineyard – Made From organic Grapes: A new twist on our quintessential VDG. Now it is made from Wallula so it can carry an organic certification. It was a bit of a challenge to make a dessert wine organically but boy it paid off. Note the 8.5% alcohol on this wine (16% Residual Sugar), it is a great wine in a 375ml bottle.

-        Sparkling Sweet Riesling: Well, when you can’t make a dry Riesling, you make a sweet one! That is what the Germans do and what we did. A new bubbly in the lineup dosed at 7% RS – think Sweet Riesling with bubbles

-        Solstice Vineyard Riesling: We’ve just bottled this one. It has been a fantastic wine so far though it needs a bit of bottle age. It ended up drier than in past year – this is the acid monster for those of us that like that with total acidity of 0.93 and Residual Sugar of 0.93. This is the wine of legends

-        Wallula Vineyard Riesling Biodynamic: This is a very interesting wine because we did not get the sugar we usually do at Wallula. We kept the sugar at around 1.1% as usual but the alcohol is 11.9%. This wine as usual is the best true read on the vintage – untouched from the vineyard to the bottle

-        Gewurztraminer: This is one varietal that fared well in 2010. Great concentration, very aromatic vintage and the best for us since 2008 probably (mmm 2008 was cooler too, may be a correlation?)

-        Framboise: A short harvest in 2010 though quite flavorful. Intense berry flavors, the only problem is that we did not make enough!

The wrap up

In retrospect, 2010 was a great year for Riesling producers – as long as you focused on sweeter styles save a few sites like Solstice. The only thing I wish is that our yields could have been higher and our quantities available larger. I probably lost way too much sleep on this vintage and lost a couple years of life expectancy – which I can regain by drinking additional Riesling every day in 2011. Please expect high acids in 2010 and trust that we did balance everything out with about 10% more sugar than usual. Enjoy the touch of botrytis on the wines, especially in the Sweet Riesling. Have fun with the results of a challenging vintage, meanwhile we are preparing for an equally challenging 2011 vintage (2011 is so far cooler than 2010!).

Univocally bad for you?

Sulfites are a top allergen triggering strong reactions in people (hives, swelling of throat etc..). Thankfully, studies have shown that few individuals are truly allergic to sulfites (I have read 0.5% of the population but 5% of the asthmatic population) and often sulfite allergies are mistaken with alcohol allergies (the headache you get the next day!). For the other 99.5% of the population sulfites are metabolized and excreted. They are cases of sulfite poisoning in young children but usually no one dies from sulfites present in the food chain (would not recommend eating spoons of sulfites though). So, really asthmatic should avoid food with high levels of sulfites or at least follow the recommendation of the FDA which is to avoid food with more than a 100ppm of sulfites. For the non-asthmatic folks, if you suspect a sulfite allergy (again very low likelihood), you can have yourself tested by an allergist to confirm your suspicion. Foods that are known to contain more than 100ppm of sulfites include dried fruit (excluding raisins), lemon and lime juice, wine, sauerkraut, grape juices, pickled onions for example. Now remember that your sulfite intake is additive, so you should not neglect foods that have less than 100ppm sulfites because they add up especially wine vinegar, maraschino cherries, fresh shrimps, corn syrup, relish, maple syrup, some cookies, many medications etc… The FDA requires that any product with more than 10ppm sulfites be declared on the label.

Sulfites in wine

Sulfites have been used in wines for thousands of year; Egyptians used sulfites starting 2,000 BC! Sulfites are used in wines because they have very interesting properties:

• they are a strong antioxidant protecting the wine from oxygen spoilage
• they are a good anti-bacterial agent (we have plenty of those in wines, few good bacteria and many bad ones)
• they have some decent anti-fungal activities (remember that yeasts that are fermenting wines are a unicellular fungus)
• they do enhance the taste of food, in the same manner than salt

Because of health concerns, governments of many countries have regulated the maximum total amount of sulfites in wines. The maximum limit is 350ppm in the USA, 200ppm in the EU – I think the USA should mirror the EU on that one; 350ppm is a LOT of total sulfites.
The winemaker should not really worry about the level of total sulfites (unless one is getting close to the legal limit) but should focus on the molecular sulfite levels. See, not all sulfites are born alike, and when the sulfite molecule is in suspension in wine, it dissociates itself into several forms that are more or less active chemically. The molecular fraction is by far the most active and the one that the winemaker needs to pay attention to. Several factors should influence the amount of molecular sulfite desired:

• The life expectancy of the wine and its window of consumption (if the wine is to be consumed in two years and for the next 5 years after that, then one should increase the sulfite concentration to help the wine survive)
  The expectation for oxygen ingress into the container (cork and bag in the box let more oxygen into the wine vs screwcaps for example requiring increased sulfites at bottling)
• The pH of the wine – very important factor, for a wine with low pH (like in Riesling) the molecular fraction become exponentially more prevalent reducing the need for more sulfites – note that red wines in general have higher pH that whites
• The presence of polyphenols (color, tannins mainly) that are natural anti-oxidant protecting the wine naturally (ie, at same pH levels red wines need less sulfites than white wines)
• The level of filtration, non-filtered wines being more unstable, they might require more sulfites to avoid bacterial spoilage in the bottle
• Barrel aged wines which see more oxygen (vs tank aged) require often more sulfites especially if they are aged for a long time

Overall I would say that wines need to be below 150ppm sulfites. I see very few instances (very sweet wines may be since sulfites benefits are inhibited by sugar) where the level should be higher and I would welcome legislation forcing wineries to put the final sulfite levels in their wines.

Organic, made from organic grapes, biodynamic requirements

The three certifications above all have more stringent sulfites requirement than previously stated. Made from organic grapes and biodynamic wines have an upper limit of 100ppm total sulfites. Organic wines cannot have sulfites added period – one caveat is that yeasts naturally produce sulfites usually around 20ppm, so no sulfite added does not mean no sulfite present. Still organic wines would be a perfectly good way to lower one’s sulfites intake. The only issue I have with organic wines is that they don’t age that well and have to be drunk soon after production which is not always possible.

Sulfites at Pacific Rim

As you might have gathered, I care a lot about sulfite levels. I wish we would not have to use it and still get a great bottle of wine that age and that is good now and for many years. Right now, this is a preservative we have to use to guarantee the freshness of our wines and its stability. I guess I find solace in the fact that at Pacific Rim we rarely (almost never) bottle any wines above 100ppm total Sulfites. Several reasons why we can get away with low levels of sulfites:

• Our wines are often fast turn, they are fresh whites that are meant to be drunk young needing less sulfites
• Riesling has very low pH, allowing us use less sulfites and still have a good amount of precious molecular sulfites
• We stop our fermentations (to make white wines) with a centrifuge which separates yeasts and wine without using sulfites
• We sterile filter our wines
• We use screwcaps – a very tight closure reducing oxygen ingress in the wine
• We make sure our wines go in the bottle with very little dissolved oxygen (we even chase the air between the wine and the wine