Glorious day last week for a picnic at Wallula Vineyard with a nice group of friends from Texas. A refreshing menu of fresh cheeses, orzo mint pasta salad, bread from the excellent Ken’s bakery in Portland, cold cuts and a fantastic pate de campagne. Of course, plenty of Rieslings but, one small problem we forgot the glasses! Never mind, the team started cutting plastic bottles! We ran out of bottles to cut, so I had to use a bottle of Riesling made from Organic grapes for a glass – a fine container for a hot lunch under the tent!

Just reviewed the lastest Nielsen data ending March 6th and Riesling is still the fastest growing varietal in the US in dollars (+10.7 % over last 13 weeks, +8.7% over last 52 weeks). It is ahead of Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon in growth. Riesling is also gaining ground on Syrah (it is now 80% as big as syrah vs 77% a year ago) and could overtake Syrah as the #8 varietal in the country. I’ll let you guess who is #1 through #7! #10 is Zinfandel. GO RIESLING!

We are releasing a new Riesling – 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, J’s were usually bout 2% residual sugar Riesling and picked around 22.5 Brix (Auslese ripeness level) with about 12.5% of ethanol. It was and still is today the most proeminent style in Washington State. Our version of this American favorute 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? Riesling is really enjoying a true rennaissance in this country (likethe Phoenix on this label) and we are proud to be part of it.

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.

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.

Love the last paragraph of Jancis Robinson’s wishes for the year published in the financial times today:

“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.

Our first effort at making a sparkling Riesling has been rewarded by an overwhelming demand for the wine and zip! we are out of it at the winery (you will still probably find it in retail accross the country). This is very rewarding to see that this delicate wine has been received with such enthusiasm by everyone (by the way thank you to Beverage Dynamics Magazine for rating the Sparkling White Flowers 91 points!). I have saved 10 bottles for the holidays for my own cellar (should be barely enough to carry us to the next bottling in January…). Making this wine was a bit of a bet because of the style we went for (Dryish and fruity) and the fact that it is clearly labeled as a Riesling. Never fear! you were out there to support our creative effort and this new style in the market place. We are now working on our next bottling in January – so stay tuned for more bubbles.

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.

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!

Yesterday I was sitting on a Riesling tasting panel in Walla Walla and we were comparing Riesling from some classic regions in the world versus Washington. It is clear in my mind that Washington has its own style and produces its own type of Riesling. Here are a few thoughts about the regions we have tasted yesterday that I have put down:

- Mosel: Great acid, large influence of Botrytis with great honey, waxy nose. Kabinett styles are the most distinctive from that region and they balance the acid very well. A very distinctive style.

- Australia (Clare Valley): Bone dry styles. Lots of lemon, some alcohol and often some petrol notes. Once again a very specific profile that one cannot miss.

- Alsace: Very mineral wines with some ripeness and body. Sometimes a hint of alcohol. Not always technically bone dry but tasting almost always dry .

- Washington: Rarely bone dry, often some sugar though always great acid to balance the sugar. More fruity than steely with Peach being a main component. Often in a wide range of sweetness.