Already we are into the Chinese New Year – and this year it is the year of the dragon! What a great opportunity to talk Sweet Riesling – our best-selling Riesling adorned with a Dragon carrying a cauldron of fire on the label.

THE STYLE – The wine came out of a vision, the vision of a great American Kabinett. Of course we could not reproduce that style exactly (Eastern Washington weather and soils are not the Mosel) and we had to tweak things a bit to make a good wine years after years (more on this learning experience later). THE NAME – We also wanted this wine to talk to consumers; most Riesling wines just said “Riesling” and that drove us crazy: “how can consumers find a sweet Riesling if they all say just ‘Riesling’ on the label” – hence we came up with the name “Sweet Riesling” on our labels. At the beginning everyone (Distributors, large clients) told us we were crazy: “consumers do not like the word ‘sweet’ even if they like to drink ‘sweet’ – do not put ‘sweet’ on the label”. The popularity of this wine and the number of copycats since then (It always amazes me to see so many wine companies just copy one another) have proven that the “Sweet Riesling” wording was a winning ticket. THE DRAGON – The imagery was crystallized very early in our mind, we wanted an iconographic art piece that would clearly depict that this type of wine (low alcohol – high sugar – high acid) is made to go with spicy food – Sweet Riesling with hot/spicy food is a culinary experience that one cannot miss. An Asian dragon was perfect for this image – agile, light and deadly. Adding a cauldron of fire helped explain the great tension between a Sweet Riesling and hot food.
BACK TO THE STYLE – We knew we wanted a certain balance where high sugar levels would be balanced by high acidity. The first year we made the Sweet (2006), we’ve picked the grapes at the same time than the Dry Riesling and the acidity did not allow carrying more than 6% residual sugar – we thought: “need more acid”. 2007 brought a warmer harvest and we decided to pick early to keep our acids higher, we found out this was a great timing to harvest for that style and that same year we understood clearly that sugar alone was not enough of a parameter to pick grapes (I know we are a bit slow) – we also decided that we could do away with adding acid by simply picking earlier – yes! One less additive at the winery. What a revelation 2007 was, we’ve picked early, did not add acid and made a naturally balanced wine that tasted great. We narrowed on a slightly higher residual sugar level closer to 7% because now the wine could carry more sugar (and we love the tension between acid and sugar – that is what makes a great Riesling). In 2008 we’ve learned two more tricks; the first one was the use of native yeast and how well they worked for our wines. The second one was the importance of residual carbon dioxide in the bottle – we started obsessing about carbon dioxide and made sure that the residual carbon dioxide would be perfect at bottling. In 2009 we started to think about having a fraction of the blend coming from a botrytized vineyard – until then all our fruit was always clean and beautiful – to get complexity we had to find some botrytis and we’d decided to explore growing botrytized vineyard blocks (note – it does not work that well). We also started to understand deeply the relationship between our pH and the sensation of sweetness for the wines. 2009 brought also the first Sweet Riesling 100% fermented with native yeasts. 2010 gave us a LOT of botrytis. I was like mother nature heard our desire to get some Botrytis and said “you wanted some, here you go my friend” – I think this is my favorite vintage of Sweet Riesling (though the 2011 currently in tank is not shabby by any means), that year we really learned to work with Botrytis – all that rot is not all good. 2011 was similar to 2010, no major breakthrough this vintage. Every vintage brought its share of learning but after 6 vintages of Sweet Riesling we really are starting to get it down to a science – no acid addition, no yeast, pick early, keep your pH low, high residual carbon dioxide, some botrytis.

So for the year of the Dragon, remember to pick up a Sweet Riesling – a treat with Spicy food and now a great story to repeat at dinner time.

OREGON:

We brought some Riesling from Oregon but also some Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris for our new Oregon winery project. It was a challenging harvest in OR overall following an unseasonably cool spring and summer (Thank you la Nina). We thought that all would be saved by a great August and a promising September but the weather turned cold mid-September slowing down ripening considerably. We were aggressive with yield reduction to allow what was left to ripen a bit more. The saving grace has been the dry weather which has reduced fungal pressure in OR tremendously. We saw little or no rot on any varietal. Most folks started to harvest mid-October wrapping harvest in 2 to 3 weeks – bit of a flash harvest ahead of the rain that are in the forecast as far as the eye can see now. Overall the fruit is low in sugar (21 Brix) but fruit flavors are ripe with no greenness, and colors on the Pinot Noir are very decent indeed. I think that overall it will be a nice vintage with delicate flavors that will reward wineries that tend to go for elegance against power. The Riesling was low Brix and is slotted for a Kabinett style.

WASHINGTON:

Same pattern than OR in WA minus the rain factor and plus frost issues. The summer was very cool and 2011 will be remembered as one of the coldest vintage on record, cooler than 2010 even – 2011 is the 8th coldest year on record sandwiched between 1976 and 1970. The yields were quite lower than last year due to some winter frost damage and some aggressive thinning after bloom. WA harvest as a whole will probably be 20% below average yield which has probably helped to get most fruit to good ripeness. Acids are high and everyone brought some nice botrytis with the fruit. Overall it is a little riper of a vintage (bit weird but the acids were much lower than 2010) for us and we will be able to make every Riesling style we usually produce. We are leaving a few acres out to see if this is a good ice wine year, we might get something good out of this cold weather!

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!).

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

The results from the GDD race are in, 2003 will end at 2325 which will put it in on par with 1974 and 1970 – 2003 is now the 9th coolest year in WA on record (http://rieslingrules.com/the_book/2010/09/20/). The final GDD chart for the year is below:

As I have hinted before, we will probably not make a dry Riesling this year except for our Wallula Biodynamic and Solstice Rieslings single vineyards (they will probably be close to 1% RS so not fully “trocken”). As far as cool and new wines we are exploring, we are still trying to make a decent TBA, very scary wine to make, the jury is still out on this one so stay tune. Another experiment this year is a 100% carbonic maceration Gamay – that is also a bit of a work in progress right now.

Let’s check in in two weeks when all the grapes are in.

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!

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.