When you live and breathe Riesling, one of the recurring story that we talk about all the time is the many different types (read residual sugars) of Rieslings and how they all have a place at your wine table. This is a theme that we have tried to convey on the package of our main line of Riesling through the clear use of descriptors on the label such as “Dry” or “Sweet” because we want our customers to understand what they are buying (not a given in the wine business sometimes). For the record most folks out there told us we were crazy to use the word “Sweet” on a label and now you can see the numbers of wineries following our lead. Our leadership in this arena is also shown in the very early use of the International Riesling Foundation taste (sweetness) scale on all our Rieslings back labels – a scale that we’ve helped develop with Dan Berger and the team at the IRF.

Why all that matters would you ask? Well, it does matter (at least to us) because it is not always easy to convince some crowds to love, buy and sell several types of Rieslings. we have many cro-magnon folks out there that either think that all Rieslings are sweet and/or believe that sweet wines are waaayyy below them. Often those prehistoric thinkers believe that consumers needs to be categorized as a “cab drinker” or a “dry white drinker”; they love to categorize the world of drinkers like marketers categorize populations (by the way try the Claritas prizm marketing segmentation to see how those people like to categorize everything). If you are like me and enjoy many ways of life, you probably understand that there is a time for dry aromatic whites, a time for sweeter wines and a time for a red wine (OK, maybe not many occasion for red wines but I have to be open minded since this is what I am preaching). This is why I do not believe that most wine drinkers fall into one type of Riesling and that Riesling has to be sweet – I believe most people like many styles of Riesling though, I admit, wine drinkers might have a primary attachment to any given kind. There is a Riesling for Everything has we say at Pacific Rim that all have different Riesling for being.

Based on the unequivocal principle that all Riesling are not born equal and they are made for different occasions and food pairing, we are claiming that all decent wine lists and all decent wine shelves HAVE TO CARRY SEVERAL STYLES OF RIESLINGS and that, at a minimum, the price of entry in order to graduate from prehistoric behavior is to carry a Dry, a medium Dry (often just labeled “Riesling” in the USA) and a Sweet Riesling – 3 Rieslings for being. Note 1: a Sparkling and a dessert style in the set would be swell, but I won’t get mad at you for not having them – at least not yet. Note 2: Several Riesling regions (Mosel, Washington State, Eden Valley Australia etc…) would also be nice.

I have just finished a great conversation with Dr Jim Harbertson of WSU and one of his PhD students about bitterness in Washington white wines. In truth it must be said that I might be a bitter “super taster” meaning that I am more sensitive to bitterness than most folks – I do not like IPA beers, don’t appreciate super tannic red wines, can’t eat much unsweetened chocolate, like wimpy truck-stop coffee etc… It is very interesting because my palate might make me quite suited to make sweeter - low bitterness wine – maybe I was born, or my body was pre-programmed, to make Riesling (or other sweet “elegant” wine). OK, that suits me great, no Cabernet, no Chardonnay, no oaky monster, give me Riesling, Pinot Noir, Gewurztraminer.

Sorry for the personal digression. Back to bitterness in Washington whites which, albeit only a few gifted one might notice, is a real bummer. At Pacific Rim, we might be embarking on a quest to find out why many Washington white wines can be bitter if not properly fined (fining is a winemaking technique where a fining agent is introduced to bind with an unwanted molecule and then precipitate with the unwanted molecule at the bottom of a tank where it can be removed after racking off the clean liquid above). What is intriguing is the fact that most work on bitterness has been done on red wines and that we know very little about bitterness factors in whites. I have always felt that light exposure in Eastern Washington led to high skin phenolic content that in return could be extracted during juice skin contact (either due to maceration in a truck after machine picking or during pressing or both).  Stay tune for an update on this fascinating topic – at least fascinating to about half a dozen folks in the country….

Guess what we drink abundantly during the holidays at my house: Riesling! Really, we drink a lot of Riesling – dry, sweet, very sweet bubbly, in whatever form it can come in. There are so many reasons why I love to make and drink Riesling and the holidays are a perfect time of the year to share why.

First, I like low alcohol wines because I enjoy sipping wine all evening long and I don’t like to be drunk (also I hate hangovers). Riesling fits that bill for me – 8.5% alcohol, I love it, 12.5% max, fine.

Second, the acidity of a Riesling fits any food (or at least I have never been trumped by a bad pairing yet). Consider the following holiday dishes (home made of course) in my house and my favorite Pacific Rim wine to pair it with:

- Holiday cocktail with Sparkling Riesling (with Framboise or on its own!)

- Crab cakes with Dry Riesling or with our new Riesling if accompanied by a spicy sauce

- Smoked trout cheese dip: Sweet Riesling here please!

- Foie Gras: Vin De Glaciere

- Choucroute (Sauerkraut + potatoes + various sausages): one of our single vineyards drier styles (Wallula or Solstice)

- Boeuf Bourguignon (alternate: Coq au Vin): Dry Riesling or Solstice

- Chocolate covered marzipan: Riesling Vin De Glaciere or Dauenhauer Riesling

- Tarte Tatin: Riesling Vin de Glaciere

See, there is really a Riesling for everything.

Third, I love to share and surprise people with Riesling. It is always fun to pour a Riesling to people that up front would say: “I don’t drink sweet wines” and then at their first sip  adding: “Oh, but this is good”

So what don’t you enjoy the holidays, surprise yourself and your family with some great Rieslings and start your new year resolution early: MUST DRINK MORE RIESLING IN 2011

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!

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.

Just to clarify the “hybrid” status of our Dry Riesling, we have always blended 15% + of Mosel Riesling in our Washington Riesling to give it a bit more zesty acidity and reduce the final alcohol ofthe wine. The label on Mark’s blog in the 2006 vintage (20% German). The Mosel wine always comes from our dear friend Johannes Selbach in Zeltingen (Johannes owns the Selbach Oster estate and also a negociant business).

Summer is definitely here in the great Pacific Northwest and I find myself gravitating towards lighter, fresher and sweeter wines. I like the low alcohol/high acid/carbonation combo on a hot sunny day. My favorite Riesling for this time of the year are the Sweet Riesling (8.5% Alcohol – definitely sweet), the Organic Riesling (10.5% Alcohol – medium sweet) and I must say that I found two great friends in the Sparkling Riesling (10.5% Alcohol – almost dry) and our Single Vineyard Daunhauer (8.5% Alcohol – sweet). That’s four wines for a hot summer and with our great free shipping on 6 bottles it is easy to try them all!

Ingredients:

• 1 Lb clams
• 1/2 bottle of Sweet Riesling
• Parsley – 1/4 cup chopped
• one large shallot
• 1 stick of butter

Rinse the clams. Chop finely the shallot and in a large pot saute the shallot with 1/4 stick of butter. When shallots are soft add 1/2 bottle of the dry Riesling. Pour yourself a glass to enjoy. Heat up the sauce and when boiling add the clams. cover the pot for 5 minutes then remove the clams into a bowl. Reduce the sauce to about 3 cups. Add the remaining butter and melt it in. Add the parsley and pour the sauce over the clams in the bowl. By now you should be out of Dry Riesling. Open another bottle and enjoy it with your bucket of clams!