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

I have been looking lately at the environmental impact of screwcaps closure and I came accross an interesting survey from a company called “Quantis” related to the carbon footprint of the wine supply chain. I think the study was sponsored by the European Aluminum producer, so not fully removed from the industry but Quantis is a serious third party with good credentials: http://www.quantis-intl.com/

Above is the chart that sort out the different sources of carbon emission during the supply chain – from the vineyard to the consumer’s table. Several very interesting points:

1) The winery impact is really small, may 9% of total carbon emmission. So solar panels, water reduction program and other winery improvements are nice but really they don’t move the needle much – though at Pacific Rim we have very good water, waste and electrical conservancy program

2) Glass is about 40% of the total carbon emission – holy molly, that is a lot. Please note that Pacific Rim is using 95% EcoSerie glass, the lightest glass available in the USA (made in USA – 393 g/bottle). We also don’t use pallets for our case goods (they are heavy, they take room, they have a carbon footprint from manufacturing, etc..)

3) Stopper is really not a big deal as far as carbon emission is concerned – Retail transportation (ie from the winery to the retailer) is more important than closure – again light weight glass would help here

4) The other big carbon emiter is the consumer driving to the store, picking up the wine, using the wine etc… – about 25% of the carbon footprint.  We should buy 12 bottles at a time to make things more efficient!

Will report on my screwcap findings next week

We were hosting a biodynamic tasting at our offices in Portland. Pacific Rim was pouring a vertical of Wallula Vineyard Biodynamic Rieslings (picture above). This was an opportunity for me to taste through the first three vintages (2007-2008-2009) of the magnificent Wallula Vineyard and reflect on our winemaking and our progress. Remember that those wines are biodynamic wines (vs made from biodynamic grapes) which is pretty rare as I saw yesterday where most of the producers present were pouring made from biodynamic grapes wines. Nothing is added to those wines (no yeast, no acid, no nothing) and they are certified biodynamic. Wallula is probably one of the most thoughtful Riesling planting in the USA with a special trellis system, German clones and all biodynamically farmed (http://rieslingrules.com/the_book/about-our-wines/biodynamic-winemaking-at-pacific-rim/).

2007 Wallula Riesling BioD: It was our first year and were still learning about selecting the best rows and We might have picked a bit late. The resulting wine is very nice though may be missing some acid and it is rich in alcohol. It is rebalanced by a very low residual sugar (0.7%?). Overall a great wine but not the best we have made I would think. Would love to taste this in 5 years to see how it is aging.

2008 Wallula Riesling BioD: This was a cool vintage and also the first vintage we started to pick the grapes at different time (fractionnal picking). The wine was difficult to ferment and stuck at 1.2% residual sugar. It is a more complex version with some serious aging potential.

2009 Wallula Riesling BioD: Whao, may be our best vintage. It is zippy (we picked quite early) with a lower ethanol content (12.5%). We started to stop the fermentation early for a fraction of the blend so we could use that fraction to blend back into a dry fraction aged on lees. This technique  seems to be very appropriate for our conditions. This is a complex and hedgy wine. Very interesting and thoughtful.

Overall this was a solid line up and I could taste the vineyard through each wine. The common thread reflecting the site was the lovely floral nose of each wine. The  importance of the picking date and the amount of fractionnal picking (picking the same vineyard at different rippeness levels) really had a tremendous impact. I can’t wait to do a 10 year vertical with the press to taste what I think is one of the most thoughtful Riesling in North America.

What do we do to have a certified “Made from Organic Grapes” Riesling: to be organic the wine as to 1) be made from certified organic grapes 2) be made in a winemaking facility certified to organic standard 3) follow a process filed with USDA that is organic. Pacific Rim is certified by the Washington State Department of Ag which, in turns, is certified by USDA. The process is fairly restrictive, expensive (we pay a percentage of sales to WSDA) and requires yearly inspections from WSDA and yearly filing.

Why is our wine labeled ”Made From Organic Grapes” rather than “Organic”: Everything we use in our winemaking is certified organic. We actually go beyond the regulation because 1) we do not use commercial yeasts 2) we do not add any acid to our wines. The only non organic element we use is sulfur dioxide know as sulfites (not to be mistaken with sulfides which is a term gathering a bunch of stinky rotten egg compounds sometimes found in wines). Sulfur dioxide is a very common preservative in dry fruits, pre packed vegetables and juices. It is authorized in wines up to 350 mg/L but in Organic and biodynamic winemaking it is limited to 100 mg/L which is why at Pacific Rim all our wines are bottled with less than 100 mg/L of sulphur dioxide – guaranteed. We bottle the Riesling MFOG at around 90 mg/L (or ppm). Therefore the non organic fraction of the Riesling MFOG is really 0.009%. So it is quite a pure organic wine but since it has 0.009% of non organic product we have to call it MFOG.

Why use sulfites in wines by the way?: Sulfites act as 1) an antioxidant which is very important in white wines (we don’t need much for that purpose because we use air tight screwcaps and we make sure that our wines have no dissolved oxygen when they go in the bottle) and 2) an anti bacterial and anti fungal agent which is important for us because we have residual sugars and residual malic acid (we do not do malolactic fermentations). A last bonus of sulfites is that it is a bit like salt with food (Just like sulfites, salt is not healthy if you eat too much of it!) as it highlights and focuses the aromas and flavors of a wine. Finally note that sulfites are naturally produced by yeast in the 30ppm range usually – so even an Organic wine probably contains a small amount of sulfites. 

Our style: The grapes are picked around 22 Brix which would qualify for a very ripe Spatlese in most German regions. We make it in a definite sweet style but beware the acid on that one! About 0.78 TA, 3.04 pH and 3.5%RS. I think this is a very balanced wine with always very refined aromas of fresh white flowers and some peach. This is really a chameleon wine as far as pairing goes and at 10.5% Ethanol it is easy to drink!

Here is a picture of Rick from the Hogue Ranches in the Yakima Valley (we source three Riesling blocks with those guys) posing next to their new owl houses spread out through the vineyard. They where built as a school project by a Prosser high schooler (Keith Forsyth) and placed throughout the vineyard. Likely large barn owls will move in February next year and will help control naturally the sage rat population. Thank you guys for providing a habitat for those beautiful birds and consequently reducing any needs for chemical (read poison) control of the sage rat population. This is what sustainability is all about!

For the past year we have been working with our largest growers to come up with an integrated plan that would lift the sustainability footprint of all our vineyards. Together, those growers represent more than 80% of all our vineyards. We have called our team the Integrated Environmental Stewardship or IES for short. This effort is of course on top of our Biodynamic farming at Wallula and our Organic vineyards. The reason we started this group is because we could not find a single certification mechanism that met all our needs or that was economically interesting. After a year of work we have come up with a list of practices that we will monitor. Below is the list in order of importance to us:

That list has criteria (about 120 of them in total) that each farm can or has to follow in order to bge qualified as “sustainable” by our team. We are also in the process of sorting chemicals used for Herbicides, Fungicides, Insecticides and Fertilizer and agreeing of what is authorized and what is not based on several national (Organic) and international (IOBC) guidelines.

Long process, but we believe one of the most thourough out there.

30% of our grapes are grown biodynamically and to my knowledge we have the only certified biodynamic vineyard in Washington State. We also are the only certified biodynamic producer in the State. We are not fanatical about biodynamie but it has taught us many things and has connected us better to our terroir.

Our understanding of Biodynamic agriculture

What we have learned from Rudolph Steiner’s biodynamic agriculture principles is that our goal should be to set the farm as a self contained entity focused on exporting goods without importing any from the outside world. The farm is in some way limited, just like our planet, and it has to become its own ecosystem to become a sustainable and perennial entity. Of course this preclude the use of any chemical at the farm unless they can be produced at the farm. For these reasons we use only natural products that could be produced at the farm that we call preparations (we actually do not make our own at this point but would like to). The preparations are numbered from 500 to 508:

This is all we use in the vineyard – no other chemical organic nor synthetic. The compost making is very important as it is the key to a healthy soil and in return to a healthy vine. Also we do use the moon cycles to do most operations in the vineyard.

Our understanding of Biodynamic winemaking

At the winery we do not correct any grape deficiencies (no acid, no sugar, no water). We do not use commercial yeasts, only the yeasts that came with the grapes. The only chemicals we use are bentonite (for protein stability, it is remove and does not stay in the wine) and we add sulfites below 100ppm.

Lesson learned

In the vineyard we understand that we do not need heavy chemicals to grow our grapes. Yes, it is more work but there are alternative ways to grow grapes in an economical way. It makes sense and it does not make us a bunch of hippies. Consequently we have pooled our growers together to find alternative ways to grow grapes in a more sustainable way and we are creating an Integrated Environmental Stewardship Charter to move our sustainability agenda forward.

At the winery we know understand that we do not need commercial yeasts and that we can also make wine with fewer chemicals. Yes, the wines might not always be “technologically” correct but we hope they taste better and are healthier for you, just like an organically grown fruit.

We hope that you care as much as we do.

We have bottled last month our first Riesling “made from organic”. We have been playing with Biodynamic grapes and winemaking over the past few years and we thought it was time to play with organic. We did have organic grapes but never made them into a commercial organic wine. We have certified the winery last summer, so we are now the only Washington Winery with an Organic Producer and a Biodynamic Producer certification. The organic winemaking is pretty simple and was really straightforward for us because we don’t really use many additives. We use only native yeasts (no commercial stuff), organic nutrients, no acidification nor sugar added and we do not use any heavy filtration material (just membrane filtration).  I could not go the whole way and not add any non organic sulfites but we have stayed well below the 100ppm requirement for total sulfites (closer to 80ppm total in fact) so the wine is 99.84% Organic. Because we use non organic sulfites (note that yeasts produce organic sulfites naturally) we  qualify for “made from organic grapes” and not for “Organic”. Interestingly this wine would qualify as “Organic”‘ if produced in Canada and many other country that have a waiver on non-organic sulfites (at least to a certain level).

The wine is made in an off dry style somewhere between our Dry and our Sweet Riesling. With 11% alcohol it is very refreshing and quite frankly as pure as it gets. Pick a bottle and comment back on what you think about the wine.

Yesterday I got a call asking me if our wines were vegan. Well, first I had to think about what that really meant (from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegan Veganism is a diet and lifestyle that seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose. Vegans endeavor not to use or consume animal products of any kind) and then think back about our winemaking and our package. I can think of any animal product in our package at all (glass, aluminum, paper, plastic…) and in the winemaking either, except in the Dry Riesling since we use a microscopic amount of Isinglass (sturgeon bladder) at the end of our winemaking. There might be also some insects (do they count?) that might be picked with the grapes and a few fruit flies that fall in the tank during fermentation. So,can I claim that all our wines are Vegan ( with the exception of the Dry Riesling, though honestly we use about one pint of the Isinglass for the whole blend…)?