Just a quick note to display my gratitude to the sun god for giving us a great end of August. GDD are catching up with last year and last year saw a disastrous September which so far does not look like a repeat this year. We might have a great vintage on our hands…..

As we are entering the final stretch of the grape growing season, the growers and wineries of Washington State have published their projected harvest numbers. Below are the top key points:

• Total estimated crop is 20% below last year due to a freeze kill this winter – 128K tons vs 160K tons in 2010 – this is the equivalent of 1.8M cases
• Red are more affected than whites – reds down 26%, whites down 8%
• Among reds, major loser is Cabernet Sauvignon (-39%) and all major red varietals are down
• Among whites, major loser is Chardonnay (-17%) and somewhat Riesling (-13%). Pinot Gris is actually projected a good 20% above 2010 due to speculative planting putting pressure on Pinot Gris prices
• Looking at the future, 2012 could be as high as 176K tons, 10% higher than 2010 – so there is no long term shortage

Overall this is a pretty decent projection. We should not see any major shortage except Cabernet Sauvignon. If the weather stays above 90F until mid-September we could actually have a stellar vintage with low crop and mild temperatures -> Perfect!

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!).

Quick update on the growing season (or lack of growing season one might say). The cold weather on the West coast is affecting the Columbia Valley and right now the vine growth is pretty anemic. Check out the growing degree day chart below:

2011 is not even off the ground – 10 degree days total – ouch. We need to see the temperature kick off a bit soon – please? Added to our temperature worries, many vineyards were hit by frost this winter and some vineyards were nailed pretty badly (none of ours apparently -there is a watchful angel for Riesling producers). The combo of winter damage and aa anemic growing season right now will make for a rocky vintage – we can still catch up of course if finally the weather starts cooperating.

Quick post to show you the last 41 years of cumulative GDD data (Yakima Valley) that I got today:

 Exciting table, no? The warmest years were 1987, 2003, 1992, 1990 and 1998. The coolest were 1984, 1971, 1975, 1999 and 1980. Right now we are trailing slightly behind 1999 so we could have the coldest year on record. What does that mean for quality? Well, it will really depends of night time temperature I believe. If we can hang our fruit without a night time frost for another 5 to 6 weeks, we will have a great vintage like 1999. If not, we will have a repeat of 1984 which, I have heard, was a disaster.

Now is the time to look at yields and estimate the size of the harvest. We are practically done estimating at Pacific Rim and we think we will have a normal yield with some vineyards affected with some shatter (shatter = less berries per cluster due to bad fruit set). All in all we are happy with the size of harvest and the cooler weather which will probably delay harvest 8 to 12 days.

I have also received today a crop estimation from the Washington Association of Grape Grower (hence the post) and it confirms the delay in ripening due to cool weather. The current estimate for total crop for Washington is 156,000 tons (10 million cases) which would be flat to slightly up vs actual 2009 harvest. Chardonnay would still be #1, Riesling #2, Merlot #3 and Cabernet #4. All top four varietal would be slightly down except Merlot (be ready for some cheap Merlot out there!). Major growth in volume is projected to come from Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah (Syrah is struggling in the market place, so expect bit of oversupply) and Cabernet franc (what in heaven is going on with Cab Franc +1,500 tons?).

Harvest is approching and it is time for us to look at our grapes sourcing and make sure all is in balance (i.e. we have just enough of everything for each wine we make). Below is a synopsis of what harvest will look like for us:

- 3,181 tons of grapes or 203,000 cases of wines – our largest harvest yet

- 92.2% Riesling, 97.1% White grapes (Gewurzt and Chenin). We have a little Gamay coming this year (plus our usual Barbeara, Sangiovese and Primitivo blend)

- 1/3 of our Riesling from Wallula 2/3 from the lower Yakima Valley

Next week I will be touring all our blocks to confirm quality and volume. Ready, set, Go!

Spring should almost be over on the West coast of the United States but we are witnessing a fairly cool 2010 influenced by the infamous El Nino slowing down our growing season – this is a particularly good thing for us Riesling producers (we like cool germanic weather). Physiologically our vines are now blooming and we are probably about two weeks behind a normal season – This is also great for Riesling because delayed maturity promote long hang time and long hang time = better flavor development. I still expect harvest to be starting in 14 weeks or so.

Below is the GDD chart (for more on GDD http://rieslingrules.com/the_book/winemakers-blog/vineyards/2009-vineyard-update/ - you will also see the 2009 chart in comparison)

Obviously one cannot be sad enough for the terrible quake that shook Chile this week. It is all more important to me because the earthquake hit a wine producing region in the middle of their harvest. I just cannot imagine the added chaos at all those wineries. I was listening to my favorite podcast while on my bike ride this morning, and the topic of the amount of wine lost last week in Chile came up: 125 million liters. Once in the office I took my calculator to put that number in prospective, that is 33 million gallons or about 194,000 tons of fruit. Well, that is more grapes that we harvest in Washington in a whole year (we’ve harvested 156,000 tons in Washington in 2009).  If that is not enough to put things in prospective, the interviewed person from the Wines of Chile association mentionned that it was “only” 12.5% of the wine they had on hand at that time. We are just a drop in the bucket, aren’t we?

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!

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.