We are very proud to host the taste scale freshly released this morning by the International Riesling Foundation (IRF) on our website: http://rieslingrules.com/the_book/irf/international-riesling-foundation-announces-riesling-taste-profile/. Pacific Rim has been a very active founding member of the IRF and we have done our part to contribute to the devellopment of this scale among with some 30 other Riesling producers from all around the world (we have the list included on our website). I want to salute here Dan Berger for his work and patience; trying to get wineries from 4 continents to agree on something was somewhat of a challenge. Also, all this could not have been done without Jim Tresize of the New York Wine Foundation - Thank you Dan, Thank you Jim.

Pacific Rim plans to use the visual scale and description on all its bottlings starting with the upcoming 2008 harvest. We are discussing keeping or not the residual sugar on the label in conjunction to the visual scale. If anyone has a strong opinon, please leave a post.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 8:26 am and is filed under Vineyards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

With the release of three single-vineyard Rieslings, Grahm and Quillé have become terroiristes - and serious ones at that.

decanter_sept2008

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 at 11:24 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

I have had a few good conversation on WLTV forum (http://tv.winelibrary.com/) about winemakers that also review other people’s wine. It has always seemed a conflict of interest of some sort to me. That being said, one of the greatest German Producer, Armin Diel (of Schlossgut Diel: http://www.schlossgut-diel.com/) is also one of Gemany’s most admired wine critic. I still think there is somewhat of a conflict of interest for folks that do that. On my side, I’ll stick to making wine, talking about our wines and will keep my personal opinion for myself.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 7:37 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Yesterday we had the first samples for the 2008 harvest season. The results: 13.8 for the Riesling at Selenium (Yakima Valley) and 16.5 for the Chenin Blanc at Andrews (Horse Heaven Hills). It looks like we are a good two weeks behind which is great for Riesling and other aromatic whites.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 30th, 2008 at 6:49 pm and is filed under Harvest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Paul Grieco’s wine bar in New York City is wrapping up its Summer of Riesling program presenting a 100% Riesling wine list for the summer! Paul, thank you for the great support for our favorite grape varietal. I hope that more restaurants and wine bars accross the country will follow your steps as we need to keep the Riesling revolution alive and moving. About a 100% Riesling month from a great retailer.

To go to Paul’s site: http://www.wineisterroir.com/

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 8:29 pm and is filed under Food Places. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Thank you to Elin McCoy of Bloomberg news that has just recommended our Pacific Rim Riesling Wallula Vineyard as one of her top dry style Riesling. Here is the full story: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601093&sid=aJoQYMG0.g18&refer=home.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 5:13 pm and is filed under About Our Wines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

wineenthusiast_online_gewurz

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 1:19 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

winespectator_online_dry

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 1:16 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

“I’m a huge fan of dry Riesling myself, and I samples dozens of good ones. My top picks include…[the] apple-y 2007 Pacific Rim Wallula Vineyard ($20) from Washington)” - Elin McCoy

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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 11:17 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Stir Crazy is a pretty cool restaurant chain in the North East mainly. Their food is great and very Riesling friendly. They have a cool video about asian food and wine pairing at http://www.stircrazy.com/company/news.aspx

I could not copy the video but it is the third video down “how to pair with Asian Food”.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 7:06 pm and is filed under Food Places. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Grahm’s new 2007 vineyard designates from Solstice Vineyard in Yakima Valley and the biodynamically farmed Wallula Vineyard in the Horse Heaven Hills (both sub-appellations of the Columbia Valley) are impressive, particularly since they’re so soon out of the gate.

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 11:16 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Most often when I go to a small ethnic restaurant (I favor Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Indian, Middle Eastern, North African and Mexican), I enjoy a bit of spice and sometimes brutal heat. It is always puzzling to find a good drink (with alcohol please) to go along with a good curry, a spicy couscous and other Pad Thais. Often the choice is between the house wine (no thank you, I do not want your white zin…), the beer (not another Kirin or Tsingtao please) or an uninspiring cocktail (likely with Tequila or Vodka that do not taste much of anything). I often retreat to water or, I must admit, a beer (light lagers or pilsners are a favorite if available).

I have found out that most of the smaller ethnic restaurants are likely run by foreign born staff with little wine knowledge. They usually see the wine list as important as the fortune cookies (I would not be surprised if they pay more attention to the cookies at times). The wine is usually provided by the beer salesman of very large wine and beer distributors (they are the only one that really have the time and incentive to visit those smaller accounts). The beer salesman is usually incentivized on beer and his wine book is often dismal. The combination of an uneducated buyer and a sales person that want to push beer is unfortunately an uninspiring wine selection in 99% of small ethnic food restaurant.

If anyone as a solution on how to change this sad state of affair, please leave a post!

PS: Did I say that Riesling (in many forms), can aikido most, if not all, of those ethnic foods…

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 23rd, 2008 at 8:49 am and is filed under Food Places. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Thank you to Jancis Robinson for featuring our beloved Riesling book on her blog (http://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/20080820_4). Hopefully this will bring all the blogosphere and friends to our site and they will enrich our great content evolving our website into the ultimate Riesling resource.

Remember that Riesling rules - Thank you Jancis

This entry was posted on Friday, August 22nd, 2008 at 3:11 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Riesling Rules is a beautifully designed, very simple, 40-page booklet made up of small items carrying such titles as ‘Historic “Best” Rieslings Ever’, ‘Global Riesling Case Production’, ‘James Bond and Riesling’ and ‘Top 10 Cities to enjoy a Bottle of Riesling’.

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 22nd, 2008 at 11:11 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

oregonianfoodday_aug08

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 at 1:11 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

This week I was visiting a great restaurant in San Francisco called Sens (http://www.sens-sf.com/) with our local sales person (Jo M.). Jo and I were chatting about the cocktail trends in San Francisco and to demonstrate how good wine cocktail can be he asked the bartender to create a Chenin Blanc based cocktail. I am not sure if it has a name yet but it tasted just perfect with the food and the hot weather. Here is the recipe: 1 part Eldelflower liquor (Use St Germain liquor: http://www.stgermain.fr/), one part Pacific Rim Chenin Blanc and one part club soda - all of it in a tall glass on ice with a lemon twist on the rim. This might be the best wine cocktail I ever had.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 12:51 pm and is filed under Food Places. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One trend that I have been following lately is the use of wine in cocktails. I made a few discoveries during my last trip in San Francisco.

Luna Park’s (http://lunaparksf.com/) “Icebreaker” is one of the best Vin De Glaciere cocktail I have tried. It is one part Riesling Vin De Glaciere and one part chilled ciroq vodka with two frozen grapes in a martini glass. Very dangerous and delicious cocktail. Highly recommended.

Thank you Luna park for this inspirational use of our Vin De Glaciere!!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 12:40 am and is filed under Food Places. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Thank you to Sharon Kapnick of the New Yourk Times (among others) for her great article about Riesling’s versatility with food: http://www.seniorwomen.com/hs/articles/kapnick/articlesKapnickRiesling.html

It is a very toughtful article with many references to the Riesling world. Riesling is really the greatest food wine.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 9:58 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Duane at WineFoot.com has reviewed our 2007 Wallula. Thank you Duane, you are one of the first one in the country to review the wine.

http://www.winefoot.com/index.php/2008/08/08/2007-pacific-rim-wallula-vineyard-riesling/

This entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, 2008 at 8:40 pm and is filed under About Our Wines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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…)?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 10:35 am and is filed under Vineyards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

This is a one year old video that Andy Perdue from Wine Press Northwest shot during harvest. I finally succeeded in pasting the link here.

NW Winecast for Oct. 30: Pacific Rim Winemakers

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 10:02 am and is filed under Harvest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

If you have 30 minutes and want to learn more about us and me, you can go to the winefoot website and lesson to an interview I gave yesterday:

http://www.winefoot.com/index.php/2008/07/16/winemaker-interview-nicholas-quille-pacific-rim/

It always feels weird to listen to your own voice online…

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 9:38 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

I was just reading a post on Dr Vino’s blog (http://www.drvino.com/2008/07/10/alcohol-can-it-be-too-low/) about low alcohol wines. Why people love 15% overextracted wines puzzles me! When we (at Pacific RIm) make wines above 13% ethanol I get very uncomfortable as a prefer 11.5% and below. The Sweet Riesling and the Vin de Glaciere at 8-9% are great choice for low alcohol wines in our Riesling world if you want to test lower alcohol content wines. Why can’t folks make 12% light reds in this country is a mystery.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 11th, 2008 at 9:53 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Edward Deitch finds some refreshing thinking by American winemakers.

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 7th, 2008 at 3:07 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can trackback from your own site.

Yesterday I have received an email from a national restaurant chain announcing that they will now only purchase wines that have received 90 points plus from the Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast or Robert Parker. This is very sad news because all of this score madness is truly pushing winemakers to make wines that will please their local Wine Spectator, Enthusiast or Parker journalist. It is a bit of a self fullfilling prophecy, the “specialist” rate wines according to their taste, the buyers wanting to offer the best to their customers buy those highly rated wines, the same wines with the same styles end up everywhere forcing winemakers to compete with the same style if they want to get a score and sell their wines.

Do you buy on score? How much impact they have on you?

This entry was posted on Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 12:43 pm and is filed under Our wine industry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.