Monday, Nov. 12, 2007

Hoping for a sweet success in the Yakima Valley

By Mary Hopkin, Herald staff writer

PROSSER, Wash. - Trockenbeerenauslese. It's among the most difficult wines to pronounce or spell.

But the German-style dessert wine is even harder to create, which is why it's so rare and expensive.

Winemakers get the opportunity to make it only when Mother Nature allows it by providing the perfect ingredients.

That happened this year at Olsen Estates in Prosser.

Now winemaker Kyle Johnson is hoping he can nurture the fruit's delicate juices through a fragile fermentation process and bottle something very special.

Trockenbeerenauslese, which the wine world for obvious reasons has abbreviated to TBA, is made from grapes allowed to hang until they become nearly raisins. As the grapes hang in the crisp fall weather, the sugars concentrate and are attacked by a fungus called Botrytis cinerea.

If the weather is consistently wet and humid, the Botrytis turns into gray rot and the fruit is lost.

But when the damp is followed by dry conditions, the Botrytis turns to noble rot, which gives the grapes a distinctive, complex flavor.

"The fungus pulls the water out, leaving behind a super concentration of sugar acid," said Johnson.

It doesn't happen every year, but Lief Olsen, the vineyard manager, quickly recognized what he had when he was checking out clusters of shriveled riesling grapes left behind after the 20-acre vineyard had been machine harvested in mid-October.

"I saw the clusters and called Kyle," Olsen said.

Johnson, who worked through the ranks at Chateau Ste. Michelle before becoming a winemaker for the company's Canoe Ridge, worked for Ste. Michelle when it produced its 1999 single berry select, trockenbeerenauslese-style white dessert wine that scored a 97 in Wine Spectator -- the highest American white wine score in 25 years.

And at $200 for a half-sized bottle, it was among the most expensive wine ever produced in the Pacific Northwest.

Johnson would like to make something just as special. But having fruit picked in the perfect state is only the first step.

"When we brought the fruit in, it was at 60 to 70 brix, compared to 21 to 25 brix in a normal riesling," he said.

Workers spent four days sorting the clusters of dried, brown grapes, culling those that were too dried and shriveled and plucking off individual grapes that were softer, plumper and shinier -- like the raisins in a freshly-opened box.

The grapes must be pressed three times, with the pressure set firmer each time.

The thick caramel-colored juice, nearly as thick as honey, is extracted a trickle at a time, with long seconds between each drop, giving the ripples in the clear collection jars time to settle.

It's sweet and rich, and smells like the syrup left in the bottom of a Mason jar of home-canned apricots.

"The biggest challenge is getting it to ferment," said Johnson. "Too much sugar can kill the yeast, or it can oxidize into vinegar."

He'll carefully monitor the sugar and alcohol content through fermentation, a process that will take at least two to three months.

And it could take up to a year before it's bottled.

"It could be 2010 before we release it," said Martin Olsen, winery manager.

And the 20 acres of grapes they harvested will produce only about 25 cases of half-size bottles of the wine.

The low yield and the labor-intensive nature of the wine is why it is rare and expensive.

"It takes so long and you get so little, and you have to sell it for so much -- it really has to be a labor of love," said Coke Roth, a Tri-City attorney, vineyard owner and international wine judge.

Such wines "are so rich and concentrated in flavor," he said. "You put it into your mouth -- it looks like a water pistol and explodes like a land mine."

Johnson said the wines have a long shelf life and that when he was in Germany last year, he tasted one made in 1959.

"They do have a long shelf life, but not in my cellar -- I drink them," said Roth. "They probably will age if you can keep your grubby hands off them."

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