Wednesday, Jun. 25, 2008

NW leads global race for Riesling

By Dan Berger, Wine Press Northwest

Sure, you're going to say something like, "Tell me something I don't know," but the latest news on the Riesling front is that it's heating up, in ways that even I, a Riesling nutcase, never envisioned.

It is true that readers of this publication will not find the "Riesling Renaissance" to be any big whoop. You have all been buying the wine religiously for years, so much so that pretty soon (perhaps even this year) Chateau Ste. Michelle may well pass its volume brand, Columbia Crest, in total wine production, all because of an increase in Riesling production.

Yes, it's true. The Chateau last year made 400,000 cases of Riesling alone and has plans for a significant increase with the 2007 harvest. This could put it ahead of Columbia Crest in total production with more than 2 million cases.

Ste. Michelle already is the global leader in Riesling production, but others are not far behind, and among them are two savvy California brands with a half dozen others scrambling to get into the game.

The race to drive the Riesling bandwagon is already fierce. California doesn't have enough Riesling in the ground (just about 2,000 acres statewide, with more than half the total in Monterey County) for all the players. Among the majors are Fetzer (estimated Riesling production in 2006: 80,000 cases); Kendall-Jackson (75,000 cases); Bonny Doon's Pacific Rim (100,000 cases); and Jekel (Fetzer-affiliated) (25,000 cases).

Fetzer fell so short on its Riesling needs that it contracted to buy German Riesling and bottle it under its Valley Oaks label for 12 states. And one sub-brand of the Robert Mondavi Winery also used German Riesling for some of its 2005 wines.

So short is the supply of Riesling in California that the Pacific Rim brand has become a blend of Rieslings from Washington and Germany, and the packaging is so clever that you can't tell that this international blend is, technically, a nonvintage wine, though the fruit all came from the same year. That fact is presented cleverly on the various mini labels.

Meanwhile, a few of us were on the cutting edge. Not only was Riesling a hot commodity in the Pacific Northwest since 1990, but in early 2000, Kirk Wille of Oregon began publishing the Riesling Report (www.rieslingreport.com).

Curiously, however, some people haven't gotten the message yet. At all.

At the restaurant level, wines by the glass are still overwhelmingly Chardonnay, though Pinot Grigio is stealing the white wine thunder over the last few years.

Retailers, too, are a bit late catching the surge in this wine. One fine-wine shop in Sonoma offers what it calls "cult" wines, such as $100 California Chardonnays, Cabernets and even Pinot Noirs. However, there's not a single Riesling in the store.

Then again, a few others get it: In Santa Rosa, Calif., the Bottle Barn, a huge discount-oriented wine shop, has allocated more space to German and domestic Rieslings, and wine manager Ben Pearson says he can't predict what kind of space for Riesling he'll need for 2008. A clue as to what's up: Pearson's selection includes German wines at discount prices that still sell for $50 and $60 and more - and they are still selling.

Higher-end Rieslings seem to be selling, including loads of the fascinating bone-dry Australian Rieslings. But lower-end stuff is not.

Here we can infer why Riesling sales could well become a spotty trend: Consumers may fear they will get a wine that's too sweet. Or too dry.

One of the reasons Riesling never took off when white Zinfandel did 20 years ago was that some of the "best" Rieslings are blessed with good acidity. This has a way of moderating any residual sugar left in the wine to deliver succulence, allowing the wine to avoid being seen as cloying.

Those who discovered the pleasures of white Zin did so, I suspect, because almost all such wines were rather sweet and lacking in the acidity that regular wine drinkers prefer. But some Rieslings were made without the proper acid levels, and regular wine drinkers couldn't tell from the label which Riesling was dry, which off-dry and which sweeter.

As a result, lacking any way of determining which Riesling was best as a pre-supper sipper and which was best with the meal, consumers basically turned their attention elsewhere. And thus the grape basically languished here.

Moreover, as Riesling has come on strongly in the last few years, growers are still reluctant to put more of it into the ground for fear the trend could be short-lived.

But Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon is convinced it's a tsunami. Not only has he begun construction of a 300,000-case winery near Washington's Red Mountain, but also he has planted 200 acres of Riesling, which conservatively works out to about 80,000 cases of wine. Perhaps 100,000 cases.

Because of the complexity of the sugar/acid ratio issue, I suspect the Riesling trend in this country will be very brand-related, with the sweeter ones clearly recognized for that style of wine, and the dry ones (such as almost every Aussie Riesling) known for that style.

So getting in on the ground floor with a recognizable brand is a vital tactic.

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