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Pacific Rim
Part 16, Washington State: visiting one of North America's leading wine
growing regions
Website:
http://pacificrimwine.com/
Way back when, Randall Grahm did some graduate work in Trier,
Germany. Here, he fell in love with Riesling, and then later he
decided to make some – these sort of wines just weren’t available in
North America. His first Pacific Rim Rieslings blended together
fruit from California, Oregon and Washington, together with a
quarter of German Riesling. Typical Randall.
After a while, he realized that the best component to these wines
was the one coming from Washington. So he decided to build a winery
in Washington, and gradually phased out the German component. While
Randall sold a bunch of brands in 2005, he kept the Pacific Rim
operation. Since 2011, though, it has been owned by the Marianis of
Banfi. It’s a 95% Riesling winery, making around 250 000 cases each
year. They don’t own any vineyards.
We
met with Steven Sealock, who’s one of the winemaking team here. He
explains that there are three pillars to Riesling: alcohol, acidity
and residual sugar. The sweeter styles are picked earlier so there’s
good acidity to balance the sweetness.
Sealock showed us the electrodialysis machine
(above)
that is used for cold stabilization of the wines. The normal method
is to chill the tanks down to almost freezing for a couple of weeks,
but electrodialysis is a much less energy hungry process. The
machines are expensive: Pacific Rim bought theirs in 2008, when
there were only three in the USA, at the cost of $250 K. But aside
from saving a lot of energy, it alters the TA very little. ‘This is
great for us because we worked hard to get the wine into balance,’
says Sealock.
THE
WINES
Pacific Rim Riesling 2007 Washington State
From
the Wallula vineyard. Limey, spicy and slightly petrolly with some
toastiness. Fresh and a bit oily and dry with some development. Nice
complexity. 89/100
Pacific Rim Dry Riesling 2013 Washington State
Bright, fresh and citrussy with a slightly melony tang. Lovely
balance and generosity here, with nice fruit presence. 89/100
Pacific Rim Organic Riesling 2010 Washington State
10.5% alcohol. Made in an off-dry style, this is lovely
with juicy lemon and tangerine flavours, and some nice melon notes.
90/100
Pacific Rim Sweet Riesling 2013 Washington State
8.5% alcohol. 75 g/l residual sugar. Sweet melon, pear and
ripe apple fruit here. Textured with nice fruit. 87/100
Pacific Rim Riesling Noble Wine 2012 Washington State
From Selenium vineyard. 2011 vintage, left out for icewine,
but it never got cold enough, so it was picked in February 2012.
Honeyed with ripe apples and tea leaf notes, as well as some baked
apple and barley sugar. Pear richness. Nice honeyed sweetness with
some waxy notes in the background. Very stylish. 92/100
Pacific Rim Riesling Ice Wine 2013 Washington State
From Selenium vineyard. Rounded and apple with pears,
grapes and some herby mushroom notes. Odd. 80/100
WASHINGTON STATE WINES
 Introduction
Betz
Columbia
Winery
De
Lille
WT
Vintners
Savage
Grace
Chateau
Ste Michelle
Andrew
Will
Airfield
Estates
Hedges
Milbrandt
Vineyards
Ciel
du Cheval Vineyard
Col
Solare
Powers/Badger
Mountain
J
Bookwalter
Pacific
Rim
Gordon
Estate
Long
Shadows
Seven
Hills
Charles
Smith
Geology
with Kevin Pogue
Leonetti
Woodward
Canyon
Gramercy
Cellars
L'Ecole
No 41
Columbia
Crest
Maryhill
Memaloose/Idiot's
Grace
COR
Cellars
Syncline
Wines
tasted as indicated
Find these wines with wine-searcher.com
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