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Organic Winegrowing Goes Mainstream

Keeping those options open is the reason why many wineries, large and small, are not seeking strict organic certification from California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF). Protecting wine quality and quantity are utmost - and yet, even without organic certification, big wineries are making major advances toward more natural farming. At Mondavi, for instance, Mitchell Klug, director of the firm's Napa Valley winegrowing operations, was recognized as "Conservationist of the Year" by Napa County in 1991; Mondavi was the only wine company among ten agricultural organizations to be cited for its environmentally friendly pest control techniques in 1998 from the California Environmental Protection Agency.

To some, the phrase "organic vineyard" conjures up an idyllic picture of clean rows of green, trellised vines, their leaves combed by beneficial insects hunting for pests, the skies above patrolled by hawks and owls hunting for rodents, field workers safe from toxic chemicals, and wines pure and delicious.

For others, organic purists go too far in insisting that no chemicals ever be used in grape culture or winemaking. Doug Shafer, co-proprietor of Shafer Vineyards in Napa Valley, strongly advocates sustainable techniques, and has greatly increased the diversity of animal and insect life in his vineyards, but he is not willing to sacrifice his bottom line. "I'm a businessman," he says, "and if I have to use chemicals to save a crop, I will." But that doesn't mean that if a pest problem arises, it's back to the days of drenching the vineyards with pesticides.

It does mean the use of integrated pest management (IPM).

When a pest or disease problem is detected, adherents of IPM first decide whether it will cause an economic impact. Only if it's severe enough will any action be taken - and then only the least environmentally disruptive techniques will be used, with chemicals held in reserve as a last resort. And even then, the least harmful chemicals will be used first. "I only use about one-tenth of the chemicals I used ten years ago," Shafer says. "And basically, I only use Round-Up [a relatively low-toxicity herbicide]."

Big names, such as Gallo of Sonoma, are adhering to these sustainable practices, too. There is a long history of such practices at Gallo, where the late Julio Gallo's vision of the future included great wine being made from organically managed Sonoma County estate grapes. Gina Gallo, chief winemaker at Gallo of Sonoma and Julio's granddaughter, along with Julio's longtime associate, Marcello Monticelli, senior winemaker and Gina's tutor, are realizing Julio's dream. Monticelli recalls, "All of Julio's life, he practiced organic gardening at home, and organic farming in his vineyards." That was long before state law and certification came along, and today Gallo's acreage, while handled sustainably, is not certified organic by CCOF.

Napa Valley's Cardinale Estate, the top-end winery in Jess Jackson's Artisans & Estates portfolio, recently achieved certification for 22 organic acres. Both the Kendall-Jackson and Artisan & Estates wineries have announced a ban on select pesticides, including methyl bromide, Omite, Simizine and Karmex, in its vineyard holdings in the U.S. and abroad.

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Organic Winegrowing Goes Mainstream

While approximately 5 percent of California's vineyards are actually certified organic, just about all the vineyards in the North Coast wine country are handled sustainably. In fact, all the growers and winemakers interviewed for this article - purist or not, large producer or small - endorse a natural, sustainable way of farming that protects the environment.

"Natural" and "sustainable" farming, however, are not synonymous with the stricter practice of organic farming, and lately, the public has been clamoring for anything organic. Some of this demand is driven by a sophisticated understanding of and belief in organic methods, but most is the result of the public's leeriness of pesticide-laden foods, irradiated or genetically altered crops, and its desire for a safe, wholesome food supply.

Some wine lovers who tried organic wines in the past were put off by their sheer lack of quality.

The problem seems to be two-fold. First, many strictly organic wines are made by small producers who don't always use modern techniques of wine-making. More importantly, as Mike Lee, winemaker at Kenwood Vineyards, says,"You can grow great grapes organically, but you can't make stable, long-lasting wines without sulfites." Before moving on to the battle raging over the use of sulfites in organic wine, it's important to first define some terms.

What is organic wine?

Snooping around a wine shop for "organic wines" can be confusing because of the organic, quasi-organic, seemingly organic and possibly organic labels one encounters.

An American wine labeled "organically grown" or "made from organically grown grapes" means that the vineyards have been handled in accordance with the organic certifying agency of the state in which they were grown. In California, that's the California Certified Organic Farmers. In Washington State, it's the Washington State Department of Agriculture's Organic Food Certification Program. In Oregon, it's Oregon Tilth, and in New York, it's the Northeast Organic Farmers' Association.

Wines from France and other countries labeled "organic" or "organically grown" are probably what they purport to be, and the name of a certifying agency, such as Eco-Cert or other bodies affiliated with the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), may sometimes be found on the labels. But many longtime producers, either through tradition or obstinacy, do not get certification and still use the term.

Occasionally one will see an American wine labeled "transitional," which means that the vineyards are handled organically, but the necessary three years since conventional culture ceased have not yet passed in order for them to achieve certification.

The phrases "sustainable agriculture" and "low-input farming" have no legal definition, but generally refer to vineyards using environmentally friendly techniques, such as owl boxes to encourage predators of gophers, cover crops to stimulate the populations of beneficial insects, composting for fertilization and IPM for pests and diseases.

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Organic Winegrowing Goes Mainstream

Some wines are labeled "organic wine" or "organically processed." Although there is as yet no national governmental standard for organic wine, some states have passed laws, such as the California Organic Food Act of 1990. This usually means the fruit is certified organic, and the wine is made with no sulfites added. Sometimes the wine is fermented with only the yeast found on the skins (although many non-organic wineries, such as Robert Mondavi, are doing this, too), rather than with strains of special wine yeast, and the term usually means that only naturally occurring fining agents, such as bentonite clay, are used to clear the wine of any cloudiness.

Growing popularity

Regulatory debates aside, public demand is great and wineries are moving swiftly in the organic direction. The resulting boom in organic viticulture in California is notable: Total organic acreage has zoomed from 178 acres in 1989 to approximately 12,000 today.

"We've doubled production to 30,000 cases in the last five years," says Jonathan Frey, of the rigorously organic Frey Vineyards in Mendocino County. "It's becoming easier and easier to find organic and organically grown wines in supermarkets."

A visit to just about any market these days - even the big chains - shows how successful the organic movement has become in the U.S. in the 57 years since J.I. Rodale introduced the term "organic farming" to America and began publishing a magazine that was then called Organic Farming & Gardening.

The idea took a big jump forward when, in 1962, Rachel Carson, a well-respected government biologist who had a decade earlier won the National Book Award for The Sea Around Us, published Silent Spring, a prophetic and influential book about the dangers of pesticides. Silent Spring created a worldwide consciousness of the environmental degradation caused by agricultural chemicals.

Ecology is born

Through the 1960's, the organic movement grew both in America and in Europe. The science of ecology was born. In 1969, Congress passed the National Environmental Protection Act that led to the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency. It all came together for the environmentalists and organic adherents on the first Earth Day in 1970. (Until this time, those who wanted to eat organic food, most likely had to grow it themselves.)

Establishment agriculture dug in its heels, however. As late as the mid-1970s, a USDA staffer refused to speak on the record to a journalist regarding organic agriculture for fear of losing his job. The USDA's stance was that organics might be fine for "kooky" backyard gardeners, but if American agriculture went organic, crops would be ruined by insects and disease, and the nation would starve. Since then, the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides has steadily increased; today more than 215 million pounds of these compounds are used every year in California alone, far above the amount used when Carson wrote Silent Spring.

The good news is that in recent years, the amount of very toxic chemicals implicated in farm worker sickness and deaths, and in public cancer rates, has been declining in favor of what the California Department of Pesticide Regulation calls "reduced-risk" pesticides.

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Organic Winegrowing Goes Mainstream

In the wine country of Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino counties, about 8.5 million total pounds of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides were used in 1998, but most of these were low-toxicity or organically allowable substances such as elemental sulfur dust.

The generation that came of age in the 1960s and 1970s include those people who have become today's winemakers. With few exceptions, it is they who are making the shift toward a greener viticulture.

"Something changed philosophically and politically with people who grew up then," says Anne Moller-Racke, the vineyard manager for Buena Vista's 950 acres in the Carneros appellation. "Look at medicine. People want more natural care now. Well, grape growers are stewards of the land, so we want to go with better methods of protecting the soil. Worker safety is important, too," she adds. "And we're getting better quality grapes and wine because we're more aware of the needs of the vines and the life in the vineyards."

Buena Vista Winemaker Judy Matulich-Weitz notes that the vineyards used to be almost sterile. "Now I walk in the vineyards and they're much more alive," she says. "I see spiders, different weeds, all kinds of bugs, and I know there's more microbial life in the soil, too."

Moller-Racke believes environmental awareness makes economic sense for wineries. "For instance, this past spring was wet," she says, "and the vines were looking a little peaked. In the past, we might have gone to foliar feeding or other applications of fertilizer. But now we understand that the nutrients are there - we just have to be patient until the soil dries and the nutrients are taken up. We're better educated these days and because of it, we're better winegrowers."

While many of the practices growers have returned to are time honored, Moller-Racke says the computer age also is fostering improvements in the vineyard. "Among other things like research and exchanging information, we use our computers to create models of what's happening in the vineyards, so we know whether what we're seeing is going to cause trouble, or is normal and should just be left alone."

Environmental grape culture - whether sustainable or certified organic - is more than just abjuring chemicals. It also includes fertilizing with composts and manures, using cover crops, such as vetch and legumes, for soil improvement and as host plants for beneficial insects, and more dramatically, allowing some parcels in proximity to the vines to grow wild. These natural patches of bramble and forest provide food and habitat for the indigenous fauna, including beneficials, which add a healthy diversity to a vineyard's eco-system. "We have bats, eagles, hawks and barn owls, all without putting up nesting boxes," observes Phillip Lolonis, whose family, including the brothers Nick, Petros and Ulysses, farms 300 acres organically in Mendocino County.

If there are any gaps in the protection afforded by natural, beneficial insects, such as green lacewings in Lolonis's vineyards, they are filled by the monthly release of 25 gallons of ladybird beetles, better known as ladybugs, during June, July and August - that's about 5.5 million predators combing the vines for aphids, spider mites and other pests. Lolonis also releases praying mantises, although these indiscriminate and voracious predators will eat whatever they can grab - pests or beneficials.

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Organic Winegrowing Goes Mainstream

Mainstream pioneers

Fetzer Vineyards, despite its huge production, was one of the first wineries to begin converting to organic methods. The vineyards were planted in Redwood Valley in Mendocino County in 1958 by Barney Fetzer, a lumber executive, to grow grapes for home winemakers. The initial releases of Fetzer's first commercial wines were in 1968. Fetzer died in 1981, leaving the family business to his eleven children. The "kids," as they are collectively known, expanded the business to include the 240-acre Haas Ranch that is now the Fetzer Food and Wine Center in Hopland. And in the mid-1980s, under the leadership of Jim Fetzer, who was then president, they began to convert the family winery to organic culture. More acreage between Ukiah and Hopland was added, and today, Fetzer has 709 CCOF-certified acres in Mendocino County, with 80 more under conversion, along with 25 acres in conversion in Tehama, a Central Valley city northeast of Red Bluff. In addition, the winery buys grapes from more than 200 family farmers, many of them certified organic.

In 1992, Fetzer Vineyards was sold to Brown-Forman Beverages Worldwide, an international wine and spirits marketing agency headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky. One might think that a big corporation would put a halt to the organic conversion program, but that didn't happen. According to Vineyard Manager Tom Piper, "They purchased Fetzer with their eyes wide open. They were ambivalent about our organic program at first, but they've undergone a transformation, and now they're enthusiastic about the way we do things."

Piper and his colleagues do things in a big way. The organic acres are fertilized with thousands of tons of composted grape pomace that's made in a draw above the Hopland ranch. Fetzer has pioneered the use of cover crops between vine rows, with alternating rows of big producers of organic matter such as bell beans, radishes, oats and Australian winter peas, and permanent cover crops of nitrogen-producing sub-clover. Sunflowers, with their heavy production of stalky material, also are grown at Fetzer. The organic-matter cover crops are mowed at bud break, then disked into the soil when they're dry enough. The permanent clover is cut and allowed to dry into what amounts to a mulch.

"We don't suffer with insect imbalances," Piper says, "and we tolerate what insects are there. Our cover crops of beans and radishes, especially, produce nectar for green lacewings, ladybird beetles and other beneficials," he explains. "We also let blackberries, native shrubs and trees grow along Russian River waterways to promote a diverse habitat."

Buying & tasting organic and sustainably grown wines

At least seven wineries in California and Washington State produce what most would consider "organic wine," that is, made with certified fruit and no added sulfites: Frey, H. Coturri & Sons, Orleans Hill, Nevada County, Wine Guild, Organic Wine Works and Badger Mountain.

Easier to find are "organically grown" wines, such as the Bonterra Vineyards brand, which produces close to 100,000 cases per year through a full range of vitis vinifera varieties. Enthusiasts can find all the CCOF certified organic vineyards in California on the CCOF's Web site (www.ccof.org) by entering "grapes" under "find a farmer."

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Organic Winegrowing Goes Mainstream

Among the many organically grown wines available in California are those from Spotteswood, Niebaum-Coppola, Frog's Leap, Volker Eisele, Springsong, Headlands, Our Daily Red and Topolos Russian River Vineyards. New York State has Silver Thread Vineyards, Four Chimneys and Swedish Hill. In Oregon, there are Amity, Archery Summit, Brick House, Cameron, Cattrall Brothers, Cooper Mountain and St. Innocent. And in Washington State, China Bend.

Besides scrutinizing wine labels in grocery stores and wine shops, an excellent reference work is now available - the Organic Wine Guide ($15) by Monty Walden - to assist consumers in finding these wines. The book is an amazingly thorough, 428-page compendium of 700 organic wineries and 2,000 organic or organically grown wines from around the world.

The following tasting was designed to identify high-quality wines made from vineyards handled either organically, sustainably or with minimum chemical inputs. The tasting panel included a wine writer, a winemaker and several knowledgeable wine collectors.

Whites

Badger Mountain, 1999 Columbia Valley Johannisberg Riesling - $8 (Organic): While not true to the varietal, it is a refreshingly pleasant luncheon wine with sweet nuances. Score: 87

Buena Vista, 1997 Chardonnay, Carneros - $14 (Sustainable): Another bargain from Buena Vista. Very fruity nose with flavors of nectarine, some leesy overtones and a touch of butter. Score: 89

Robert Mondavi, 1998 Sauvignon Blanc, Stags Leap District - $18 (Sustainable): A citrusy, flowery nose and true varietal flavors handled with finesse and elegance. The perfect match for oysters or other seafood. Score: 90

Robert Sinskey Vineyards, 1998 Chardonnay, Carneros - $26 (Organically grown): Spare, sweet aromas and a lush middle palate of sweet, round chardonnay fruit with good acid structure. Score: 91

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Organic Winegrowing Goes Mainstream

Reds

Benziger, 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon, Sonoma County - $17 (Biodynamically grown): A super-value with a concentrated middle of black fruit, toasted oak and spice. Score: 91

Beringer, 1995 Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley - $75 (Sustainable): An opulent Cab chock-full of ripe fruit with great structure and good balance for long aging. Score: 96

Bonterra, 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon, Mendocino, North Coast - $13 (Organically grown): A very good, straightforward Cab with some aging potential. Score: 88

Bonterra, 1997 Merlot, Mendocino County - $14 (Organically grown): A viscous wine with ripe aromas of plum, black cherry and a wisp of espresso. Meaty, earthy flavors of licorice, briar and black cherry. Oak notes emerge in the finish Score: 88

Buena Vista, 1997 Pinot Noir, Carneros - $15 (Sustainable): Shy nose, but a deliciously rich and concentrated core of licorice and black cherry with a medium finish that reveals spicy nuances. Score: 92

Frey, 1998 Zinfandel, Redwood Valley, Mendocino - $12 (Biodynamically grown, no added sulfites): A sturdy Zinfandel with robust flavors with a hint of brettanomyces. Score: 88

Kenwood, 1997 Zinfandel, Upper Weise Vineyard, Sonoma Valley - $12 (Organically grown): A strong, viscous Zinfandel of full-bodied character with deep plum and blackberry flavors. Score: 89

Lolonis, 1997 Zinfandel, Redwood Valley, Mendocino - $18 (Organically grown): A luscious, Bing cherry-blueberry palate full of true Zin character. Score: 90

Lolonis, 1997 Private Reserve Merlot, Mendocino County - $27 (Organically grown): An enormous, mouth-filling and satisfying Merlot. Score: 91

Robert Mondavi, 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon, Oakville - $50 (Sustainable): A powerful entry of wild blackberry, chocolate and spice leads to a lengthy finish that unfolds with alternating layers of cassis, vanilla and cedar. Score: 94 - JC

Sonoma-based Contributing Editor Jeff Cox is the author of From Vines to Wines and the host of "Grow It!" on the Home & Garden TV Network.

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