Organic Wine: Sustainable or Unintelligible?

With the US trend in organic food growing by more than 20% per year it is no surprise that organic wine has become a heated topic for debate. But with the organic food flood in the marketplace isn't the absence of organic wine curious? Wine, like food, in the US must comply with the USDA standards for "organic" certification. For farmers and vintners alike this provides numerous barriers and red tape to negotiate. The basic premise of the organic standard is simple: growing, irrigating, fertilizing and harvesting grapes with a holistic approach, the way nature intended.

Grape growers must insure that their bounty is protected from weeds, pests and the elements and have been using technology in recent decades to achieve this. Organic vineyards, however, refrain from using artificial fertilizers and synthetic chemicals (pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, soil fumigants) or growth regulators and hormones. Comparisons in taste, body, terroir and character have shown organic grapes to posses more varietal character, have more intense flavors and taste more like where they are grown. There are many environmental, ecological and economical arguments for organic farming but to any aficionado taste is the bottom line.

Organic farming in any branch of agriculture follows the same feedback loop of inputs and outputs and uses similar techniques. Cover crops, mulch, beneficial insects and composting are the four pillars of this approach. Cover cropping is essential to an organic viticulture program, and is seasonally multi-functional. Following fall harvest, various indigenous crops high in nitrogen (i.e. legumes) are alternately planted between the vines to minimize soil erosion during winter rains. Come spring, the cover crop is plowed under, acting as a natural fertilizer, returning valuable nitrogen to the soil.