Central California
A New Old Tradition:
California vineyards attempt to introduce organic wine to connoisseurs
by Alastair Bland
While in the midst of the organic revolution, when buying organic foods, improving our health and lessening our negative impact on the Earth have become the healthiest trends in consumerism, a mere 10 percent of California’s vineyards are organic–certified or otherwise–and only a sparse handful of wineries nationwide make certified organic wine. Yet this may be changing, as more vineyards adopt organic practices and as sales of organic wines begin to rise.
But organic wines may never woo the most discerning of wine connoisseurs due simply to a suspicion that organic wines are inconsistent from vintage to vintage and from bottle to bottle, even if not of lesser quality. Kimberly Cabot, co-owner of Cabot Vineyards in Humboldt County, feels that organic wine caters to a select niche of eco-conscious consumers.
“Here in Humboldt, there’s a lot of young people interested in organic grapes and wine, but the people who are really into wine are actually turned off by this, because without sulfites the consistency isn’t always there. You have to take extra, extra care in keeping things sterile. It’s very hard.”
That is why Cabot Vineyards, which utilizes 12 acres of estate-grown certified organic grapes, adds sulfites to its wine.
This compound stabilizes the bottled product, halts all microbial activity within the bottle and allows the wine to safely age for decades.
Medlock Ames Winery in Healdsburg follows the same scripture: certified organic grapes but with sulfites in the wine. Kenny Rochford, vineyard manager, says that the winery wants to sell a dependable, consistent product–thus the sulfites. However, in the vineyards themselves, Medlock Ames takes land stewardship on a long journey back in time. The small winery pits predatory insects against pests, fertilizes the soil with manure, and allows bulls and horses loose in the fields to eat weeds. Over a dozen elevated boxes about the 350-acre property house wild owls which in turn keep the gopher population down. Meanwhile, most of the property is left to the native plants and trees which host deer, rodents and birds, with the idea that if natural habitat and natural food sources are preserved adjacent to the winery, wild animals will be less inclined to sneak over the fence to munch on the grapes.
This is labeled as “progressive” farming, yet organic agriculture ruled the Earth for 10,000 years, Rochford points out, and those who practice it today have merely reverted to the tried-and-true techniques which sustained humans from the cradle of civilization until the 20th century.
“And the truth is there’s an organic solution to almost every vineyard problem.”
Frey Vineyards, founded in 1980, is the oldest maker of certified organic wines in the United States and among the largest. The winery produces 90,000 cases annually using 11 varietals of grape─and no sulfites. Such wines are prone to microbial activity which can affect the longevity and character of the wine─often negatively─yet Frey has won numerous awards and medals in competitions against conventionally-made wines.
“But consistent wine isn’t necessarily the goal,” says Katrina Frey, co-founder of the winery. “Our goal is to make wine that has had the minimum amount of manipulation, where the terroir really shows, and where the land has left a thumbprint on the wine. That may change year to year, and that’s just how it goes. There can be subtle changes in each vintage, but to express what the land was up to that year, I think that’s part of the fun of making wine and you don’t get that if you stabilize it with preservatives. Organic wine speaks loudly for the terroir.”
Daryl Mason, owner and winemaker at Vinatura in Humboldt County’s Willow Creek appellation, asserts that organic wines need not fall short of par. Winemaking is a tradition thousands of years old, and one which ancient cultures mastered.
“The Egyptians were making fine wine ages ago, and it wasn’t until the 1850s that we started putting sulfites into our wine. It’s been my goal to recreate pre-industrial winemaking techniques, which have been essentially a lost art form.”
Mason grew grapes and made wine in Sonoma County for about 10 years before deciding to escape from the vicinity of the “factory wineries” of central and southern California, where abundant vineyards comprise a contiguous swath of land that is doused regularly with chemicals and fabricated fertilizers. Mason moved north in 1994 to do his low-impact business in the Willow Creek Appellation, an isolated patch of land which is among the purest, most untainted regions in the state. Here he makes about 1200 cases of certified organic wine every year, and he feels his wines are as good as that of any ancient winemakers’. All aspects of his wine’s chemistry are balanced, the wines last on the shelf, they taste as good as any high-end conventional wine, and, best of all, they’re living things.
“People say wine is alive, but a sulfited wine is essentially embalmed. It’s dead, whereas organic wine really is a living thing. It’s quite profound.”
Preservatives, says Mason, are not actually necessary if a winemaker only focuses on the holistic aspects of winemaking. If grapes attain a sufficient level of acidity while also developing enough sugar, the wine will preserve naturally and live for years in the bottle.
Organic vineyards are audited every year by various USDA-licensed certifiers.
The inspectors may take water and soil samples and also analyze paper trails to see what sort of product purchasing the farm has been up to. Many wineries practice organic agriculture but have not bothered with the certification process, which requires first and foremost that land is farmed organically for three years─a form of temporal buffering against practices which may have tainted the soil under past ownerships.
But Medlock Ames’ co-owner Ames Morrison considers his interactions with the land not an ownership, but a stewardship.
“All that we do makes the farm a living entity. I live and work here, and I care about my health and that of those who work here. I want to be a good steward to the land and I want to leave this place in the same condition that we found it in. It’s a responsibility any farmer has, because the farm won’t be theirs forever.”
Alastair Bland is a full-time freelance writer who lives and works in San Francisco. Away from the desk, he spends much of his time wearing a wetsuit or aging strong beer.