Marketing in the wine industry is only skin deep.  Have you ever tasted a wine that wasn’t made by a family stomping on grapes? Of course not. In the wine business, every winery is family-run or based on some family’s long standing tradition. Even Yellowtail is family owned.  The human pysche must be wired to believe that nostalgia and tradition are an intrinsic good.

The crux of the issue, as explained to me by a vinaroon in Fruili, is technique versus technology. The techniques of winegrowing and making are no longer being passed from generation to generation. Technology is replacing a knowledge of the fundamental processes in the vineyard. Instead of applying a particular technology to improve or facilitate a traditional technique, the technology leads the way. People are led to believe that Jesus wasn’t the only one who could turn water into wine. Modern winemaking technologies allow water additions, tannin powder, and micro-oxygenation to replace sound farming practices and patience. Wine, in this model, is no longer a living, agricultural good, but a product of innovation. Andrea was not arguing, however, that wine should be made without any use of technologies. A  balance is important. Each person has to find that balance for themselves, but our farmers share a common philosophy-grow great grapes and bottle  the flavor.

Compared to literally thousands of years of knowledge about how to grow grapes, modern winemaking technologies are nothing more than experiments. The best winemakers apply centuries of agricultural practice to grow great grapes. These practices require endless hours farming by hand. Then, they use some modern techniques, like stainless steel barrels or temperature controlled fermentations to coax, not manipulate those grapes into the bottle.

Have you heard the news? Those of you who prefer to put your head in the weathered limestone and think that wine is still made in complete harmony with nature in small baskets may want to stop reading. Unfortunately, wine is no stranger to factory farming. Industrial agricultural practices in the wine business often necessitate the use of chemicals and pesticides which make their way into your wine glass. This is why we only work with known and trusted farmers. They do farm naturally and grow wine in traditional, romantic ways. While we drink Farmstead Wines primarily because of the high quality, it is nice to know that our free-range chicken isn’t sharing stomach space with pesticides.

I’m serious. Coca-Cola will someday be made from organic ingredients. When that day comes, what will you put in your glass? I don’t care whether you think that development is good or bad- I just want you to consider what organic actually means. There are three reasons to be organic- to save the environment, to market a product or to obtain the highest quality. All of them have their merits, but for my money, I only care about the third reason- Quality. Our farmers focus on working in harmony with nature to raise healthy plants that produce delicious fruit. Long before the advent of industrial agriculture, with its pesticides, clones and monocultures, humans cultivated the earth. No-one called this farming “organic.” It was just farming. The goal was to cultivate healthy, delicious fruits and vegetables. Naturally farmed is far more important than an organic government certification program. Naturally farmed is both pre- and post-industrial agriculture. It is a culture of farming that respects and nourishes the land. Farmstead Wines are fantastic because our farmers cultivate healthy, biodiverse vineyards, to raise delicious fruit. No chemicals, no pesticides, with love, is not a  marketing idea nor a green idea but a fundamental tenant of high quality food and wine.

Michael Pollan writes, "If you’re concerned about chemicals in your produce, you can simply ask the farmer at the market how he or she deals with pests and fertility and begin the sort of conversation between producers and consumers that, in the end, is the best guarantee of quality in your food. So many of the problems in the industrial food chain stem from its length and complexity…In a long food chain, the story and identity of the food (Who grew it? Where and how was it grown?) disappear into the undifferentiated stream of commodities, so that the only information communicated between consumers and producers is price."

Many of you reading this already think about food this way- you shop at small grocers, farmers markets and some of you even grow your own. Don’t disregard these ideas when choosing a wine for your supper table. Wine is made from grapes. Grapes that are the fruit of a plant. Great farmers worry more about the plant and the soil than the fruit. If you have great soil and the plant is healthy and drinking the energy of the sun (photosynthesis) the fruit will be good. 

 Michael Pollan continues, "’Eating is an agricultural act,’" Wendell Berry famously wrote, by which he meant that we are not just passive consumers of food, but cocreators of the systems that feed us. Depending on how we spend them, our food dollars can either go to support a food industry devoted to quantity and convenience and "value" or they can nourish a food chain organized around values-values like quality and health. Yes, shopping this way takes money and effort, but as soon as you begin to treat that expenditure not just as shopping but also as a kind of vote- a vote for health in the largest sense- food no longer seems like the smartest place to economize."

At the Vancouver Playhouse Wine Festival Gala Auction on Wednesday night, a single bottle of wine sold for $45,000. When Gian Piero Marrone heard that number, he said, "That’s a full container of wine." That’s 1200 cases, fyi. I agree that wine is more than just grape juice in a bottle. I, however, think it expresses a farmers connection with the land and is a social catalyst- something for people to share around a table with food. Should scarcity be valued? Of course it should, I’m not a communist. Should artificial scarcity created by large corporations and supported by a wine consuming culture that favors style over substance be valued? Not so highly, in my opinion. It is too bad that when people think of wine, they forget that it is an agricultural product. The grapes taste best when they are grown by a person, without pesticides or chemicals. When they are grown with skill and experience. When they are grown in harmony with nature. This is not "boutique winemaking." Boutique is the luxury of a rich few that make wine as a hobby. Real wine is made by farmers putting bread on their family table. Boutique wine tastes the same year after year. Real wine tastes a little different vintage to vintage. Real wine is still remarkably consistent from year to year because of the skill of the farmer. Boutique wine is overpriced because of artificial scarcity. Real wine is scarce because it is impossible to make in huge quantities. Real wine is made in harmony with nature, by hand, with skill and love. And it just tastes better. 

We were joined on Sunday by 150 friends, family and supporters to celebrate the debut of Farmstead Wines. To those of you who were there, THANK YOU! You helped make our cocktail party cum wine tasting a huge success. If you missed it because you were at the Oscars or another stuffy wine tasting hopefully you’ll be inspired to join us next time. Paul Finlay and the Alibi Room seamlessly combined a fun, relaxed atmosphere with a luxurious  food and wine pairing experience. Five wines in the Farmstead Wines collection were each paired with two delicious canapes highlighting the wines in different ways. The Alibi staff made each new wine magically appear so guests tasted each wine with unique canapes. A room-full of people sipping wines, eating tasty morsels and enjoying the company is what a wine tasting should be like.