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Organic wine myths- Why many of the world’s best wines don’t rep for “green.”

December 23, 2008

Craig Camp was recently lamenting the state of manipulated, industrial wines in North America. He was surprised to find this wine at Whole Foods, but I wasn't surprised given the way "vineyard management" and "winemaking" are separated in most of the New World. What I did find absolutely shocking was Craig's response:
"Anthony - you're right about the dichotomy. It's interesting that organic winegrowing is in fashion while organic winemaking is not. Certainly this is because you're hard pressed to find a decent organically made wine. In fact, organically made wine has a deserved bad reputation."

It is truly disappointing that someone who knows as much about wine as him believes this. Now, Craig might very well just be giving me a hard time, but the myth of all organic wines being shitty wine is still a fairly popular one. Many of the best wines in the world are farmed organically and then made without intensive manipulation, but they are rarely marketed as organic. They are afraid of the stigma too. I can certainly think of quite a few delicious wines that are technically organic, but not marketed as such. (Outside of the wines we import)...Almost anything imported by Joe Dressner makes the cut. Jack and Joanne at Fork and Bottle certainly have a list which includes many tasty treats.

What are your thoughts about "organic wine?" Do you have any favorite wines that just happened to be made organically without a lot of green marketing bullshiitake? Can you name 5?

  • Jeff Bashford / December 23, 2008

    I enjoyed a bottle Domain Tempier Bandol 2003 last night, which to the best of my knowledge is naturally farmed and experiences little manipulation in the cellar.

    Initially I was most impressed by the texture and mineral edge present on the palate. Later in the evening it opened up and became much more aromatically interesting with loads of bright brambly fruit.

    With no reference to ‘Organic’ on the label or on their website either, This would be a good example of the kind of wine your talking about.

    The fact that the wine was still bright and fresh despite coming from the extremely hot 2003 vintage may add some value to the argument for farming naturally.

  • Craig Camp / December 30, 2008

    Let’s not confuse the wines that are certified as organically produced with winemakers using minimal winemaking interventions. If organically produced means that no sulfur is used in the winemaking process then the list of good wines would be short indeed. Organically made wines do not even receive dominant attention at stores like Whole Foods because there are simply not enough good ones. There are many great organically grown wines made by careful winemakers using the lightest of touch, but if you extend your search to wines that are certified organically made you’ll find few.

  • anthony / January 1, 2009

    The problem, Craig, is with the definition of organic wine created by most government certification bodies, the USDA included. Their insistence on no added sulphites (even during the fermentation process, which does not appear as free sulphur in the bottle) only serves to further separate the vineyard from the cellar and demonstrates little understanding of the winegrowing and making process. You and I probably regularly drink wines that are farmed organically and made with little to no manipulation in the cellar. These wines are far more important to sustainability and frankly, great wine, than any of the government certification programs.

  • Terry Hughes / January 3, 2009

    Anthony, I think your last point is a very good one. It’s as good and practical a definition of organic wine as you can reasonably expect.

    As to the addition of sulphur — to me that’s hardly a problem or a reason to UNlabel a wine as organic. Sulphur appears in wine naturally, and it’s pretty much essential to preserve it especially on the long journey from, say, the Loire to British Columbia.

    The real-world corollary to organic vineyard practices (no pesticides, no chemical fertilizers, green manuring etc.) in the cellar means eschewing far more compromising practices like adding/subtracting water or acid, wood chips, colorants, sugars, etc. Those the the practices that you’re forced to resort to when you work with overcropped, overchemicalised grapes. It’s pretty easy to spot such wines no matter where they come from.

    Whether people would drink them if they weren’t so ubiquitous and didn’t have big marketing budgets attached to them — well, I’d like to hope they wouldn’t if they had a bit more information. After all, the price of a decent organic wine isn’t any higher than that of some highly rated monster from California.

  • Craig Camp / January 5, 2009

    I agree with you Anthony, but certification is an issue as it’s the only connection to “Organic” wines most consumers have. We producers all cheat a bit by using the organically farmed label, which most consumers think means organically produced. As an industry we’ve done a great job of totally confusing the issue with sustainable, organic and biodynamic blending together in the mind of the consumer. Often industry PR seems to intentionally try to confuse the consumer and the press.

  • anthony / January 8, 2009

    You are spot on here, Craig. Much of the wine industry does want to intentionally confuse these issues. Explaining them clearly would undermine its ability to market an enormous quantity of wines in such a “glamorous” fashion. It is why reconnecting wine to agriculture and truthfully depicting what’s in the bottle is so important to small, sustainable farms- with or without government certification.

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