DrinkTheEarth.com Blog

Sheep mind the vineyards at Navarro of Mendocino County, CA

When the average consumer thinks of ways to live a more sustainable and energy-efficient lifestyle, it’s doubtful that goats or sheep come to mind first.  However, for many vineyard owners, there’s a clear new trend towards using the prolific grass and weed-eating animals to more effectively and responsibly keep their acreage properly trimmed.

Philo, California’s Navarro Vineyards began using goats and sheep in June, with the primary purpose of reducing the use of tractors as well as manual labor.  Santa Cruz’s Bonny Doon Vineyard, a producer of biodynamic wines, recently introduced 800 goats to their new vineyard, an event chronicled in a very entertaining YouTube video.  They both join a bevy of producers, many of whom are organic or biodynamic, that have already been following the practice to avoid not only the use of gas-powered machines, but the use of herbicides that can easily enter the water table.

Time will tell if this trend, currently more popular on the west coast than east, will expand to vineyards on a wider scale.  In addition to being more ecologically prudent, goat and sheep farming sure sounds more rewarding to us than riding your average John Deere tractor.

As many wine consumers know, there is a distinction between certified organic wines, and those made following sustainable practices.  While there’s no need to throw stones at producers who are merely green-friendly without pursuing certification, eco-conscious wine drinkers rely on certifications to ensure that the wines they drink are truly organic.

One of the misconceptions in the marketplace is that any wine produced by a winery with organically-certified vineyards is organic.  While this is sometimes true, especially for smaller, estate-only producers, this is not always the case.  Many wineries often source grapes from outside of their estate for select wines, or use a blend from several vineyards.  For example, the estate vineyards of St Helena, California’s Spottswoode Winery are certified organic by the CCOF.  Therefore, all wines produced on their estate can officially make the claim of being made from organically-grown grapes.  However, select wines, such as their Sauvignon Blanc, are sourced from grapes outside the winery and are not necessarily certified (although Spottswoode has indicated to us before that they purchase grapes that are sensitively farmed from partners).

The best rule of thumb to determine whether a wine is organic is to check the label.  While certified organic wines are not required to promote their certifications on the bottle itself (for whatever reason, some consumers still feel organic wines are inferior), many of them frequently do.  A winery’s web site is another great source, as you can often download ’sell sheets’ that are meant for retailers, and contain more in-depth information about a wine or how it was made.  As a last resort, contact the winery directly.  Never assume that just because you’ve seen an organic wine from a particular winery, all of their wines are certified.

We just finished publishing our review of DrinkTheEarth.com’s Wine of the Week, the Snoqualmie Winery 2007 Naked Riesling.  Like many of its organic counterparts, this Prosser, Washington winery makes wines from organically grown grapes, and extends their sustainability efforts to the production process as well. 

However, we were impressed that they have seemingly taken this effort a step further, publishing an annual Sustainable & Organic Report.  First published in 2007, and again in 2008, this five-page report provides specific details on how the winery did against their previous sustainability and organic goals, as well as what it hopes to accomplish in the coming year ahead.  While other wineries are talking about their green efforts, how many are putting it in writing, and making available to the public in this manner?  If you know of other wineries, or even brewers or distillers who are doing this (whether certified organic or not), we’d love to hear about them.  In the meantime, we challenge other producers to achieve this level of transparency.

For those of you who didn’t catch up to our Twitter posts, below are the six organic beverage facts we sent out earlier in celebration of Earth Day.  We hope you took a chance to reflect on our planet’s future on this important day of awareness and appreciation.

Earth Day Fact #1: Milwaukee’s Lakefront Brewery lays claim to the first U.S. certified organic beer, an E.S.B. made in 1996.

Earth Day Fact #2: Nearly all wines contain some sulfites naturally, including those made following organic or biodynamic practices.

Earth Day Fact #3: The USDA National Organic Program was implemented in ‘02, although other certifications have been around much longer.

Earth Day Fact #4: Approx. 70% of all Demeter-USA certified biodynamic wineries are in CA. Nearly 20% are in Ore., with the rest elsewhere.

Earth Day Fact #5: N. Dakota has been called the ‘Napa Valley of Rye’, and is where several organic distillers source rye for their vodkas.

Earth Day Fact #6 (and last): NYC’s GustOrganics is the only organic bar certified by the USDA.

Next up:  Look for a write-up from our Earth Day Organic Vodka tasting coming soon.  We tasted three organic selections, Crop, TRU, and Rain, against a well-known  non-organic offering.  How did the ‘green’ options fare?  Find out shortly.

New editorial features!

Need a fresh suggestion for an organic wine to pair with your next dinner?  Want to impress your friends with knowledge of the latest eco-friendly cocktail on the market?  We’ve recently added some new editorial features to DrinkTheEarth.com, including a weekly organic/biodynamic wine selection of the week, as well as organic beers & spirits of the week.  Wine selections will be updated every Monday on a weekly basis, while we will be featuring new beers and spirits each month.  These will include new-to-market beverages, as well as those that might not be easy to find at your local corner wine and beverage provider.  Oh, and we’re also open to recommendations.  As much as we’d like to, we can’t possibly spend all of our time searching the web for the latest in organic drinks.

Still confused about what makes a beverage organic, or what those certifications really mean?  We’ve also made enhancements to our online Resources, including several new organic beverage FAQ’s.  There’s a lot of confusion still out there, so we’ll be adding to our list of questions in the coming weeks or months.  Have a suggestion for what else we should include?  Feel free to let us know.

We have some new content coming soon (including a great eco-chat with Diane Paulson of ORGANIC NATION, and her organic rye provider, Mark Wheeler, of Pacific Botanicals).  Until then, enjoy a few resources that we’ve been meaning to share with the DTE community.

Organic Wine Match of the Day (Denver Wine Examiner)

Well-written reviews of organic wines paired with tasty foods, including reviews of many European and South American wines.  A good daily read for all of you foodies with an interest in finding organic drinking companions to pair with your culinary achievements.

TerraCycle Cork Brigade Program

Looking to do something with all of those spare corks, but lack the creativity?  New Jersey’s TerraCycle has an option for you.  Simply mail them your used corks, and they’ll pay you cash.  The corks are then made into a number of different products, including cork boards that are sold in outlets such as OfficeMax.  Unfortunately, at last check, they aren’t currently accepting any new applications for the program (bummer).

Eat Well Guide

Online guide that helps you find sustainable and organic food options in your local area (available in the U.S. and Canada).  By entering your zip code they will tell you local options for everything from farmers markets to personal chefs.

Sustain Lane

Nice all-purpose sustainability guide.  Includes a lot of user-generated content, including product reviews of all types of sustainable and organic products ranging from beers and wines to vitamins.

From time to time we’d like to share with you our thoughts on books that are relevant to the organic food and wine industry.  One recent such read was Paul Dolan’s True To Our Roots: Fermenting a Business Revolution, published by Bloomberg Press.  OK, so maybe this isn’t exactly a new book (it was released in 2003), but it is remarkably prescient given that it was written largely ahead of the current eco-trend of today.

The former CEO of Fetzer Vineyards, Paul Dolan is known as an American pioneer for making wine following organic and sustainable principles.  The book chronicles his tenure at Fetzer, first as a young head winemaker, then later as its CEO.  It would be easy to imagine a large, mega-winery like Fetzer to create wine using whatever chemicals or energy-intensive machinery it needed to keep prices under $10.  After all, many people perceive organic or biodynamic wines to be crafted only by boutique wineries who are small enough to do everything by hand.  Fetzer went down a very different path, and made a deliberate decision to make sustainability a part of every process at the company.  This included the creation of a new organic label, Bonterra, that eventually spun off as its own brand as detailed in the book.   They really challenged the old perception that profits and sustainability couldn’t coexist.

The book itself is more about socially responsible leadership than it is about organic wine, even though a fair amount of time is spent explaining the viticultural decisions Fetzer made, and how and why specific sustainable practices were implemented.  Some of our favorite parts of the book centered around how various departments at Fetzer surprised even Dolan with their interest in finding ways to be more environmentally friendly, down to procuring the corks, and preparing the wine barrels.  Definitely worth a read, and readily available at Amazon (or possibly your local library, where we were able to get a copy).

Two new solar arrays were installed at Gundlach Bundschu in November, 2008

Situated in the southern corner of Sonoma County wine country, Gundlach Bundschu has a 150-year history of winemaking.  Varietals produced include Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Tempranillo Rose (not commonly made in California), Chardonnay, and Gewurztraminer (one of our absolute favorite Gewurzt’s of all time).  We recently corresponded with Susan Sueiro, Gundlach Bundschu’s Director of Marketing, on their current efforts to pursue organics as well as other sustainability methods at the winery.  While not certified organic at this time, Gundlach is implementing many organic conventions as well as other efforts aimed at eventually becoming carbon neutral.

Today, the winery utilizes many organic farming practices, including the use of registered organic compounds, cover crops, owl boxes, and beneficial predators like lady beetles and lacewings.  We were also told that a few of their 60 blocks are trial organic blocks.  While those efforts are certainly meaningful, Gundlach Bundschu’s non-farming sustainability practices might be even more impressive than how they are growing the grapes.  In addition to tractors fueled by bio-diesel, the winery also deploys a water reclamation system that ultimately results in 70% of the water being re-used.  This system is completely powered by solar, which today is the power source for 60% of all of Gundlach Bundschu’s needs through two solar arrays.  Eventually a third array will be installed to produce 100% of all power used.

The Bundschu family also manages a small boutique winery in Sonoma called Bartholomew Park.  Producing only 3,500 cases annually, the 37-acre site is farmed by famed organics aficionado Phil Coturri, featuring estate Sauvignon Blanc, Zinfandel, Syrah, and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Organic farming sign outside the entrance to Michel-Schlumberger Wine Estate

The past few trips we’ve made to Sonoma have been filled out with, for the most part, drop-in tastings or spur-of-the-moment visits on the way to specific destinations.  This year we decided to focus almost exclusively on appointments to get a slightly different perspective of the wineries we wanted to visit, especially since many of them were on the small side, offering a more personal experience than your average tasting room visit might.  That’s exactly what we got at Michel-Schlumberger Wine Estate, located on the western hills of the Dry Creek Valley in Healdsburg.

Michel-Schlumberger is certified organic, and uses many of the principals of biodynamic farming.  The grounds include many interesting sights, such as a vineyard tractor that runs on bio-diesel, birdhouses and perches that attract raptors to help control vineyards pests, and a special breed of miniature sheep that help to “mow” the cover crop around the vines.

The hospitality center is located in a beautiful Spanish-influenced building, situated around a courtyard full of lush plants and a reflecting pool, and seems much more like a private residence than public attraction.    If I remember correctly, at one time, the tasting center actually was home to a former owner, and it hasn’t lost its warm appeal.  On this occasion, we opted for the wine and cheese pairing at $25 per person (of which half of the proceeds go to the Healdsburg Education Foundation).  However, many different options are available for a visit to the winery, including a green tour & hillside tasting, a vertical tasting of reserve cabernets, or even the chance to create your own custom tour with advance notice.  In all cases, reservations are required.

Our tasting of four wines and four cheeses (ordered especially for the pairing from the world-famous Cheese Shop in downtown Healdsburg) was especially fun because of the presence of another couple who had also reserved a tasting at that time.  In our company was Erin McGrath, herself a wine blogger  for Vintwined, along with her fiancé Russ.  In addition to a shared interest in writing about wine, we also shared many of the same tastes in style and varietals as well.

First on the menu was the 2006 La Brume Chardonnay, paired with a Carmody cheese from Bellwether Farms in Petaluma.  More classically Burgundian in style, there was just enough oak to give it structure without overwhelming the fruit.  The Carmody, a fresh-tasting cheese made from cow’s milk and aged only about six weeks, was a lovely companion to the Chard.

Our second pairing featured the 2005 Pinot Noir, which is the only estate-grown and bottled Pinot in the Dry Creek Valley.  A very food-friendly wine, it was a lovely match to Bellwether Farms’ San Andreas, a delicious sheep’s milk cheese that has some similarities to Manchego. 

The third offering was the 2005 Syrah.  The winemaker choose to blend a very small amount of Viognier into this wine, resulting in a less dense outcome.  This is not a fruit bomb Syrah, nor is the alcohol content so high as to leave you wondering if you’re really drinking a Zin.  This is a pretty wine that would pair well with grilled meat dishes.  In our case, however, we were able to try it with St. George cheese, from Matos Dairy in Santa Rosa.   A full-flavored, rich cheese, we enjoyed the pairing immensely.

To wrap up our visit, our final tasting combined the 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon, a varietal that Michel-Schlumberger is well-known for, with Cowgirl Creamery Mt. Tam, a personal favorite of everyone at the table.  The triple-cream cow’s milk cheese created a rich background for the structure of this cab, which should drink beautifully over the next four to five years.

Needless to say, we couldn’t leave without purchasing a bottle (in this case, the Pinot Noir), and taking a walk around the courtyard.  With great wine, lush grounds, and lovely company, our visit to Michel-Schlumberger will always be remembered as one of our favorite Sonoma County experiences.

The city that never sleeps now has an organic watering hole to contribute to its ongoing insomnia.  Last month, Manhattan’s GustOrganics opened a bar inside of its Greenwich Village restaurant, featuring a menu entirely comprised of organic beers, cocktails, wines, and liquors, as well as fresh organic fruit.  Impressively, the bar makes the claim as the first to be certified organic by the USDA.

Taking its commitment a step further, GustOrganics also features a wind turbine on the roof (must be an interesting sight in NYC), and menus made from 100% recycled paper and soy ink.  For those not able to live in the big city, we hope this is a sign of a new nightlife eco-trend to come.