The Green Vine

The best fertilizer is the farmer’s footsteps.
—The Old Farmer’s Almanac

All of the certifications in the world won’t guarantee great, or even good, wine. But when farmers are out in their vineyards working toward and showing long-term commitment to sustainable practices, it is definitely an indication to the consumer that they are dedicated to keeping their vineyards as natural as possible, which translates into purer wine.

But controversy surrounds every aspect of organic, biodynamic, and even sulfite-free wine and what they all mean to the environment, the winemaker, and the consumer. A controversial 2011 study reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine on organic vs. nonorganic food stated that there is no marked nutritional benefit to organics. It isn’t too surprising that a reader of this report might wonder, Why organic? After all, if the nutrition isn’t better, and the taste may or may not be that much better, and yet the price is higher, why bother?

The fact is, for people who choose organic wine, food, and other products, nutrition is only part of the issue. Claiming there’s no difference in nutrition might make for an influential, if unfortunate, sound bite, but it misses the more important question: Why should we care about how our food is produced? The answer is that so many related issues, such as energy use in production, biodiversity, monoculture, packaging waste, habitat conservation, water purity, air quality, and fuels used in shipping represent challenges that are becoming increasingly essential to face, both on a local and a global scale.

In a 2009 article in the New York Times, two years before the 2011 kerfuffle, Mark Bittman argued that eating organic, which, he says, “seems to have become the magic cure-all, synonymous with eating well, healthfully, sanely, even ethically,” actually offers “no guarantee of any of that. And the truth is,” he continues, “that most Americans eat so badly—we get 7 percent of our calories from soft drinks, more than we do from vegetables; the top food group by caloric intake is ‘sweets’; and one-third of the nation’s adults are now obese—that the organic question is a secondary one.” He says, “It’s not unimportant, but it’s not the primary issue in the way Americans eat.” Slow Food encourages people to buy “Local First, Organic Next”—to support local farmers and help make a closer connection between our food and the places we live, rather than purchasing an organic tomato in January that was grown in Chile and shipped to Seattle.

Is the question of organics or any other “sustainable” labeling only a secondary question for wine as well? Wine, like food, is about choices. Just like farmers of our food, winegrowers and winemakers make a thousand choices about the planting, growing, harvesting, processing (fermentation, aging), and bottling, storing, marketing, selling, and shipping of their grapes and wine—all very deliberate decisions, and all of which may help create a mediocre wine or a great bottle. And we make choices in the wines we buy. Many wine drinkers I know buy a range of wines depending on the occasion, from cheap, kangaroo-emblazoned, commercially produced Australian Chardonnay for a company barbecue to expensive, local, biodynamically grown, super-premium Syrah for a special birthday.

Our choices are driven sometimes by price, sometimes by our values, and always by the complexities of contemporary society. In European wine, the organic and especially the biodynamic movements have been going strong for over a decade. Although only about 2 percent of European vineyards are organic, compared with 4.7 percent of the total European agricultural picture, the trend toward natural and sustainable wine is growing. And why? Follow the money, of course. In 2008, US sales of organic food products rose to $24.6 billion, and the market has grown an average of 20.2 percent per year. The growing number of winegrowers and winemakers who are eliminating chemical herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers and lowering energy usage are making those choices for more than just taste. Just like wine drinkers, winegrowers and winemakers are being driven toward more pure wine by a multitude of forces, from finances to philosophy to family.

With all these choices, how does the conscientious consumer, standing in the grocery store aisle at 5:45 PM, judge which bottle to choose? Certification labels, awarded by administrative organizations that inspect vineyards and wineries for compliance with various requirements, are a starting point. However, they are not without problems of their own.

Certifications abound, but it’s hard to know exactly how meaningful they are. The sheer number of them on winery websites and the backs of bottles these days is daunting: USDA Certified Organic, Salmon-Safe, Demeter Certified Biodynamic (a registered trademark), Napa Green, LIVE Certified, Oregon Certified Sustainable, Fish Friendly Farming, Bee Friendly Farming, to name a few. And the details of these programs are often fuzzy, if not completely mysterious, to the average consumer. When it comes to sustainable and organic farming standards worldwide, there is not just one set of them, not just one organization deciding this or that. The list of organizations involved is a crazy alphabet soup of intimidating bureaucracy. Standards are often set by governmental agencies—the USDA, for instance—with certification done by regional inspecting organizations such as Oregon Tilth. This is why, on wine labels, and many food labels as well, we see all sorts of logos, all with the intention of making things clearer for the consumer. But things are often as clear as, well, compost.

There is a movement to standardize organics across the globe. Internationally, a few organizations, such as the International Organization for Biological and Integrated Control of Noxious Animals and Plants (IOBC), support research that is then utilized by certifying bodies around the world to set standards. A coalition of organizations—the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)—has formed GOMA, or Global Organic Market Access, which works toward creating harmony across all certifying agencies from country to country with the IFOAM Family of Standards and will work with COROS, the Common Objectives and Requirements of Organic Standards, and a few other organizations to standardize organic requirements.

All this organization, and all these acronyms, may or may not be a good thing. Yes, creation of an easier, more understandable system of what is required for farms to be compliant, especially across international borders, is great. But many farmers and winegrowers say these large organizations often don’t understand the variability and different needs of small regions and cultures. In the case of wine, mezzo- and micro-climates have special needs, and a one-size-fits-all approach (along with the cost) keeps many grape growers from becoming certified.

For now, we have many different organizations setting standards and trying to move agriculture toward lowering the use of toxic chemicals worldwide. Although that is admirable, there’s a long way to go in this effort, especially in nonregulated countries, and it can be confusing for eaters and drinkers. Demeter International, for example, has been working at biodynamic certification since 1928, before “organic” existed, and its standards look for the most part to tradition and simplicity rather than innovation and bureaucracy. You hear many farmers say about biodynamics, or about traditional pre-chemical farming, that it’s just good farming, and they may be right. But for the moment, especially where certifications are concerned, there’s a lot more to it.

The following short discussion of the main certifying bodies may help. This list may not be exhaustive, since new certifications arise every year, but these are the ones I have found on wine bottles and winery websites from the Pacific Northwest region: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Northern California, as well as a few in British Columbia. I have organized them from large-scale to small, starting with international and national organizations, down to regional and other groups focusing on education and marketing.

The following organizations are based in Europe and have outposts in the United States and elsewhere. Much in the national and regional programs is based on international standards that are constantly being modified. For instance, in 2012, the European Union (EU), through the Standing Committee on Organic Farming (SCOF), tightened its qualifications for “organic” wine, including:

The IOBC, established in 1955, encourages collaboration and education among members (individual scientists, governments, and scientific and commercial organizations) in 24 countries from Europe, the Mediterranean region, and the Middle East. Among other things, it promotes integrated pest management, the use of “environmentally safe, economically feasible, and socially acceptable” pest control for agriculture and forestry. IOBC also carries out studies to develop methods of tracking effects of pesticides and of lowering pesticide use. Certified LIVE members are also internationally certified by the IOBC.

DEMETER CERTIFIED BIODYNAMIC PREPARATIONS

Here are nine certified biodynamic preparations and the claims about their uses:

• BD 500: A cow horn is filled with cow manure and buried on the fall equinox. It is dug up on the spring equinox, and the contents are stirred in water for one hour. The liquid is sprayed on crops to promote microbial life and stimulate root activity.

• BD 501: “Horn silica” is quartzite powder that has been buried inside a cow horn for six months, then mixed with water and sprayed on the leaves and shoots to refract light and stimulate photosynthesis and chlorophyll formation.

These are added to the compost pile:

• BD 502: Yarrow permits plants to attract trace elements.

• BD 503: Chamomile stabilizes nitrogen in the compost and increases soil life.

• BD 504: Nettle stimulates soil health, providing plants with nutrition and enlivening the soil.

• BD 505: Oak bark provides healing qualities to combat disease.

• BD 506: Dandelion stimulates relation between Si (silicon) and K (potassium) to attract cosmic forces to the soil.

• BD 507: Valerian stimulates compost so phosphorus will be properly used.

• BD 508: Horsetail is mixed with water, stirred 20 minutes, and sprayed on vines to prevent or lessen the effects of fungus.

The practice of biodynamics began as an agricultural course given in 1924 at Koberwitz, Silesia (now Kobierzyce, Poland), by Austrian philosopher, scientist, scholar, and translator Rudolph Steiner, who also established the Waldorf educational system. The lectures, entitled “Spiritual Foundations for the Renewal of Agriculture,” prompted the formation of the Experimental Circle of Anthroposophical Farmers, who began testing Steiner’s theories. Demeter International, a certifying organization with a worldwide network of member-inspectors, was established in 1928 and grew throughout Europe. The United States Demeter Association certified its first farm in 1982.

The system demands that the process of farming—including growing grapes and making wines—be completely free of synthetic pesticides, herbicides, rodenticides, and fertilizers. Biodynamics has been called “beyond organics,” but it is essentially different in that it aims to manage the entire farm (or vineyard as part of a farm) as a self-sufficient living organism, and to do so in harmony with the natural cycles of the sun, moon, and seasons. There is also a spiritual element, working with what Steiner called the energy and “forms of nature” (the distinct fruit, flower, leaf, and root patterns of various types of plants) to build soil and plant health (although the physical forms of plants and their conversion of sun to energy is as much scientific as spiritual). Cover crops, crop rotation, farm animals, and the presence of natural wildlife are encouraged.

Ideally, each farm works toward complete self-sufficiency in compost, as well as in natural herbal and mineral additives (the “preparations”) that are applied to the soil to “enliven” it and the plants’ growth and immune systems. These mixtures—especially the one called BD 500, consisting of cow dung packed into a cow horn and buried for months—are said to draw on the spiritual energy of the animals as much as on their natural by-products. They are often purchased from elsewhere, especially for use in areas where their ingredients don’t easily grow—Steiner was talking to farmers working in the ecosystem of the European north, not arid southern climates. In the winery specifically, no chemical additives may be added to the wines, and natural yeasts must be used. The certification system is essentially a mentoring process, with new members learning from certified farmer/inspectors. There’s much more to this fascinating system and you can find a lot more information about it online.

Each country has its own governing body to oversee issues surrounding agriculture and food safety. Much of what these organizations do is in the areas of inspection, safety standards, and communications of allergy alerts and product recalls, as well as establishing labeling standards. To be certified organic, growers must follow certain requirements (including studying the organic standards), comply with approved methods, maintain documentation of their compliance, submit annual production plans that include crop sources, locations, fertilization activity, and more. Each farm must also have an annual on-farm inspection by an independent third-party agency (one of the almost 100 approved by the USDA in the States, for instance). It must pay an annual fee and keep written records on farming and marketing practices in case it is subject to a short-notice or surprise inspection, just as a restaurant may be subject to a surprise inspection from the local health department.

(Unfortunately, there is not room to list all the European certifying agencies here, but a quick internet search will turn up abundant information on the topic.)

The Canadian equivalent to the USDA, the CFIA uses the European Organic System for certifying organic products. There are two official label designations in Canada: “100 percent organic” means that the wines are produced with 100 percent organically grown grapes, with no sulfur dioxide added; “organic” wines have a minimum of 95 percent organic grapes and low sulfite levels. The phrase “wine made with organic grapes” is now not considered to be an organic designation under the Canadian Organic Products Regulation.

Beyond this labeling issue, Canada does allow EU organic wines to be marketed within the country, as long as they meet Canadian organic guidelines. It also has a country-of-origin labeling program: If a product is “wholly manufactured outside of Canada, the label must show that the product is imported.” Wine labels must also include allergens, such as eggs, milk, and other fining agents. The CFIA is currently working toward a better labeling system, as well as stricter regulation of what can be considered ice wine (specifically, that it must be made of grapes frozen naturally on the vine, not in a freezer).

Under the USDA National Organic Program, wineries can become USDA Certified Organic. Here is the official definition:

USDA certifications provide a wealth of detail on wine labels, specifying whether some or all of the grapes were grown organically and whether or not sulfites were added in the winery. Here is an explanation of the various certifications:

CERTIFIED ORGANIC. For a wine to be labeled organic and bear the USDA organic seal, it must be made from organically grown grapes, meaning no chemical fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides in the vineyard. Beyond the vineyard, sulfites in the winery are another issue: An organic wine cannot have any added sulfites, apart from naturally occurring sulfites of fewer than 20 parts per million.

MADE WITH ORGANICALLY GROWN GRAPES OR CONTAINS SULFITES. “Made with Organically Grown Grapes” can be used on a label when wineries add sulfur dioxide as an antioxidant, antimicrobial preservative. This is a more common category than Certified Organic, as most people think it is difficult to ship or store a wine without added sulfites, without risking the wine going bad and developing flawed aromas and tastes. Idaho’s 3 Horse Ranch, in the Snake River Valley, is a good example of a winery that uses the “Made with Organically Grown Grapes” label. Its estate vineyard is Certified Organic, but its winemakers add the bare minimum amount of sulfites, in order to “ensure stable and delicious wine.” If sulfites are added and the total sulfites in the wine are above 10 parts per million, a label must state, “Contains Sulfites.”

MADE WITH ORGANIC GRAPES AND MADE WITH ORGANIC AND NON-ORGANIC GRAPES. These labels are rarely used, but if a winery is acquiring grapes from different sources, as many do, it is quite possible that the label may be more common in the future, as people demand more information about the ingredients in their food and wine. If a winery uses grapes from three different vineyards, and only one vineyard is Certified Organic, then it may use the phrase “Some Organic Ingredients” on the label. When this is present, it can be assumed that the grapes came from different vineyards, some organically certified and some not.

SULFITE FREE. According to the Organic Consumers Association, “A wine can make the claim, ‘Sulfite Free’ or ‘No Added Sulfites—Contains Naturally Occurring Sulfites,’ but if sulfites are added and the total sulfites in the wine are above 10 parts per million, it must make the statement ‘Contains Sulfites.’ A wine that makes the claim Sulfite Free must have no detectable sulfites.” It may be impossible to produce a wine with no sulfites at all, as they occur naturally in the fermentation process, but these wines have such low amounts that they are essentially undetectable.

In order to have a wine certified by an inspecting body, a representative (an actual human being) comes to the vineyard to look it over, and others read the mounds of paperwork the vineyard manager must fill out. At press time, there were 86 USDA-approved certifying agencies across the country. Of these, 28 are approved to inspect farms in California, 9 in Idaho, 19 in Oregon, and 13 in Washington. Oregon Tilth Certified Organic (OTCO) is approved in all these states and is one of the main inspecting agencies for vineyards.

Of the 86 (and growing) third-party verifying agencies approved to certify farms as USDA Approved Organic, Oregon Tilth is one of the largest and can certify in many states. But there are other agencies across the country that do this work. It is important that organizations that inspect vineyards not have an economic stake in the vineyards inspected, to avoid favoritism and ensure objectivity.

The California Certified Organic Farmers organization is similar to Oregon Tilth (see below), certifying farms according to the USDA’s NOP. Founded in 1973, it was one of the pioneers in the certification process. As of the time of this writing, there is a plan to merge Oregon Tilth and CCOF, to allow the organization to “overcome the challenges of an uncertain economic future, provide membership a stronger collective voice, and increase opportunities for all via a research- and education-focused institutional foundation.”

Many of Oregon’s wineries are USDA Certified Organic through Oregon Tilth, which has been certifying since 1974. Oregon Tilth is “an internationally recognized organization of organic farmers, gardeners, and consumers who are dedicated to biologically sound and socially equitable agriculture.” Its goal is to educate people about the need to develop and use sustainable growing practices that promote soil health, conserve natural resources, and prevent environmental degradation while producing a clean and healthful food supply.

THE GREENWASHING CONTROVERSY

There are some who say that many of these certifications are mostly a reflection of marketing choices, or “greenwashing.” A winery may have a small organic vineyard but make the bulk of its wines the conventional way. Another may have an organic vineyard but use copper sulfate for treating fungus in the vineyard or bad-smelling wine in the winery (copper sulfate is allowed under organic certification, but many people call it a “nasty” chemical). Another may make biodynamic wine and sell it in heavy, fuel-hogging bottles that help draw a hefty price. Others can’t afford the thousands of dollars it takes to become certified, or simply don’t want to pay the money—there’s a lot of hassle and paperwork involved. They might wonder whether it is worth their effort and money—especially if they are already farming organically or biodynamically—to have a certification stamp on their label.

In some cases, wine producers choose not to be certified because they would rather be free to do what they feel they need to do to keep their specific site healthy. For instance, Klipsun Vineyard, one of Wine&Spirits magazine’s “25 Great Vineyards of the World,” sells fruit to some of the state’s top producers, including DeLille and L’Ecole No. 41. Says owner David Gelles, “We’ve chosen not to be certified by LIVE or Salmon-Safe because of some of the restrictions on some chemicals that we feel we need to use. We haven’t used herbicides in 20 years, but there are certain pesticides we periodically need to use.” Vineyard manager Julia Wood agrees. “I try to use the softest chemicals, and use them sparingly. Chemicals are expensive!” she says. “We apply them through very precise drip irrigation, and use no organophosphates. We also grow wheatgrass in the rows, which helps to keep the dust down.”

An aspect of sustainability that Gelles sees as equally important concerns Klipsun’s labor force. It keeps a year-round crew of 14 to 18 workers. “During harvest, we hire the other family members, so the money stays in the family. It allows them to save during harvest, because most of them go south or to Mexico for two to three months.” Klipsun also is one of the few vineyards in Washington to provide health care for its employees. “It’s easier for a winery than for a vineyard,” says co-owner Patricia Gelles, referring to wineries such as Pepper Bridge, which also supplies health care for its employees.

The other side of the argument comes from organic and biodynamic farmers, who say that merely practicing some of these methods while still using Roundup misses the point: Only by giving up the habits of conventional farming and winemaking will the full benefits of organic/biodynamic winegrowing be achieved. Some feel that any certification helps to strengthen the industry and create a positive image, while to others, certification is partly greenwashing and leads the public to believe a wine is more environmentally friendly than it actually may be. Yet still others think that the overall movement toward cleaner wine and a less polluted environment will pay off.

One winegrower who embraced change completely is Doug Tunnell of Brick House Winery, who had been farming organically for 15 years when he transitioned to biodynamics in 2005. This method, he says, has “helped to enliven our soil and integrate our fields, blocks, microsites, gardens, and landscapes into a single living and interdependent whole farm. Compost made up of the remnants of the crush fertilizes our garden and the beds around our house. Leaves from our oak grove help to feed the soil in our vineyard blocks. The result is a vibrancy and life that we didn’t enjoy in the years before we practiced biodynamics. And I think our wines are better as a result.”

Wine writer Matt Kramer is an advocate of biodynamic wines. “What matters is that biodynamic cultivation signals a willingness to pay extreme attention to vines and wines,” he says. “Like driving a race car, if you take your eyes off the road—or in this case, a highly vulnerable vineyard—an irremediable disaster can result. Ask any farmer. Attentiveness is always a good thing.”

Whichever direction wine producers take, each change in the vineyard and the winery is a choice not taken lightly, and it is a compliment to this industry that so many conscientious and talented people are growing and making great wine—or letting great wine make itself—and remain willing to wrestle with cultural, environmental, and ethical choices in the production of our beloved beverage.

Salmon-Safe, Fish Friendly Farming, Vinea: The Winegrowers’ Sustainable Trust (in Washington’s Walla Walla Valley), and Napa Green are grassroots organizations created in response to particular issues in particular regions. They can be points of entry for more strict certifications, such as Certified Organic or Certified Biodynamic. Habitats and ecosystems don’t respect state or international borders, though, so many organizations work throughout the larger salmon ecosystem rather than merely in the locale in which they were founded (Oregon, in Salmon-Safe’s case). Similarly, Oregon Tilth certifies farms as USDA Certified Organic across the country, and LIVE started in Oregon but looks to be an international organization, recently acknowledged by the IOBC.

Although many of these groups work across borders, it seems simplest to list them here by the state in which their headquarters reside. Some organizations, such as the OCSW, have their own certification stamp (OCSW’s means a winery is LIVE and/or Salmon-Safe); this group and others like it work to promote and educate consumers about sustainable products.

CALIFORNIA SUSTAINABLE WINEGROWING ALLIANCE (CCSW, FOR CALIFORNIA CERTIFIED SUSTAINABLE WINEGROWING)

CCSW is a program created by the California Association of Winegrape Growers (CAWG), a trade organization, and the Wine Institute, the marketing arm of California’s wine industry. It is a voluntary system of vineyard and winery education and improvement, based on a “Cycle of Continuous Improvement” plan by which winegrowers self-assess, interpret, educate, and develop “action plans” to continually better their vineyard practices. At the time of this writing, there were about 35 participants in the program. It is separate from USDA Organics and aims to improve the California wine industry as a whole. Many states are starting to have certification programs based on wineries’ efforts toward sustainability.

Fish Friendly Farming is a certification program for agricultural properties that are managed to restore fish and wildlife habitat and improve water quality. Endangered Coho salmon and steelhead trout are the focus of this California agency, which provides a “voluntary, self-directed compliance with the rigorous standards of state and federal water quality laws (Clean Water Act), the federal Endangered Species Act, and state pesticide laws as well as local regulations.”

The Fish Friendly Farming certification “assures the consumer that the wines and farm products they purchase are produced by protecting and restoring the environment and by sustaining the beauty and natural habitats of California.” While some vineyards and wineries may struggle to meet the requirements, some go far beyond the standards of organizations such as FFF and Salmon-Safe, depending on the particular situation.

Through Napa Green, both wineries and vineyards can become certified in a voluntary program (like all of these are) that “enhances the [Napa area] watershed and restores habitat with sustainable agriculture practices,” and helps ensure compliance with the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, and state and county conservation laws. Currently, nearly 19,000 acres are certified in the Napa Green Certified Land program, and about 75 wineries have the Napa Green Certified Winery distinction. NG is connected to the Fish Friendly Farming program—to become NGCL, you must also be FFF.

In 2007 the Oregon Environmental Council and the Oregon Wine Board joined to lead an initiative to help Oregon wineries and vineyards assess and reduce their carbon footprints, with the ultimate goal of making them carbon neutral. So far, with 14 wineries certified and plans for an additional 16 in the works, this is the largest carbonreduction effort in the US wine industry. The website describes a three-step process:

Food Alliance is an independent, third-party organization created by Oregon State University, the Washington State Department of Agriculture, and the Kellogg Foundation in 1994. It has been certifying farms, ranches, crops, and products according to sustainability standards since 1998, making it one of the most comprehensive nationwide programs. Food Alliance states its mission as follows:

Low Input Viticulture and Enology is an Oregon organization that certifies vineyards and wineries in the Northwest (205 in Oregon, 20 in Washington) according to international guidelines for environmental stewardship, social responsibility, and economic accountability. LIVE also provides education and resources to winegrowers interested in sustainable farming. The group was recently endorsed by the IOBC as a qualified certifying body in the United States, and its territory will soon expand to include British Columbia and Idaho.

LIVE’s checklists show action areas necessary for certification for vineyards and wineries. For vineyards, these include biodiversity, farm records, traceability, site selection (making sure the site is a viable growing area, performing soil sampling, etc.), grape varieties (determining whether they are the best for the area), rootstock (making sure it is disease-free), sowing, fertilizer use, irrigation, harvesting, post-harvest, animal density, worker health, and more. For wineries: grapes used, energy use, carbon emissions, equipment, sulfur dioxide levels, enology, fermentation, cooling, water management, solid waste, packaging and closures, worker health, facilities, and tasting room issues.

Certified LIVE members are internationally certified by the IOBC. LIVE also works with other organizations, such as Salmon-Safe and Vinewise, a resource for grape growers developed by the Washington Association of Wine Grape Growers to “address the rapidly growing Washington wine industry and to ensure its future.” LIVE also administers the Carbon Neutral Challenge program for the Oregon Wine Board and Oregon Environmental Council.

LIVE has a series of regional chairs for each area in the Pacific Northwest: the Willamette Valley (WVTC), Walla Walla (WWTC), Columbia Valley (CVTC), and Southern Oregon (SOTC) Technical Committees. These help determine the needs of each region (pests or climate-related diseases in one region may not be the same as in another), via the Joint Technical Committee.

The Oregon Wine board created OCSW as a marketing body to help “communicate these (sustainable) practices in an understandable manner, highlight shared principles among the various certification philosophies, and forge relationships with consumers who make environmental awareness or action a priority.” The OCSW stamp on the label means that at least 97 percent of the fruit used in the wine is certified by an independent third party, such as LIVE, USDA Organic, Demeter Biodynamic, Food Alliance, or Salmon-Safe.

Edward Fus, LIVE Chair Emeritus and owner of Angel Vine Winery and Three Angels Vineyard, says that although the program is small at present, it gives wineries a set of “talking points to help them communicate the sustainable message” to retailers, restaurant staff, and distributors. “LIVE and the other certifiers,” he says, “are not set up to promote/educate the public or wine industry about the environmental, economic, and equity elements addressed by certification. OCSW was developed to be a vehicle to achieve this.”

Salmon-Safe was founded in 1995 in Portland, to work with farmers and vineyards to prevent erosion and runoff of pesticides into sensitive river and stream habitats for Pacific Northwest salmon and other fish. There are now about 240 certified vineyards across the Pacific Northwest (110 in Oregon, representing a third of Oregon’s wine grape acreage). Salmon-Safe is also working with wheat farms, orchards, and dairies to address issues affecting important salmon watersheds upstream in the Yamhill, Tualatin, Walla Walla, Rogue, Columbia, Fraser, and other river basins. The Canadian branch, Salmon-Safe British Columbia, certifies Canadian vineyards in partnership with the Pacific Salmon Foundation (www.psf.ca) and the Fraser Basin Council (www.fraserbasin.bc.ca). Other partners are Oregon’s Stewardship Partners and Trout Unlimited.

Oregon Tilth has worked with Salmon-Safe to create a set of additional “overlay” standards for farmers already certified organic. It includes “additional riparian area management, irrigation water use, and erosion control criteria that are either not covered, or are covered only indirectly, under organic certification.” A vineyard doesn’t have to be certified or even practicing organic to be Salmon-Safe, as long as it meets Salmon-Safe standards applying to pesticides and fertilizers that may create damaging runoff. Some see Salmon-Safe as a first step toward organic certification, since the standards are simpler and less restrictive than for organic. For instance, a vineyard may be near a stream, but the organic certification may not take that into account, focusing only on the crops. Salmon-Safe sees the surrounding areas as important to protect as well, connecting what happens in areas of agriculture to the surrounding ecosystems.

In Washington, some Walla Walla winegrowers, led by Norm McKibben of Pepper Bridge Winery, established their own group tailored to the needs of the Columbia Valley region. Vinea: The Winegrowers’ Sustainable Trust is a “voluntary group of winegrowers who have embraced environmentally friendly and socially responsible viticultural practices.” The guidelines used are based on those of LIVE, its certifying agency, and the winegrowers work together to promote sustainability in the Columbia Valley AVA, as well as the Walla Walla Valley AVA, which extends into Oregon.

Vinea’s mission is to develop a “sustainable vineyard management program that will be internationally recognized for its strict environmental standard and high quality farming and energy conservation practices,” including:

FOOD AND WINE PAIRING

Traditional wine pairings have often confused me. I get red wine with a steak. And white with fish I get—acid with salt, like lemon squeezed on an oyster. But then again, I always eat oysters naked because I like the taste of the oyster and don’t want to cover it up with lemon. According to oyster guru Jon Rowley of the Pacific Coast Oyster Wine Competition (www.oysterwine.com), a great oyster wine “cleanses your palate and gets it ready for the next oyster.” Some classic pairings, like ruby port with blue cheese, never worked for me. I always preferred figs and nuts with tawny port or a dry sherry. I also felt that cured meat went much better with a lemony white wine than with tannic red. Like a lot of people, after all the advice, I only know what I like. What does this have to do with “natural” winemaking? It turns out (for me), almost everything. Bear with me.

One of the best pairings I’ve ever had was a moderately buttery, oaky Chardonnay (which I’m not really a fan of) with steak and green peppercorn sauce, thanks to my good friends chef Danielle Custer (then of Seattle Art Museum’s Taste Restaurant) and Don Townshend of Townshend Cellars. Danielle has always been thoughtful about pairing; wine and food always go together for her. When she did wine dinners at SAM, she and chef Craig Hetherington would sit down with the wines and with a table full of particular ingredients: beef, lamb, fish, onion, garlic, lemongrass, sage, lemon, whatever. They would taste the wine with each ingredient and then make a menu. The dinners were always amazing. I felt that she got to the essence of what worked with the wines and the specific elements of the ingredients.

When she asked me to come along as she worked with Townshend Cellars’ Don Townshend to make a wine for SAM, I jumped at the chance. During our trips to Spokane, we would spend hours tasting and blending different barrel samples, and then cook. Our favorite dish was Don’s Green Peppercorn Steak with Townshend Chardonnay. But why did that wine work better than the Cabernet Sauvignon we tried? I didn’t know at the time, but now it makes perfect sense.

Green peppercorn has a molecule in it called eugenol, the major molecule in saffron and in a variety of other foods, such as grilled beef and herbs and spices such as rosemary, clove, and basil. The Chardonnay had some of this spicy clove molecule from its time in an oak barrel. At the same time, the sauce had a tiny bit of cream. Lactol is an aromatic molecule in both cream and Chardonnay that has gone through malolactic fermentation (a process that heats the wine and transforms the malic, or appley, acid to lactic, or milky/buttery, acid). It wasn’t so much about the meat as about the sauce.

Natural Wines and “Molecular Sommellerie”

I became fascinated with such molecules, including linalool, which is the source of the spicy/floral aroma that you get in Gewürztraminer. But it wasn’t until recently that I came across the work of François Chartier, a Québécois sommelier, cook, educator, and writer who wrote the book Taste Buds and Molecules (English language edition: Wiley, 2012), which focuses on a new way to pair food and wine, called Molecular Sommellerie. The idea brings together what Danielle Custer was doing—tasting ingredients in their raw form—with what I was learning from Chartier’s writing about aroma molecules in food and wine. Yes, like molecular gastronomy, Molecular Sommellerie looks at the building blocks of foods in order to pair them with each other, and with wine. In this case, though, there’s no sous vide Cabernet foam. The concept is much simpler (and also more complex) than that.

Basically, Chartier says that the main aromatic molecules in all food ingredients, including wine, create an “aromatic synergy” when tasted and smelled together. For instance, Sauvignon Blanc from all over the world has similar flavors of anise, fennel, fenugreek, mint, and “grassiness.” Why? Because those all have the molecule sotolone. When Chartier tasted a Sauvignon Blanc along with a simple, fresh tabouleh salad with mint, tarragon, basil, and chervil, he was blown away; the aromas in the wine and the aromas in the food matched, creating a perfect synergy.

He kept experimenting, investigating why some traditional combinations work. For example, he looked at black pepper and Syrah and discovered that both include the molecule rotundone, which gives Syrah its spicy flavor. He eventually worked with amazing “molecular gastronomy” chefs from around the world, including Ferran Adrià from the famous El Bulli restaurant in Spain, pairing wines with foods using this method. Chartier says there’s not just one “bitter” but many, not just one kind of acid but many: lemon (ascorbic), apple (malic), milk (lactic), etc. He likens the effect to Shiva, the many-armed goddess: One molecule can have many different manifestations, and most foods have more than one aromatic compound as well as many that are interconnected. Cooking also changes them and brings out even more flavors and even more connections.

Dominant Aroma and Natural Foods

To pair food and wine this way, Chartier suggests, consider the dominant aroma or ingredients in the food and find a wine with the same dominant aroma (or vice versa), to allow the natural aromatic synergy to occur on your palate and in your nose. At the risk of oversimplifying (in hopes that this might spur you on to further reading), here are a few examples:

• Eugenol: Present in various amounts in clove, Thai basil, rosemary, apricot, pineapple, asparagus, grilled and roasted beef, cinnamon, strawberry, and rosemary. It is also found in oak, so a barrel-aged Chardonnay with that clove scent might fit with some of these foods.

• Sotolone: Found in mint, coriander, basil, tarragon, endive, cumin, chervil, and Sauvignon Blanc.

• Rotundone: Found in dried herbs, black pepper, lamb, thyme, cocoa, coffee, citrus, mushrooms, saffron, and Syrah, Grenache, and Grüner Veltliner.

• Linalool: Found in lavender, basil, sweet orange, bay leaf, and Gewürztraminer, Riesling, and Muscat.

So what does all this mean to organic, biodynamic wines? Isn’t this too much talk of chemistry for a natural way of eating? To me, it means a lot, because of two things.

First, knowing how these molecules work helps us to understand the flavors we are experiencing in our food and wine. Second, it helps us understand how our experience may be enhanced. These are molecules and compounds that can be isolated and studied by winemakers who want to produce a certain effect in their wines. A 2008 article in the New York Times by Harold McGee, “What’s the Peppery Note in those Shirazes?,” talked about Australian studies on rotundone in 2002 and 2003 that found that timing of harvest and time on the skins (where this molecule lives) affect the amount of pepperiness in the wine. It would be illegal to add rotundone to wine to create a desired effect, but other methods, such as filtering or clonal selection, can reduce overpepperiness in wine and can make a big difference. The wine industry goes to great lengths to find out what works and what doesn’t.

Also, if you are reading this book, you may be interested in enjoying “natural” foods and wines together and experiencing their purest nature. If you are the type who’s willing to pass by those bright-red tomatoes in the produce section, knowing that they’ll taste like cardboard, and wait until August for true tomato flavor, then you probably want the same from your wine. A naturally made wine, with the least manipulation, chemical additives, commercial yeasts, etc., allows the flavors and aromas of the fruit and natural yeasts to shine through, making for a more authentic—and delicious—experience.

These are just a few of the many other organizations that support and promote sustainable winegrowing and winemaking.

The Partners for Sustainable Pollination are based in Santa Rosa, California, and have a “self-certification” process to help beekeepers, orchardists, vineyards, and others manage their farms and products in the interest of protecting and creating bee-friendly habitat. Certification allows producers to use the BFF logo on their products. There are almost 200 BFF farmers in 31 states and 3 provinces of Canada, but only one winery—Jordan Vineyards in Healdsburg, California.

The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) is an independent international nonprofit that sets standards for environmentally friendly construction and energy and water usage. LEED is an arm of the USGBC and is a professional membership organization made up of 77 chapters, 13,000 member organizations, and 181,000 LEED professionals—builders and environmentalists, corporations and nonprofits, teachers and students, lawmakers and citizens. More and more, wineries and tasting rooms are building green and receiving certifications at different levels, from Silver to Gold to Platinum.

The Lodi Rules, established in 2005 but based on the work of the Lodi, California, winegrowing community going back to 1992, was California’s first third-party-certified sustainable winegrowing program, promoting biodiversity, soil and water health, and community and employee well-being, with more than 21,000 acres certified.

The FSC certifies all sorts of products from wood to cardboard packaging to corks (and many others, such as eco-friendly shampoo and cleaners). It favors conservation of the cork forests over the use of screwtops or plastic corks (see the “Put a Cork in It” sidebar).

The SCWC is just one example of the dozens of commissions in winegrowing regions that support their industries. More and more, the focus among these folks has been, How do we make winegrowing more sustainable environmentally and as an industry? Each area has taken its own approach (Lodi Rules; Napa Green; Mendocino, “America’s Greenest Wine Region”), with programs and websites that promote the wineries of the area. More than 390 grape growers in Sonoma County were involved in a California-wide self-assessment Code of Sustainable Winegrowing study in 2002, which was part of a statewide Sustainability Report, confirming their vineyards to be “environmentally sound, socially equitable, and economically viable.” The SCWC helps provide ongoing assessment and education for this large and vital grower community.