Does Organic Matter in Wine?

An Opinion Piece by: Wes Hagen, Winemaker for J. Wilkes Wines

For twenty years I managed a vineyard: Clos Pepe Estate in the Sta. Rita Hills of Sta. Barbara, California. After teaching high school and college for nearly decade, the kids drove me to drink and I went pro. Working the fields of my family’s Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vineyard was a revelation. There is nothing like being with the vines, working them, sculpting and nourishing them, watering, testing and harvesting them. A physical responsibility to coax deliciousness out of a specific piece of dirt is a lost craft.

The first question you should be asking yourself while reading this article is this: will making a vineyard organic make my wine taste better? This is key. Even though I used many sustainable/organic practices in our family vineyard in Santa Barbara County, California, I am a pragmatist. I understand that using natural fertilizers such as bat guano, kelp extract and fish emulsion are more expensive than their commercial counterparts. By this I mean you get a lot less organic nitrogen/phosphorous/potassium (NPK) for your money. Don’t be fooled though. There are subtle changes that occur in the soil when you use organic fertilizers, changes that will positively impact soil structure, nutrient availability, and fertility. There are reasons that I choose to use these practices, but if the philosophy did not produce measurable results, I would quickly abandon it.

Organic: The following definition of organic was passed at The National Organic Standards Board’s April 1995 meeting in Orlando, FL. “Organic agriculture is an ecological production management system that promotes and enhances biodiversity, biological cycles and soil biological activity. It is based on minimal use of off-farm inputs and on management practices that restore, maintain and enhance ecological harmony. The primary goal of organic agriculture is to optimize the health and productivity of interdependent communities of soil life, plants, animals and people.”

So what does that mean to the viticulturist? It means that instead of feeding the plant with synthetic fertilizers, you build the soil and the vine’s environment to strengthen the entire system that supports the vine. The key here is to limit ‘inputs’ into the vineyard that are not sourced from organic material. The best type of fertilizer in an organic vineyard would be that which can be produced right there at your property: home-made compost, manure, etc. The final goal of organic agriculture is to produce delicious produce while promoting healthy soils, promote diversity of animals and insects living around the farm (forming a natural balance to keep out single pest species that, unchecked, can hurt the vineyard system), and reduce our reliance on chemically-based fertilizers.

Sustainable: Depending on who you talk to, ‘sustainable’ winegrape production can have widely differing definitions. Some purists believe ‘sustainable’ goes beyond organic, that everything that is used on the farm (all inputs), MUST come from the farm. That means you make your own compost, use manure from your own animals, pump your own water without depleting the underground sources, perhaps even using a windmill or hydro-electric source to produce the electricity for pumps and winemaking. This is difficult to do in grape growing, as most farms I know do not have a sulfur mine to make fungicide. (Using ‘wettable sulfur’, or sulfur that is applied in liquid form to the vine, is generally considered an organic practice.) Personally, I would need a bat cave for the guano, and an ocean and a plant to process kelp and fish into fertilizer. That wouldn’t leave much time for farming and winemaking! For our purposes, let’s choose a more liberal definition of ‘sustainable’: a system of agriculture that attempts to keep soils healthy and viable for many future generations, reducing or eliminating erosion, soil depletion, or the need for chemical inputs. Sustainable viticulture promotes soil health and hand labor (where practicable) to give the vine everything it needs to be healthy, balanced and to produce delicious wine. The sustainable farmer, even one who farms only in their back yard, should consider the ‘sustainable creed’: “environmentally sound, socially just, and economically viable.”

Conventional: Defined as the standard, commercial practices used by modern viticultural professionals. Conventional viticulture is commonly vilified unfairly, as even the most chemical-reliant vineyard is likely safer for workers and wine drinkers than any other form of row-crop farming or orchard management. In other words, viticulture tends to be cutting edge and focused on lowering inputs for economic reasons, which leads to safer wines ‘naturally’. Science leads us forward, and there are hundreds of brilliant scientists making lower and lower impact ag chemicals that should never be ignored just because they are not ‘elemental’ or ‘organic’.

Biodynamic: Based on the spiritual ravings of an untrained agronomist and 19th Century L. Ron Hubbard named Rudolph Steiner, I will leave the definition of ‘BD’ who someone who can stomach it, as I find it insulting to a modern, scientific mind. More religion than science, BD’s greatest asset is involved, passionate viticulturists who walk their fields more than conventional farmers, and have a great desire for purity, safety and environmental stewardship. The actual practices, from my frame of reference as a viticulturist for the past three decades, are untested and unproven by double blind, peer reviewed studies. BD practitioners are much like Scientologists themselves: generally very nice people with an unproven philosophy that they are more than likely to talk about. From the Demeter website: “A foundation of the Biodynamic method of farming is a Goethean observation of nature and its application to a farming system. This encourages a view of nature as an interconnected whole, a totality, an organism endowed with archetypal rhythm.” Any ecologist would tell you that no part of farming is strictly ‘natural’ and it is my supposition that BD practitioners are trying to reclaim a ‘natural’ production method in an unnatural agricultural environment. To me BD is wish fulfillment in the same way that we shout to the heavens and expect reality to change as a result. I’ve never seen it happen, either in a vineyard or in my life. Theosophy and ‘Steinerites’ get way weirder—espousing ideas of ghosts and aliens and ether, but we’ll leave that to your imagination and further research. And what’s the deal with making Goethe the ‘godfather’ of an agricultural movement? I guess I’ll have to ask Mephistopheles!

To be fair, there are a large number of BD enthusiasts who insist BD has ‘freed itself’ of the strong influence of Rudolph Steiner. But in my inquiries it seems that even these folks are still applying the preparations suggested by his works. In the aftermath of this blog post, I applied some research and found this excellent article that details the most recent attempts to study the scientific impact of BD, and it shows no difference in the impacts of BD and organic viticultural methods: ASHS Study on BD methods in Vineyards

And another very important concept to consider:

Biodiversity: Biodiversity is a concept also shared with Biodynamic and Organic practitioners, but I am going to try to separate the science from the hooey and ‘special preparations’. The idea here is that everything in a natural system (vineyard) is connected. Below the soil there is an amazing diversity of tiny life that breaks down organic matter into food for the vines. Spraying herbicide and making the vines dependent on chemical fertilizer negatively impacts the delicate balance of a ‘living’ soil. A soil that is fed with organic nutrients and is kept free from herbicide will have more biodiversity, and may be more likely to fight off pressure from soil-borne pests and diseases. Many proponents of organic viticulture also point out studies that show healthy soils also help a vine stave off mildew infections and vineyard pests. Above ground, diversity is just as important. Applying insecticide may seem like a wise move to fight off a vineyard pest such as the glassy-winged sharpshooter (I will admit that, as a last resort, that spraying has been effective), but by destroying all insect life in your vineyard, you have also killed all the predators that would have kept the sharpshooter population in check naturally. There is a tiny parasitic wasp native to the Central Coast of California that will lay its eggs in up to 90% of sharpshooter egg masses, severely limiting the pest’s ability to breed. This is diversity at work. With a balanced, diverse habitat filled with animals and insects, none can do too much damage because they are too busy competing and eating one another.

But how does it impact my final appreciation of a wine?

That’s a loaded question! The best I can do is to offer a less than definitive aphorism: ‘The proof is in the pudding’. I would suppose that 8 out of the ten greatest wines I’ve ever tasted were farmed conventionally, or with a moderate focus on sustainability.

A farmer’s drive, passion and understanding of their own vineyard, soil, climate, staff, etc. are more important to me than the definition of his or her farming style. My favorite viticulturists use cultural practices across the spectrums of conventional to organic—fine tuning practices with the same crew (economic/social sustainability) each year to increase cleanliness and quality of their crop.

There is an idea floating around out there that ‘natural wines’ are inherently superior, that by shunning fungicides in the field and sulfur dioxide in the winery, that a wine is a better vehicle for place and vintage. I have found the opposite to be true—that conventionally grown and vented wines are generally far more clean, fresh, bright and enjoyable on average than ‘natural’ wines that tend to be vinegary and microbially unfit for being sold successfully in the broad market. I have had excellent examples of ‘natural’ and BD wine, but I am sad to say that they are still in the minority of what I can find.

So how about the broadly accepted idea that organic/BD wines better represent ‘terroir’? Well, after 25 years managing vineyard and making wine I get the concept. Divorced from chemical-based farming, organic wine production methods produce a drink that is more ‘honest’ and representative of the soil and climate from which it was born. I agree and disagree. I agree because it seems so blatantly obvious—a wine grown with less chemical inputs is more ‘pure’ and potentially healthy. But do they taste better? I can’t say! I have seen CCOF organic farms decimated by powdery mildew to the point where they lost 100% of the crop. That wine, if it was made, would have been horrific. I’ve seen conventional farmers lose crops as well, but using modern fungicides, that chance is drastically reduced. I’m a big believer in using science wisely, and would not ignore a new fungicide because it was created by scientists in a lab. What the ‘natural wine’ folks forget is that no farming is natural—any ecologist worth their salt will tell you that. Even the most chemical-laden vineyard is likely more green than most ag row crops, and I have still yet to see any good research that shows conventionally farmed wine is less than wholesome and safe to drink. Do conventionally farmed wines show brighter, more pure fruit? Some think so. Do Organic/BD wines show more depth and earthiness? Many would agree. To me, though, the final quality of the wine is what I care most about. In the end, my suggestion is that vineyard managers observe their vineyard as much as possible and attempt to use the most efficacious and low-impact materials they can to guarantee a sound, clean crop that will make the wine potentially delicious and salable. Other than that? You be you and we’ll have fun with your end product.

Conclusion: After reading this article, you may be surprised to read my conclusion: It is clear I am an Organic/BD agnostic, bordering on skeptical rejection. The irony is that, in my 20 years managing Clos Pepe Vineyards in Lompoc, CA, my management style evolved closer to a sustainable/organic program the longer I farmed that piece of dirt. We stopped using herbicide and hand-hoed the vine rows. We brought in sheep and chickens in the winter to mow cover crop and provide perf3ectly balanced natural manure for the vines’ proper level of vigor. We offered our vineyard workers medical benefits and a piece of the farm to grow food for them and their families. And the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay reflected the love, attention and passion we showed the vines. Observation and carefully using the lowest-impact sprays I could made the wine better, regardless of vintage and other factors I could identify in the field, winery, barrel and bottle.

There are few products on the planet that receive such intellectual and hedonistic focus than wine—and I will argue that it is that focus that drives this conversation. We all want to taste special wines, grown and made by men and women that are doing what they love. There is a modern quest for authenticity, representing our hopes that we can see/feel/touch consume at least one honest thing each day we spend in the concrete jungle. My perspective is that science is our friend, and that modern agronomic concepts such as GMO, safer and more efficient chemicals and a careful vetting of the Ag Companies that are doing this work will help feed the poor, reduce undernourishment and starvation, and will make better, safer, more delicious wines from conventional, sustainable and even organic vineyards.

Post Script: One last thing about ‘Sustainability’:

Ironically, organic production methods of food are not sustainable with today’s population. Of the 100 billion human beings that have walked the earth, over 14% are still alive today. And if you snapped your fingers and made the entire world’s food production organic, well thanks Thanos, you just killed about 25% of the world’s population in the next six months. Organic food is a great conversation for those that can afford it. In the current world we live in, ‘Organics’ is bourgeois and exclusionary, and even worse. Those who rail against GMO crops to feed folks in Africa, India, and other underserved agricultural communities are forcing those countries to continue starving and being undernourished.

And lastly, I would like to declare the word ‘sustainable’ dead, just like words like ‘interesting’ or ‘paradigm’. In Steven Pinker’s excellent book ‘Enlightenment Now’ he offers a chart that shows the use of the word ‘sustainable’ and it’s pretty funny:

If we plot the use of the word ‘sustainable’ in modern culture from 1920 up to today, we can extend that trend and learn that:

By 2036: the word sustainable is used, on average, every written page of US English text.

By 2061: ‘Sustainable’ appears, on average, in every sentence of US English text.

By 2109: English will consist wholly of the word ‘sustainable’ written over and over.