Green wines, with “stronger terroir,” may be the next big thing

What’s all this about organic wines — some kind of “sustainable” fad?

Well, not quite.

Until about a hundred years ago, you either drank organic wines — or you didn’t drink wine. Meaning that over thousands of years (a span of time during which wine was an extremely popular beverage), grapes were grown without pesticides, additives or preservatives, as Wine Enthusiast Magazine points out in a tight, bright little primer about the aptly named “green wines.”

We also get an answer to the age-old question: But does it taste good???

The answer is a resounding yes. Green wines are said to have a stronger terroir than conventional varieties. “Some feel that organic wines…taste more flavorful and ‘cleaner,'” says The Organic Wine Company’s Veronique Raskin. Combine that with the health benefits, and you’ll realize why green notes might be the next big thing.

The article lists 10 labels to look for if/when you’re in the market for organic selections.

Want to find a perfectly priced bottle of wine? Give the Smarter Wine Search a try.

New and notable wine headlines, including starters for bargain-basement wine cellar

Handpicked wine stories from across the Web…

A wine’s high price, honest or not, adds to its pleasure, study finds
In other words: Outwit yourself – pay less, enjoy more!

Oregon wines continue to grow
Great news for Oregon wine aficionados. Part of the reason for growth: The state’s wineries are “developing a reputation for sustainable practices and organic products, and the state’s pinot noir grapes have been found to contain an unusually high level of the anti-cancer, heart-healthy compound resveratrol.”

A Bargain-Basement Wine Cellar
Robert Parker focuses on a California winery that offers “premium wines at value prices.” Includes five affordable bottles scoring 85 points or more.

America’s Best Spots For Fine Wine
From Forbes, naturally.

Eco-friendly French to ship their wine under sail
An unexpected example of the increasing greening of wines. “French vineyard owners are returning to a slower pace of life by starting to export their wine by sailing boat – a method last used in the 1800s – to reduce their carbon footprint.”

Thirsty for more news? Follow up by digging into continuously updated feeds from national and international news outlets:

  • Reds (from Beaujolais to Zinfandel)
  • Whites (from Chablis to Sauvignon Blanc)
  • Organic (red, white, in between)

To hit closer to home, try WNR’s Smarter Wine Search tool and see what columnists and wine experts may be writing about in your area. Once there, just type in your city and state (within quotation marks, as in, "Napa, California"), to get results ranked by relevance.

Web sips: New and notable wine headlines, topped off by a Top 100 list

Top 100 Wines
The San Francisco Chronicle serves up a keeper. The list spotlights a wide range of reds and whites, with bubblies and dessert wines thrown in for good measure. Print this one out.

Raising a Glass to (Almost) Organic Wine
Deciding on whether to go with a red or white gets a little more complicated. “Now the question is whether the wine should also be green.”

With wine database, you’re not alone
Speaking of wine selection, here’s a technology (and a pretty pricey one at that) that tries to come to the rescue of hapless wine buyers. If you’re willing to scan.

Students Pop the Cork at Wine Tasting
A Harvard education offers new benefits with a four-hour course covering 21 wines.

Thirsty for more news? Follow up by digging into continuously updated feeds from national and international news outlets: The focus is on red, white and organic wine bargains.

An earthy bargain — organic wine from Chile’s Colchaqua Valley

Marc, wine assistant at Whole Foods
Marc, wine assistant at Whole Foods

I’m lurking in the $10-and-under section of the local Whole Foods grocery store (true to Wine News Review’s fairly frugal affordability index), thinking I’m in the mood for a certain Montepulciano. Don’t ask me why — at that place and point in time, I think it had something utterly to do with the name.

Say it. Let it roll over you tongue. Monte-pul-ciano. Ah, sweet, seems to almost transport you on wings of gossamer wine to that storied ridge of Monte Poliziano in Tuscany’s province of Sienna. (Read more about it here.)

Anyway, I’m admiring the lovely contours of a bottle of this particular product of that storied region, when Marc, the wine assistant, drops by to chitchat and we kick off a conversation about what he recommends. Right off the bat, he asks me if I’d like to try an organic wine.

Blog Action Day
Blog Action Day

Hmmm. Well, I certainly haven’t forgotten that I recently blogged about organic wines, on Blog Action Day 2007. So, yes, I say, I do like organic wines. He recommends an aptly named Natura Carmenere Valle Colchagua 2005, from Chile’s Emiliana vineyards, grown without the use of pesticides or chemicals.

Hmmm. I admire the bottle’s contours and abstractly artistic label, which advertises “notes of ripe cherries and plums.”

I read a little further. “Organic viticulture bring forth the true characters of the vineyard terroir and allows the grapes to express themselves fully.”

I’m sold.

After taking it home, I do a little research. The Colchaqua Valley, though not as storied as Monte Poliziano, is quite exotic in its own right, as the Emiliana website illustrates. Bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Andes Mountains to the east, the valley is caressed by an “extraordinary combination of maritime breezes and Andean winds.”

The result is delicious. Not only does the wine provide the advertised fruitiness, there’s a dry, rich, earthy complexity that, well, makes we want to take another sip, even as I type this thing.

Leslie Sbrocco at Wine Review Online seems to have had a similarly positive reaction. About the very same Natura Carmenere 2005, she writes: “An ideal wine to get acquainted with the beauty of Carmenere, Chile’s unique red grape. Most affordably priced versions can be too herbal and earthy, but this wine captures the spicy, dried herbal notes of Carmenere coupled with its sultry texture.”

Priced at around $10-12, the Emiliana Carmenere, Chardonnay, and Cabernet Sauvignon “bust the current belief that organically grown wines are pricey.”

Colchaqua Valley
Graphic from Emiliana Vineyards

So, thanks, Marc, for a fine recommendation. But truth be told, it wasn’t entirely his salesmanship (excellent though it was) that made me go organic rather than follow my Montepulciano inclination. I was primed, so to speak, by a column by the Dalai Lama in the local paper, The Washington Post, this past weekend.

No, Tenzin Gyatso, the spiritual leader of Tibet, doesn’t appear to be a drinking man. But something he said in that piece struck an organic note, and it may have had a bearing on my decision on what to buy:

The rapid changes in our attitude toward the Earth are also a source of hope. Until recently, we thoughtlessly consumed its resources as if there were no end to them. Now not only individuals but also governments are seeking a new ecological order. I often joke that the moon and stars look beautiful, but if any of us tried to live on them, we would be miserable. This blue planet of ours is the most delightful habitat we know. Its life is our life, its future our future. Now Mother Nature is telling us to cooperate. In the face of such global problems as the greenhouse effect and the deterioration of the ozone layer, individual organizations and single nations are helpless. Our mother is teaching us a lesson in universal responsibility.

Maybe you’re thinking, come on, vinothekid — what possible difference could the purchase of a single bottle of organic wine make?!

The Dalai Lama had a response to that. “Large human movements spring from individual human initiatives,” he wrote. “If you feel that you cannot have much of an effect, the next person may also become discouraged, and a great opportunity will have been lost.”

So there you have it. Oh, and one other thing, I’m adding organic wines to my listing of wine Bargains in the News (right column on the front page). As they say in Monte Poliziano, salute!

Going green and liking it — organic wines grow in popularity, quality

Meinklang vineyard scenes
Meinklang vineyard scenes

Let’s be frank about this – the reason we drink wine isn’t just for what wine literati might call the lush aromas and fruity complexities.

Sure, those things are a big part of it. But the main reason I like wine is that it makes me feel good.

At lunch this past Friday, I discovered how to get an even better feeling out of it. I ordered an organic wine.

Knowing that the wine came from an earth-friendly vineyard somehow made it even more pleasurable.

Maybe it was because on that same day the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for a green cause. Or maybe it was my body subtly telling me something on a deep level.

The wine was a 2006 Meinklang Pinot Noir from Austria, fuller and more darkly aromatic than most other Pinot Noirs I’ve had. My lunch companion seemed surprised and pleased by a Zinfandel richness.

The wine is made by the extended Michlits family on a mixed-agriculture farm using biodynamic principles, in the belief that “vital and robust grapes thriving in healthy, living soil bring exceptional wines of character.”

Biodynamic winegrowing techniques are free of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. There’s admittedly also a strange mystical quality to some of the practices that followers say are aimed at promoting harmony with nature, like the one that calls for burying a cow horn filled with dung under the vineyard soil.

“Yet before you consign practitioners of biodynamics to the distant corner of your mind reserved for Shirley MacLaine and the weird sisters in ‘Macbeth,’ consider that among the people who practice biodynamic viticulture are some of the world’s great wine producers,” Eric Asimov observed in The New York Times a few years ago.

Not all organic wines are biodynamic. For that matter, not all U.S. wines made with organically grown grapes can be labeled “organic” if there’s been any sulfites added as a preservative, as this San Francisco Chronicle article explains in some detail.

In part because of those stringent labeling requirements, organic wines are still in the minority on wine store shelves in this country, but they have been steadily improving in quality even as they grow more popular and winemakers become more adept at organic methods.

“These eco-friendly wines, in many cases, have moved beyond their funky past,” according to this review by The Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher. “They’re worth discovering.” Four of the dozen wines they describe in the article were under $15 when they bought them last year.

“Tides are certainly turning as more vintners are discovering that the common-sense approach to both organic and biodynamic growing methods results in not only ‘healthier’ vines, but in wines with greater flavor, more distinct terroir character and at times a noticeable cost-savings on their bottom line,” adds Stacy Slinkard, wine guide at About.com.

In the Cooking Up A Story video below, Dr. Robert Gross of Cooper Mountain Vineyards in Oregon gives a nicely illuminating account of why he runs an entirely organic operation.



Click here if your RSS feed doesn’t display this video.

While doing research for this article, I ran across a Bon Appétit piece from earlier this year that offered as good an explanation as any on why that Meinklang Pinot Noir seemed so extra good to me. The explanation came from Mike Benziger of Sonoma’s Benziger Family Winery.

“We’ve become so disconnected from the environment,” Benziger said. “When we taste a biodynamic wine, we’re able to make that connection back to nature, if only for an instant. And that’s powerful.”

It only seems right. The earth gives us this great gift. We should give something in return.