Wine Making—Organic and Sustainable

An increas­ing num­ber of wine­mak­ers, how­ever, have turned against this “tide of progress” and gone back to ways and meth­ods that sus­tain the land and the vines, sup­port rather than harm the envi­ron­ment, and result in a prod­uct of unsur­passed purity. Organic Connections recently vis­ited with two of these vini­cul­tur­ists and learned how wine can be sus­tain­ably produced.

While the USDA has a def­i­n­i­tion of organic farm­ing that man­dates grow­ing with­out the use of chem­i­cal pes­ti­cides, her­bi­cides or fer­til­iz­ers, both of these pro­duc­ers go con­sid­er­ably beyond the scope of that def­i­n­i­tion. Instead of using “organ­i­cally approved” com­pounds (as can be done under the USDA def­i­n­i­tion), they have achieved the uti­liza­tion of agents that are com­pletely from nature. These par­tic­u­lar vine­yards not only pro­duce grapes organ­i­cally but their entire wine­mak­ing process is organic as well.

Frey Vineyards

Frey Vineyards is sit­u­ated in the beau­ti­ful Redwood Valley in Mendocino County, California, and was actu­ally the very first organic win­ery in the United States. Paul and Beba Frey both grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and after they were mar­ried set­tled in Redwood Valley. They raised their twelve chil­dren with a total love of the land and agri­cul­ture, and in the late 1960s planted Cabernet Sauvignon and Gray Riesling grapes on the ranch’s old pas­ture­land, sell­ing the fruit to nearby winer­ies. A decade later, sons Jonathan and Matthew Frey real­ized the vine­yards’ poten­tial when a Cabernet Sauvignon made from Frey’s grapes won a gold medal for a Santa Cruz win­ery. Frey Vineyards was estab­lished the next year, in 1980.

Frey Vineyards is a com­pletely fam­ily owned and oper­ated busi­ness. Seven of the twelve Frey sib­lings, along with some of their spouses, work full time at the win­ery. Sustainable prac­tices have been part and par­cel of the plan from the begin­ning; the fam­ily knew they were there to stay, wished to con­tribute to the over­all eco­log­i­cal com­mu­nity instead of rob­bing from it, and wanted a legacy to pass on to their children.

Into the Ground

Wine begins with grapes, and grapes, of course, depend on the land on which they are to be entirely self-sustaining, and most of their grow­ing activ­i­ties are sup­ported by prod­ucts in and around the vine­yards. In addi­tion to pre­serv­ing native health, this also helps main­tain what is called the ter­roir (pro­nounced “terr-wah”) of the crop—something that wine­mak­ers in Europe have con­cen­trated on for cen­turies and US wine mak­ing has begun pay­ing atten­tion to as well. Terroir takes into account the spe­cial char­ac­ter­is­tics bestowed upon the grapes by the native geog­ra­phy. Along with soil com­po­si­tion, it includes such con­di­tions as shade, sun­light, amount of rain­fall, influ­ence of local bod­ies of water, and numer­ous other fac­tors all con­sid­ered to be an essen­tial part of the char­ac­ter of the grapes.

“We start with return­ing the grape waste from the win­ery back to the vine­yard as com­post,” vine­yard man­ager Derek Dahlen told Organic Connections. “We plant cover crops in the fall—such as oats, bell beans, win­ter peas, mus­tard and crim­son clover—which helps soil nutri­tion, and the graz­ing ani­mals that we use to mow the cover crop help fer­til­ize the soil.” Encouragement of preda­tory insects and birds is also part of the nat­ural man­age­ment of the vine­yards and reduces the need for pesticides.

Mineral con­tent of the soil is extremely impor­tant, and in the past they have used agri­cul­tural lime and oys­ter shells to assist it. But the geo­graph­i­cal area in which Frey Vineyards is located is rare in that the native soil is actu­ally quite healthy. “Our soils are not very defi­cient in min­er­als and have a healthy micro­bi­o­log­i­cal life,” Dahlen explained. “They have a good cal­cium con­tent and a good calcium-to-magnesium ratio. So, right now we’re set, and we’re train­ing our vines to reach deeper into the soil to obtain more min­er­als.” Soil-borne pests such as phyl­lox­era and nema­todes are a threat to grapes grown using cur­rent “mod­ern” meth­ods, and these vines are com­monly sprayed with pes­ti­cides every five to ten days, pro­duc­ing crops that aren’t nearly as robust as the ones grown at Frey Vineyards. “It’s been our obser­va­tion that there are a lot of nat­ural preda­tors to phyl­lox­era and nema­todes in healthy soil, which the chem­i­cals nor­mally used in agri­cul­ture will kill off,” said Dahlen. “That kind of prac­tice allows the pests to flour­ish.” Due to their care of the soil, Frey Vineyards’ plants have become resis­tant to such pests.

No GMO Here

A cur­rent farm­ing prac­tice in the nonor­ganic world that Frey Vineyards won’t par­tic­i­pate in is that of uti­liz­ing genet­i­cally engi­neered crops (also known as genet­i­cally mod­i­fied organ­isms or GMO). This “tech­nol­ogy,” which aims to genet­i­cally alter a crop to give it cer­tain prop­er­ties, con­sists of infect­ing crops with viruses or bac­te­ria to implant them with new genes. Genetic engi­neer­ing has been out­lawed in many areas of Europe, and while cur­rently allowed by the USDA with­out requir­ing label­ing, it is being strongly protested in many organic quar­ters as highly exper­i­men­tal and poten­tially unsafe for consumers.

Frey Vineyards was directly involved in the pass­ing of Measure H in Mendocino County, a mea­sure that actu­ally out­lawed the grow­ing of genet­i­cally altered crops. While GMO has not as yet invaded wine vine­yards, research is well under­way else­where in the US to pro­duce GMO wine grapes. “They say they’re try­ing to get grapes more resis­tant to cer­tain mildews and dis­ease,” Dahlen remarked. “They also want to have them resis­tant to heav­ier doses of poi­son they’d like to spray on them, because fun­guses and insects have become much more resistant.”

Research is also being con­ducted on genetic mod­i­fi­ca­tion of yeast, which is used in the fer­men­ta­tion of wine. “This would be a huge dis­as­ter,” Dahlen said. “Yeast has a very short life cycle and spreads through the air, which means it would poten­tially take over native yeast pop­u­la­tions and infil­trate every nearby vineyard.”

Locally, how­ever, this is not to hap­pen, thanks to the recent leg­is­la­tion. Also, largely due to Frey Vineyards’ influ­ence and exam­ple, a full 30 per­cent of the wine grapes pro­duced in Mendocino County are organic.

Proof Positive—the Wine

To deter­mine ripen­ing and har­vest­ing times, Dahlen and his staff uti­lize refrac­tome­ters, devices that mea­sure the sugar con­tent in the grapes. At the same time, sam­ples of the grapes are brought back to wine­maker Paul Frey Jr., who admin­is­ters what he calls the “chomp test.” Without con­sult­ing the num­bers obtained through the refrac­tome­ters, he tosses a hand­ful of grapes into his mouth and chews them up, care­fully con­sid­er­ing the fla­vors of the skins, the seeds and the juice. The third test is putting juice from the grapes through a hydrom­e­ter in the winery’s lab that also pro­vides a mea­sure of the sugar con­tent. With these meth­ods, they are able to deter­mine usu­ally a few days in advance when par­tic­u­lar grapes will be ready to harvest.

The final proof, of course, is in the crop itself, and of that Frey Vineyards is truly proud. “Our grapes do not have any chem­i­cal residues of any kind and have a very healthy native yeast pop­u­la­tion,” said Dahlen. “We make a num­ber of our wines with­out inoc­u­lat­ing with cul­tured yeast; they fer­ment on the native yeast that is in the field.” This is a most uncom­mon prac­tice, as adding cul­tured yeast is a tra­di­tional part of wine­mak­ing. Allowing wine to fer­ment in this fash­ion retains the intrin­sic char­ac­ter­is­tics of the grapes.

Crops at Frey Vineyards con­sis­tently yield ripe, fla­vor­ful fruit that results in more fla­vorous wine. Vines are also not over­wa­tered— a prac­tice that pro­duces grapes that are actu­ally diluted. “Using a lim­ited amount of water dur­ing the grow­ing sea­son, encour­ag­ing the plants to work harder to get water, giv­ing them lit­tle amounts of stress dur­ing the sum­mer, pushes them to cre­ate a more con­cen­trated, fla­vor­ful fruit instead of a heavy, watered-down ver­sion,” Dahlen said. “Vines can also get ‘pumped up’ and over­pro­duce as a result of the quick-fix fer­til­izer nor­mally used, which cre­ates a diluted prod­uct as well. Grapes that are grown nat­u­rally and allowed to achieve peak phys­i­o­log­i­cal ripeness make a very well bal­anced, com­plete wine. They gen­er­ally have a very good acid-to-sugar bal­ance and a higher tan­nin amount that helps pre­serve the wine longer naturally.”

Preservation of wine is ordi­nar­ily effected through the use of sulfites—preservatives that give wines longer shelf life. Frey Vineyards has com­pletely elim­i­nated these in their wines.

Frey Vineyards pro­duces a long list of wines and has won awards and medals for their Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Pinot Noir, Merlot and many oth­ers. You can browse their avail­able prod­ucts and find out more about the win­ery at their entirely fam­ily main­tained web­site, www.freywine.com.

Cline Cellars

Tucked away in north­ern California’s famous and pic­turesque wine coun­try, Cline Cellars has a rich and col­or­ful his­tory. In the lat­ter part of the 1800s, a gen­tle­man named Valeriano Jacuzzi (yes, the same man involved in the inven­tion of the pump and spa that bear his name) bought a ranch in Oakley in Contra Costa County, California, on which he planted grapes. Jacuzzi’s grand­son made many vis­its to his grandfather’s ranch, acquir­ing a love of the agri­cul­tural life and a fas­ci­na­tion with vinification—the pro­duc­tion of wine. This grand­son, Fred Cline, went on to acquire a degree in agri­cul­tural sci­ence and man­age­ment from UC Davis, and in 1982 he founded Cline Cellars near Oakley. In 1991, Fred and his wife, Nancy, relo­cated the win­ery from Oakley to the Carneros region of Sonoma County on a his­toric 350- acre estate with new vine­yards and facil­i­ties, but they retained the Oakley vineyard.

When Cline founded his win­ery, he had his own dis­tinct approach. “I’m in it for the long term,” he told Organic Connections. “Most peo­ple want to see return on their invest­ments quickly, and don’t mind that in 20 or 25 years they’ve worked a vine so hard that it just can’t with­stand a dis­ease com­ing through. Their vine­yards are always chang­ing because they’re always look­ing for the next quick fix. I’m much more inter­ested in longevity and sus­tain­abil­ity. We farm a lot of old vines—we have some that are over 100 years old in Contra Costa County. That has been a good les­son; they’ve been around for so long they’re sta­ble in their pro­duc­tion and we don’t have huge inputs into them. So I’d rather wait the long term and reap the benefit.”

The foun­da­tion of Cline’s approach is in obser­va­tion. “We are let­ting the ground tell us what to do with it, let­ting the plant tell us what to do with it, instead of just forc­ing things like so much of mod­ern farm­ing today,” he said. What he feeds his plants is all nat­ural, such as the com­posts that he him­self for­mu­lates, mix­ing them with whey from a local cheese fac­tory. A good amount of fer­til­iza­tion comes from the “wooly weeders”—sheep that graze up the weeds com­pet­ing for water and nutri­ents with the vines.

Sheep are also used for “leafing”—removing excess leaves from the vines. One might ask, don’t the sheep also eat the grapes? “You’d think sheep would eat the grapes right there and wipe you out, but they don’t,” said Cline. “If the tim­ing is exactly right, you can get the sheep to eat the leaves so you get more sun­light into the bunches. You put the sheep in the vine­yard when the bunches are almost pea sized and take the sheep out when the grapes reach about 14 degrees Brix.” [Brix is a mea­sure of the dissolved-sugar-to-water ratio within the fruit.]

To pre­vent mildew—a seri­ous prob­lem with the grow­ing of grapes—Cline dusts the vines with organ­i­cally approved sul­fur dust. He also uses a nat­ural com­pound called Bt (Bacillus thuringien­sis) that kills mildew spores. One great source of Bt is crab shells, which Cline and the win­ery have got­ten clever in obtain­ing. Cline Cellars hosts a crab feed just prior to the Super Bowl every year, which is a fundraiser for his local high school. Eight hun­dred peo­ple attend the event, and Cline keeps all the crab shells.

The nutri­tion of the soil is of para­mount impor­tance, and instead of force-feeding it chem­i­cal nutri­ents as oth­ers do, he adds oys­ter shells either in the com­post or directly to the plant to pro­vide potas­sium and cal­cium. For trace min­er­als, he uses rock dust obtained from a cin­der cone—the steep slope sur­round­ing a vol­cano, built almost entirely of loose vol­canic frag­ments called cin­ders. Grapes grown in this fash­ion are far health­ier and, as such, pro­duce a lot more fla­vor. “The dif­fer­ence I’ve seen in our grapes is that there is so much char­ac­ter and fla­vor in them,” Cline remarked. “If you’ve ever had a hot­house tomato as opposed to one that is farm ripened, it’s the same dif­fer­ence; they have the full rich­ness of the bio­log­i­cal and min­eral com­po­nents in your soil. When the soil has a good tilth [the con­di­tion of tilled soil], it is not com­pacted and has an ‘airi­ness’ to it. The plant is health­ier because it can mine for more of the min­er­als and ben­e­fit from the bac­te­ria that are break­ing down the min­er­als. These processes impart true fla­vor into the grapes.”

Another com­po­nent to Cline Cellars’ pro­duc­tion is the tim­ing of the har­vest. “You’ll notice in wines that if you har­vest them ripe, you get more fla­vor than if you har­vest them not quite ripe,” Cline explained. “You get more acid­ity when they are not quite ripe. On the other hand, if they’re har­vested too late you get a kind of fla­vor like raisins, with alco­hol being more promi­nent, instead of a balance.”

Like many wine­mak­ers, Cline sam­ples the grapes and has learned from long years how to decide on har­vest time from their taste, their feel and the appear­ance of the seeds. As a sci­en­tific bench­mark, he also uses a refrac­tome­ter, with which the sugar con­tent of the grapes can be deter­mined. It is sugar that con­verts into alco­hol and is also the pri­mary mea­sure of ripeness of the grapes.

As well as hav­ing sus­tain­able farm­ing prac­tices, the Cline Cellars win­ery runs com­pletely from 2,000 solar pan­els installed on the roof. The result of a part­ner­ship with Solarcraft, this instal­la­tion has reduced 690,000 pounds of green­house gases since imple­men­ta­tion and of course is far more energy efficient.

The Bottled Result

“Our intent,” Cline con­cluded, “is to pro­duce top qual­ity in fla­vor and use skill in mak­ing the wine while main­tain­ing good value. We can do this repet­i­tively and we’re not going to imprint the earth with any neg­a­tive and bring it down; instead we are improv­ing the earth.”

Cline Cellars’ wines have received many acco­lades, rave reviews and awards through­out the years. Top win­ners include their Cline Sonoma Zinfandel, Oakley Five Reds, Pinot Gris, Viognier and Syrah. You can visit their shop, and find out more about their story, at www.clinecellars.com.

To Last for Generations

The meth­ods now being restored by oper­a­tions such as Frey Vineyards and Cline Cellars are return­ing the craft of wine mak­ing to its right­ful place—ensuring it, and our planet, will be there for gen­er­a­tions to come.