Beyond Organic Wine

My guest for this episode is Randall Grahm.If you haven’t heard of him, Randall was New California about 20 years before the wave of New California winemakers. Young winemakers now who have never heard of him are just quote unquote discovering and trying things he did in the 1990s.Alternative packaging? Randall was one of the first advocates in America for the screw cap and staged The Funeral for the Cork at Grand Central Station in NYC in 2002. This elaborate event included a buick hearse, a casket with a full sized corpse made of corks, and a eulogy by Jancis Robinson.Alternative and obscure grape Varieties in the US? Randall was the original Rhone Ranger and appeared on the cover of Wine Spectator dressed as the Lone Ranger, with a horse, in 1989. With his winery, Bonny Doon, he helped introduce and popularize the Rhone varieties of grapes that we take for granted now. At its height, Bonny Doon was one of the largest wineries in America. In 1991 an asteroid was named “Rhoneranger” in his honor. In addition to crafting some other big brands, like Big House Red and Cardinal Zin, he continues to promote obscure and overlooked grape varieties, as you’ll hear in this interview.Randall was an early proponent of ingredient labeling on wine bottles, as well as biodynamic farming.In 1994 He was proclaimed the Wine and Spirits Professional of the Year by the James Beard Foundation, and in 2010 the Culinary Institute of America inducted him into the Vintner’s Hall of Fame.In addition to being a very entertaining disruptor of the wine industry, Randall is an incredibly thoughtful winemaker and writer, and one of his guiding principles has been the pursuit of terroir. In this interview we dig into terroir and “wines of place,” attempting to determine if it is actually a helpful or beneficial concept, or if it is even real. Randall explains how he is testing a few new theories about terroir at his estate vineyard project, Popelouchum, in San Juan Bautista, where he’s growing myriad varieties of grapes, many from seed. And we discuss his partnership with Gallo on The Language of Yes project.I hope this will make you want to learn more about Randall Grahm.Enjoy!https://www.popelouchum.com/https://www.languageofyeswine.com/If you'd like to support this podcast, please subscribe on the https://www.patreon.com/organicwinepodcast.Thank you!Sponsor:https://www.centralaswine.com/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com/subscribe

For this episode I got to interview a real life super hero – The Bat Man.Dr. Dave Johnston is an Adjunct Associate Wildlife Ecologist and Bat Biologist at H. T. Harvey & Associates. Dave is a vertebrate ecologist who specializes in the foraging ecology and conservation biology of bats. He has studied bats for over 30 years and for the past 15 years he has focused on renewable energy and transportation projects in California and Hawaii. He also has ongoing research projects involving the foraging ecology of bats in California, Mexico, Belize, and more recently, in Costa Rica where he currently resides. Dr. Johnston is a hobby winemaker who started making wine as a student at CalPoly, San Luis Obispo.Dr. Johnston describes the many ways bats are vital to our ecology generally, and to wine production specifically. As he explains how unique and diverse bats are, I think you’ll find yourself falling in love with bats, not only because of their importance to the ecology of wine but because they are such amazing creatures that we mostly overlook.In addition to learning about some of the threats to bats – including pesticides and wind turbines – we learn how to attract bats to our vineyards and orchards, which we definitely want to do, and we learn what kinds of bats eat leaf hoppers, vineyard moths, Japanese beetles, and more. And you’re going to hear some fascinating things about the altruism of vampire bats, scorpion eating bats, and flowers that evolved as night blooming satellite dishes for echo-locating bats to pollinate them.Join me on this nocturnal expedition to find out who is tending your vines while you sleep.If you'd like to support this podcast, please subscribe on the Organic Wine Podcast Patreon page:https://www.patreon.com/organicwinepodcastThank you!Sponsor:https://www.centralaswine.com/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com/subscribe

My guests for this episode are Tara Gomez and Mireia Taribó of Camins 2 Dreams winery in Lompoc, California.In some partnerships one person will have the greater passion for or experience with wine, while business or marketing savvy may be the forte of the other partner. In Tara and Mireia’s case there are two partners who caught the winemaking bug early in life and have spent their entire lives, both apart and together, learning about and gaining experience in winemaking… and both contribute their depth of knowledge to the wines of Camins 2 Dreams. What I’m trying to say is that it just isn’t fair how delicious their wines are!Mireia is from Barcelona and grew up steeped in Spanish wine culture. She has multiple undergraduate and graduate degrees in Chemistry, Enology, Viticulture and all things wine. She met Tara while the two of them were working at J Lohr in Paso Robles. Mireia then hired Tara to help her when she got a job making wine in the Pyrennee Mountains for several years.Tara and Mireia are two of my local heroes, based in Lompoc in Santa Barbara County, sourcing grapes from some of the same Santa Rita Hills vineyards that I’ve used for Centralas wines. But it’s important for those of you who aren’t locals to understand that these areas – now part of the Santa Barbara wine country – are the traditional lands of the Chumash tribe, which included much of the central and southern California coast from Mailbu to Paso Robles.Camins 2 Dreams is actually the label for Kalawashaq’ Wine Cellars (named for the village where Tara’s Chumash ancestors once lived) After J. Lohr, Tara started and made wine for her Chumash tribe under Kita Wines. She is the first recognized Native American winemaker, and made Kita the first winery to be run solely by its Native American tribe with fruit from their own lands. Tara was VinePair’s winemaker of the year in 2021.Tara and Mireia started Camins 2 Dreams out of their shared love for wine, winemaking and each other, and I’m honored to share their story with you.https://camins2dreams.com/If you'd like to support this podcast, please subscribe on the Organic Wine Podcast Patreon page:https://www.patreon.com/organicwinepodcastThank you!Sponsor:https://www.centralaswine.com/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com/subscribe

My guest for this episode is Steven Thompson of Analemma. Analemma is a winery located in the Columbia Gorge AVA in the Columbia River Valley in Oregon. Steven views himself as a vigneron, with a holistic perspective that sees winemaking as a year round process that begins in the vineyard. Steven and the Anamlemma team have practiced biodynamic, regenerative farming since its inception and the entire farm has been certified as a biodynamic orgnaism since 2017.I think you’ll love Steven’s soulful approach to farming that sees the interconnectedness of each aspect of an ecosystem. We dig into the seldom discussed aspect of farm aesthetics, and how important it is to farm beautifully, not just ecologically. Steven talks about a unique way that they approach terroir at Analemma by interplanting and creating a sort of vineyard infusion. And we discuss his process for making pied de cuves for starting fermentations naturally.Steven reminded me that we can create a wine culture that is more than just functionally ecological, and commercially sustainable. We can create something that is beautiful, that feeds our soul, and that creates the same kind of same kind of sensory pleasure in the farm that we expect in the glass.https://analemmawines.com/Special thanks:Chiara ShannonIf you'd like to support this podcast, please subscribe on the Organic Wine Podcast Patreon page:https://www.patreon.com/organicwinepodcastThank you!Sponsor:https://www.centralaswine.com/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com/subscribe

My guest for this episode is Max Paschall. Max owns Shelterwood Forest Farm and wrote the article The Lost Forest Gardens of Europe, a deeply researched piece on the polycultures that included grapes and wine and covered much of Europe for thousands of years. Max talks about why these agriculture systems were so resilient, and why they've been marginalized by modern agriculture.Topics covered include:Assisted migration of species, The spirit of trees, communication and intent, What a plant knows, Arboretum America, Lost forest gardens of Europe, the Temple of Diana in Rome and what that has to do with the need to be brave with our viticulture, Provignage – Layering and vineyard superorganisms, and of course Growing vines in trees.If you'd like to support this podcast, please subscribe on the Organic Wine Podcast Patreon page:https://www.patreon.com/organicwinepodcastThank you!Sponsor:https://www.centralaswine.com/Show links:https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com/subscribe

My guest for this episode is Laurel Marcus.Laurel is the Executive Director of the California Land Stewardship Institute based in Napa, California, which administers the Fish Friendly Farming and Climate Adaptation Certifications for vineyards and other farmers.Among her many responsibilities, Laurel works with farmers to conduct studies and gather data on farming practices that prevent erosion, preserve soil moisture, increase soil organic matter, and sequester carbon. Her findings provide some conclusive evidence about best practices, as well as eliminate green washing and carbon washing by showing that there are nuances and conditional dependencies for almost every scenario.Some of the important things we discuss include how soil type and conditions, as well as the type of soil microbe populations, can impact carbon sequestration. And we discuss her findings about how dry farming and no-till systems affect these conditions, as well as some of the realities and misunderstandings about competition between cover crops and vines.Also, Laurel digs into the seldom discussed topic of how the use of mineral nitrogen, rather than compost, and soil conditions can increase the production of nitrous oxide – the most potent  greenhouse gas… about 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide.This is an incredibly information rich interview and provides many practical resources – including funding resources – for how to do wine better. Laurel shows how careful we have to be, in the frenzy to do good, to not think that there are one size fits every situation bumper sticker solutions to our problems. This conversation has inspired me to look even more deeply at these issues, and I hope it does the same for you.If you'd like to support this podcast, please subscribe on the Organic Wine Podcast Patreon page:https://www.patreon.com/organicwinepodcastThank you!Sponsor:https://www.centralaswine.com/Show links:https://www.fishfriendlyfarming.org/https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/healthysoils/   This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com/subscribe

My guest for this episode is Ryland Englehart. Ryland co-founded Kiss the Ground in 2013 and leads the organization as Executive Director, producer of the Kiss the Ground film, and host of the Kiss the Ground Podcast. As a 15-year entrepreneur, he is also the co-owner and prior Mission Fulfilment Officer of the nationally recognized plant-based restaurants, Cafe Gratitude and Gracias Madre, located here in Southern California. And so much more.I met Ryland at a vineyard in Santa Barbara that has been purchased for the express purpose of converting it from a conventional and extractive form of viticulture to a regenerative organic ranch. The occasion of our meeting was a fundraiser for Kiss the Ground, the organization. If you haven’t seen the film documentary Kiss The Ground I can’t recommend it enough. It’s the movie that introduced regenerative agriculture to over 10 million viewers worldwide. If you’re a Netflix subscriber you can watch it tonight.Let me speak plainly: regardless of what kind of agriculture you’re in, whether it’s viticulture, pommeculture, or otherwise, regenerative agriculture is the best solution to industrial agriculture’s degradation of our environment, If you’re wondering what exactly regenerative agriculture is, Ryland gives a great explanation right at the beginning.Ryland may be regenerative agriculture’s biggest spokesperson. And in this conversation he talks about wine’s unique ability to communicate the story and benefits of regenerative agriculture.There’s something infectiously hopeful about listening to Ryland speak. He is brutally honest about the realities we face, but he also has a long view perspective that is rare. He’s at the center of a growing global movement that is heading in the right direction. And it’s hard not to come away feeling that he’s just a spokesperson for the earth and vines and plants themselves.https://kisstheground.com/Support:https://www.patreon.com/organicwinepodcastSponsor:https://www.centralaswine.com/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com/subscribe

My guest for this episode is Mark Shepard. I’m so excited to share this conversation with you because Mark has a perspective on viticulture and agriculture in general that is revolutionary… while also being incredibly common sensical. He’s as funny as he is passionate and that passion comes from wanting to share an incredibly important message not only for producing wine, but also for our survival.Mark is the author of Restoration Agriculture which is a top 10 Amazon best seller in multiple categories. Restoration agriculture is his term for ecomimicry permaculture or multi-story perennial polyculture using what thrives naturally in your ecosystems. He practices this at scale on his 110 acre New Forest Farm in Wisconsin, and on several other properties, and he provides agricultural consulting around the planet.One of the quotes from his book that stood out to me is when he is talking about our conventional, monoculture approach, and says, “We have created the conditions under which pests and diseases thrive, while almost completely ceasing the improvement of the crops’ own resistance to the threats we have created.”This is so true in wine, where we have a global monoculture of a handful of European grapes that have been propagated by cloning for two hundred years or more. And in the last 50 years we’ve spent literally billions of dollars developing chemicals to enable these clones to survive, while investing very little in breeding new varieties that don’t need the chemicals… or in expanding the idea of wine to include other ingredients besides European grapes.Mark doesn’t spray his fruit, whether it’s apples or cherries or chestnuts or grapevines, he employs a kind of vitiforestry, and his approach to agriculture illuminates some incredible perspective shifts in how we could think about growing grapevines differently… as well as how we could think about wine differently… as one symbiotic element in a holistic perennial polyculture.Support the Organic Wine Podcast:https://www.patreon.com/organicwinepodcastSponsor:https://www.centralaswine.com/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com/subscribe

This is episode is something a little different, and it’s sponsored by Centralas Wine. Centralas is my winery and the first chapter  of this two chapter episode is a recording I made while driving around los angeles, as we angelenos are wont to do, so I apologize for the quality. But the content is pretty fun. The context is that I’ve stopped listing grape varieties on the labels for the wines I make and sell through Centralas. Since I made that decision, I’ve become hyper aware of how important grape varieties have become as handles that we think we need to understand a wine. It is literally the first thing people ask when I present one of our wines. This has led to some pretty interesting discussions and even debates. But Rather than make me think I made a mistake in not listing varieties, I’m more committed than ever to being the lone voice, if need be, calling for an end to our varietal obsession. I’m actually pretty convinced we’ve all been brain-washed by the global capitalist monoculture into thinking that knowing the variety of grape is necessary to understand a wine. So there you go… that should set up Chapter one as a fun and somewhat funny take on varietal labeling.And chapter two, while very different, is very symbiotic. It’s called Why Wine is Important, and I think you’ll be a bit surprised at the answer I give, because I try to answer that question from a different perspective so to speak. And that perspective is really the same perspective that chapter one comes from. I don’t want to give anything away, so I’ll leave it at that.Support the Organic Wine Podcast:https://www.patreon.com/organicwinepodcastEpisode Sponsor:https://www.centralaswine.com/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com/subscribe

My guest for this episode is Paul Dolan.Paul Dolan has always been a pioneer leading the industry towards a more sustainable future.  While a winemaker and then president at Fetzer, Paul proved to the California wine industry that wineries and grape growers can preserve and enhance their environment, strengthen their communities, and enrich the lives of their employees without sacrificing the bottom line.  He introduced Bonterra, the first nationally distributed wine made with 100 percent organic grapes, placing Fetzer at the forefront of organic viticulture.  Paul’s experiences at Fetzer led him to publish “True to Our Roots- Fermenting a Business Revolution” that set forth the simple but powerful management principles that enabled Fetzer to become one of America’s best- known wineries and an exemplar of sustainable business practices.Through his leadership at the California Wine Institute, Paul introduced the Code of Sustainable Wine Growing and chaired the Institute from 2006 – 2007.  He also served on President Clinton’s Council on Sustainability, Businesses for Social Responsibility, and The Climate Group, was Chairman of the California Sustainable Winegrowers Alliance, and received the Environmental Business Leader of the Year Award from the California Planning and Conservation League in 2006.Paul has become a spokesman for and practitioner of regenerative winegrowing. He serves on the board of the Regenerative Organic Alliance, and farms his family-owned Dark Horse Ranch as a multi-faceted certified Biodynamic® vineyard and regenerative farm, and is a founding partner of Truett-Hurst Winery. He is constantly seeking to enhance his understanding of the restorative capacity of the soil and the farm, and its relationship to the restoration of the health of the planet’s ecosystems. Sponsor:https://www.centralaswine.com/    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com/subscribe