Beyond Organic Wine

My guest for this episode is Megan Bell of Margins Winery near Santa Cruz California, and this conversation may cause you to have strong emotional reactions at times. That’s not a trigger warning, it’s a tease. Megan has hot takes on just about every topic related to wine, and I’m not shy about asking her some big questions. Most of all I think you’ll come to love Megan’s honesty and openness about her struggles and visions, some of the financial and business realities of her winery operations, and the state of the wine industry from her perspective. Her candidness is refreshing, and her dreams are inspiring.https://www.marginswine.com/Support this episode by subscribing via patreon.Or by donating or taking action at:Beyond Organic WineSponsor:Centralas Wine 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

Daniel Hess is the owner of Convivium Imports, which has one of the largest Swiss wine portfolios in the US, as well as unique wines from lesser known producers practicing organic viticulture (at minimum) in lesser known regions all over Europe. The wine he imports to the US reflects his multi-cultural background and his desire to represent a greater diversity of producers who put great farming first in the wine import market. https://conviviumimports.com/Support this episode by subscribing via patreon.Or by donating or taking action at:Beyond Organic WineSponsor:Centralas Wine 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 Ben Falk. If you don’t know Ben, he’s the author of The Resilient Farm and Homestead, 20 Years of Permaculture and Whole Systems Design, which I would describe as THE homesteading manual and is the result of decades of Ben’s life in Vermont designing, implementing, and maintaining regenerative polycultures systems.Ben is very well known in the permaculture world, but isn’t known so much in the wine world… which seemed a shame to me, as he has immense practical knowledge to share that would be useful to those of us growing wine. We cover many topics, as usual, in this conversation. From the state of the world, to learning how to design your life to be able to spend more time working in the land. And we get practical about many aspects of growing and maintaining fruiting perennials… which is my catch all term for grapes, apples, pears, berries, etc that we use to make wine.I’ve been thinking a lot about how owners of smaller vineyards can incorporate grazing, since the larger ruminants like sheep and cows are difficult to keep in any significant numbers without a good bit of land. Ben loves working with cows more than sheep, as it turns out, and has some great suggestions about how to protect your fruiting perennials from them. But we also dig into geese, which are also amazing grazers for smaller vineyards and orchards, and have their own nuances, as well as ducks, chickens, fencing, livestock guardian dogs, and more.Also, Ben has some beautiful things to say about mead making and has very much inspired me to consider mead making.Ben asks us to consider resilience in our winemaking. What kind of winegrowing and making can we continue to do indefinitely? What kind of wine makes our land continually healthier and more lush? What kind of winemaking makes our lives happier and more energetic? What kind of winemaking can continue to nourish us regardless of the changing whims and trends of the wine market? I think you’ll find that Ben has some great insights into answering these questions.https://www.wholesystemsdesign.com/Support this episode by subscribing via patreon.Or by donating or taking action at:Beyond Organic WineSponsor:Centralas Wine 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

If you haven’t heard of Dr. Jonathan Lundgren and Ecdysis, you’re in for a treat. Jon is from the middle of this country and has seen the return of dust storms to our farmland. He was one of the most preeminent scientists in his field, but when he looked around at the farmland he passed as he drove through the Midwest, he saw that none of his achievements were making a difference. He wanted to effect positive change. Like most of you listening who see what is happening to your world, he wanted to make it better. So he did. I don’t want to over-hype him or the work he’s doing, but it may be unique in the history of the world. Ecdysis is undertaking one of, if not the largest science projects of its kind ever. Known as the 1000 farms initiative, the folks of Ecdysis visit and collect data from what will soon be over 1000 farms, including vineyards and orchards. Of course he isn’t doing this work alone. There’s a team of passionate, intelligent people who make this project possible.  This data he has been collecting shows the ecological, economic, environmental, sociological, and psychological results of different types of farming practices. And as Jon and the Ecdysis team collect more and more data over more and more years, the results provide an avalanche of evidence that not only makes it clear that regenerative agriculture is the solution, but also provides the basis for policy and laws to change and adapt to the undeniable evidence.https://www.ecdysis.bio/Support this episode by subscribing via patreon.Beyond Organic WineSponsor:Centralas Wine 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 Nick Hillman. Nick has worked with vineyards on three continents, including all across the US. Nick now lives in Texas where hed does vineyard and farm consultation with his company Regenerative Agriculture Solutions. Nick has been on a journey that led him from conventional, recipe-type viticulture to a transformed regenerative outlook and approach. He tells us about the ideas and experiences that began to make him ask harder questions, the things that didn’t make sense or seem wise. We get technical about Integrated Pest Management or IPM, as well as the pros and cons of VSP versus high trellis systems, dormant spraying for the most effect with least impact, and Texas AVAs. Along the way, Nick digs into what regenerative viticulture is all about, and why it has grabbed him and led him on this journey.  https://www.regenerativeagsolutions.com/homeSupport this episode by subscribing via patreon.Sponsor:Centralas Wine 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

What if everything you ever heard about foxy wine is a lie?Wine’s F-word is the word "Foxy," and I have been on a journey over the last few years to discover the truth about this word. It has been a surprising and surprisingly impactful journey because it turns out that this word is tied up with almost everything that is currently and perennially relevant to the wine industry because it has to do with deeply held prejudice. And that’s why I believe it’s important to understand what’s going on with this wine term. I don’t know of any journey that is more important than freeing ourselves of prejudice. Liberating our minds from the tyranny of misinformation and our own psychological hang-ups may be, I think, the only way that we will be able to adapt, evolve, and survive on a planet that is wired with a nuclear self-destruct button that has been entrusted to the care of chest beating apes. In other words, Free your mind, and life will follow.Support this episode by subscribing via patreon.Sponsor:Centralas Wine Some links for research: The red-white wine tasting test: https://web.archive.org/web/20070928231853/http://www.academie-amorim.com/us/laureat_2001/brochet.pdf A History of Wine In America, Thomas Pinney 1989https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft967nb63q&chunk.id=d0e11447&toc.id=&brand=ucpress “foxy” studyhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41438-020-0304-6?fromPaywallRec=true https://www.nature.com/articles/s41438-019-0163-1genetic basis of grape wine aroma    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

Meet Charlie and Josh of Sylvan Farm and Cidery. They do such an excellent job of introducing themselves and their story, that it would be redundant for me to pre-introduce them here. But I will tempt you to listen on by saying that they talk about harvesting wildish fruit – you know wild is an illusion, right? So maybe feral is more accurate - and making wine cider from it. Or cider wine. They talk about Queer ecology, and living and growing on the feral side of agriculture. They talk about how they’re integrating tree breeding and selection and adaptive un-farming into their orchard program. And they talk about what they’ve learned from getting this thing started over the past couple of years. Now Sylvan Farm & Cidery is new, and I love the ideas and intentions behind it and through it because I think we’ll all be able to learn some really valuable things along with Josh and Charlie as they explore these ideas in their farming. Oh and they may be making some of the most deliciously interesting perry that come from a grove of wild feral trees that may actually be one tree, like one super organism tree, so I’m excited for you to hear about that and for us all to taste their first vintage soon!https://sylvanfarmandcidery.com/Support this episode by subscribing via patreon.Sponsor:Centralas Wine 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

Winegrowers around the globe have made it their goal to grow grapes without sprays. Not only are they succeeding, they are reshaping the way we think about wine.This is a special episode featuring a story about multiple winegrowers who make wine from grapes that they never spray with pesticides or fungicides, neither conventional nor organic. If the thought of attempting this makes you queasy, it may be because of some foundational beliefs you hold about wine that you've never challenged. This story will ask you to challenge them.In fact a wine publication who had bought this story as a pitch decided to kill it because of the questions it asks of the entire wine industry. Yet when we begin to ask how we might grow wine without sprays, we discover an entirely new way of thinking about wine, how it is grown and made, and what it is made with.If you care about zero zero wine but have never considered no-spray viticulture, you're missing out on the fundamental zero that could and perhaps should be the essence of natural wine. At the heart of the no-spray viticulture revolution is reconnection with the natural world, to see how it grows and thrives and produces abundance without sprays, and then to emulate and work in cooperation with these forces. It may take a perspective shift, and the eradication of some prejudice as well. The result will be economic benefits, emissions reduction, health, diversity, and true reflections of terroir in our wines. Support this episode by subscribing via patreon.Sponsor:https://paicineslearning.org/events/regenerative-winegrowing-workshop/ 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 Kelly Allen and Andrew Napier of Artemisia Farm in Virginia. They are hybrid grape growers, and winemakers, aromatized wine makers, makers of wine made with native American fruits besides grapes, writers and publishers, wine faire organizers, farmers who do a regular CSA, foragers, and passionate entrepreneurs.But more than that they are incredibly thoughtful about everything they do, and they are really enjoyable to talk to, which never hurts.Now, one important thing that is worth mentioning. Kelly and Andrew use lots of wild fruits and ingredients, as well as some permaculture farmed fruits – so things that are far beyond organic – and they use some other farmed fruits that are farmed organically though not certified. But they don’t farm their hybrid grapes organically. This is an intentional choice they make because they believe it is the more ecological choice in their context. Virginia, for those who aren’t familiar, is a subtropical climate that also has cold winters. Their growing season is hot, sticky, humid, and wet… and the perfect conditions for every grape fungal and insect pest. In these conditions, many people in Virginia are growing vinifera. To do this often takes weekly applications of chemical sprays, as many as 15-25 conventional sprays in a growing season. That is frankly insane and is tantamount to poisoning our environment. But Organic sprays, which are less effective, often need to be applied at least as frequently in Virginia – that is weekly - even when using resistant hybrid grapes, which means a lot of substance buildup and compaction and fossil fuel use. Meanwhile Kelly and Andrew can spray their hybrids once per month and are learning how to manage the vineyard so they can do even less.  I’m not saying what’s right or wrong here, I’m saying that if you are trying to grow grapes in the most ecological way in this context, I think an organic label doesn’t give you enough information and there are likely compromises to any path you take. However, Kelly and Andrew and I all agree that growing vinifera in Virginia is not only foolish, it’s irresponsible, and we aren’t afraid to piss some people off by saying that.This conversation is information rich!Support this episode by subscribing via patreon.Sponsors:https://paicineslearning.org/events/regenerative-winegrowing-workshop/ 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 episode is the second part of the conversation I had with Nicolas Haack of Triebwerk agroforestry consulting in Germany. In this part, Nicolas asks me to go into detail about the vitiforestry project I’m planning near the Finger Lakes region of New York. As part of my education and design process for this farm, I took a permaculture design certification course last year through Oregon State University, and used the New York land for my design project. As we learned in last week’s episode, it’s probably more accurate to call this an analysis process, rather than a design process, because the emphasis is really on carefully learning about the land, who lives there, what kind of relationships exist prior to my involvement, how can we best enter the picture without doing harm, how can we ensure that the actions we take on the land are beneficial? Once you ask these questions, and listen and observe and research for the answers, the design almost takes care of itself… all of the elements of soil, water, wind, sun, fire, ecology, culture, social connections, climate, and history join together to guide what our stewarding of the land could look like. Our passions and intentions are important, of course, but in ecological design, they should respond to the land rather than force the land to respond to us.In this episode we discuss many of the details of the vision I have for my vitiforestry project and how it was informed by this process of land analysis. As you’ll hear, even though grapes are what inspired this project, I’ve come to see them as only a part of what is best for this land. I think it’s an important point that I began by thinking about features, and through a lot of learning and considerations I realized I needed to pay attention to systems and relationships. The permaculture course I took led me to these considerations, and asks us to plan “plant system designs” rather than “tree planting” for example.Relationships are at the heart of regenerative viticulture, and that’s what I love about vines growing with trees.2000 years ago Pliny the Elder wrote a Natural History encyclopedia, and one chapter was about growing vines in trees. He said, “The experience of ages has sufficiently proved that the wines of the highest quality are only grown upon vines attached to trees…” Since then we’ve lost most of the knowledge that was common to his time about this practice of “tree-lising” vines, as Nicolas coins the term in this episode.So much of the work that is being done in vitiforestry now is re-discovery… We aren’t providing answers, we’re asking questions. If you, like me, want to create a wine culture that isn’t built on fossil fueled industrial inputs, that is diverse and regenerative, then growing vines in living trees seems an important form of viticulture to consider. It has some obvious benefits. But it also has some obvious challenges. Like anything, there are some compromises to consider, and there are even more unknowns.I mention this in the episode, but I want to underline that all of this planning and designing of a vitiforestry system on this land in New York is not my idea, I’m just mimicking what’s already happening on the land. Without any help or analysis or planning and designing, grapevines are already growing in trees all over the property. All I’m really doing is encouraging more of that natural cultural expression in a way that is easier for humans to manage and produce even more grapes and tree fruits. The Context – the ecology of the land – is of utmost importance. For example, if I was planning a farm in California now, I would probably be thinking about agave and prickly pears and peyote, rather than grapes and pear and persimmon trees.  There are some things that we know about vitiforestry. As Pliny pointed out, one reward for embracing vitiforestry is diversity. To me, diversity is one of the elements of beauty. As you’ll hear, my primary goals for my vitiforestry project are to ask what viticulture might look like if we designed our systems, if we built our cultures, to be beautiful rather than just efficient, to be self-sustaining, rather than just productive. I want my farm, my WineForest, to give you a sense of wonder as you walk through it, and to be resilient when the fragile systems we’ve built quickly with fossil fuels come crashing down. I don’t think beauty and wonder and resilience have to be at odds with living, but they might be at odds with my current mindset about some things, they might be at odds with our current dominant culture that exerts so much pressure on our thinking through its economic values. Maybe what I’m proposing is an alternative universe.But I hope I can share it with you someday.Support this episode by subscribing via patreon.Sponsors:https://paicineslearning.org/events/regenerative-winegrowing-workshop/ 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