What is Organic Wine?
Following the recent creation by the USDA of a National Organic Program, an organic wine is now defined as "a wine made from organically grown grapes and without any added sulfites". By this unfortunate restriction, the vast majority of what you and I have been calling organic wines must now be referred to as "wines made from organic grapes" (or organically grown grapes), as they are allowed to contain up to 100 ppm of added sulfites. Strictly speaking, we carry only a few Organic Wines at the moment: a red Languedoc, a white Muscadet and a dessert wine, the famous Cartagene, which contain no added sulfites at all!
While we support the effort of winemakers to explore avenues to eliminate the use of sulfur dioxide, the truth is that wines without added sulfites are still very few in number and very unstable in quality, giving the public a negative perception of what an Organic Wine can be! The wine industry has therefore the dubious honor of being the only one that cannot call its product "organic" even though it is made with more than 95% of organic components. [Even with the maximum permissible amount of 100ppm SO2 present in the wine, the actual percentage is still 99.99% organic!].
This is detrimental to the winegrowers who seek to market a consistently drinkable product and yet are discriminated against in an absolutely unprecedented way. It is also confusing to consumers and merchants alike who did not need more categories to lose their sanity over! Moreover, a wine without sulfites should not be equated with an organic wine, since it is quite possible to make a sulfite-free wine with conventional (non organic) grapes.
The excessive attention given to this matter is an unwelcome distraction from the much more important issues of soil depletion and erosion, water pollution, loss of biodiversity, ecological impact, resistance to pests, chemical dependence, and product standardization to name a few.
In all cases, though, an independent body of certification, itself duly accredited by the almighty USDA, has the responsibility to control each winegrower, once or twice a year, to verify his adherence to the standards for organic farming, now internationally recognized. The fundamental idea behind organic wine is that making wine from grapes grown without chemical fertilizers, weed killers, insecticides, and other synthetic chemicals is better both for the planet AND for the wine drinker because all of these things can damage the soil and the plant, and can end up in the wine as residue.
How does Conventional Viticulture differ from Organic Viticulture?
Conventional agricultural practices, adopted in large part over the past 50 years, have stripped from the soil the minerals which are essential for healthy crops, justifying in turn the increasing use of artificial help to replace what has been lost. In fact, according to conservative estimates, seventeen insecticides, fumigants, and herbicides are currently being used in conventional wine grape production.
Many consumers are not aware of the fact that grapes are one of the most heavily sprayed crops around, and that when pesticides are sprayed on the grape skins to protect them from disease, they end up as residue in the wine (by being washed from the grapes as they are pressed or put in the vat). In addition to contact pesticides, there are also systemic pesticides which penetrate the plant and end up in the grape pulp, and inevitably as residue in the wine. A number of these chemicals are of great concern because they are suspected carcinogens.
The cornerstone of organic farming is the soil. Maintaining a healthy, biologically active soil is the main objective for an organic farmer. In the vineyard it means cultivating the soil and planting cover crops, instead of applying herbicides. It means using natural fertilizers, such as composted animal manure, versus chemical fertilizers. Organic growers use no synthetic growth-regulators (such as Alar). As for pesticides, the organic alternative consists in encouraging natural predators of insect 
pests instead of using poisonous chemicals.
Organic farmers promote "biodiversity" and allow plants other than vines to grow in and around the vineyard. Biodiversity helps regulate the vineyard soil by attracting beneficial insects, spiders and predatory mites, as well as provide shelter and food (pollen, nectar and other bugs), and replaces the need for chemical pesticides or insecticides. What cannot be fully controlled through biodiversity can still be managed organically, through the use of naturally occurring plant or mineral extracts, which leave no residues in the soil.
To answer the problem of weeds, conventional farmers use chemical weed killers. The organic alternative is to allow the weeds to grow, and mow them periodically so that the cut weeds rot back into the ground, thus providing organic fertilizer.
There is no doubt that growing under organic conditions protects the environment and the people that work in the vineyards from the adverse effects of pesticides, herbicides and insecticides. Organic is more than simply a way of farming. It is also a philosophy. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said "We did not inherit the Earth from our forefathers, we are borrowing it from our descendants."
In the cellar, "organic" suggests minimal processing and no use of chemical additives. Organic winemakers pay particular attention to three factors: the use of yeasts, the filtration/fining method, and the use of sulfur dioxide. The need for cultured yeasts in organic winemaking is reduced by the farming practice itself, for wild yeasts remain present, unperturbed by weed killers or insecticides. Therefore their use is limited to difficult weather conditions which would threaten the harvest. The physical treatment of the wine (like filtering and fining) is kept to a minimum. However temperature control during the winemaking process is widely used.
Minimizing the use of sulfur dioxide as an antioxidant is stringently observed. It's rather difficult to make a wine that will keep well without adding at least some sulfites to those naturally produced by the yeasts. This is particularly true of white wines, which ferment apart from grape skins. Red wines ferment with juice and skins together, providing them not only with their color but with various tannins, a natural preservative.
All of the wines imported by Organic Wine Company are "Certified Organically Grown " by ECOCERT or BIOFRANC and contain only a minimal amount of sulfur dioxide. The average amount of total SO2 found in the bottles analyzed by the official BATF laboratory is 40ppm (parts per million) for our red wines, 60ppm for the white and 80ppm for the sparkling. Conventional wines typically contain 2 to 3 times these amounts. The rule set by the USDA calls for a maximum of 100ppm.
Nowadays, french organic wines show up consistently among the top ten best wines of any region (when available), being cited in magazines as the most innovative, interesting and personalized products around. Surprisingly, due to a relative lack of public awareness, this quality does not come at a big premium, compared to everything labeled "organic" these days!
One theory for this outstanding quality is that organic vineyards have more natural resistance to poor weather or pestilence, and therefore tend to perform better in poor vintages than non-organic ones. Additionally, many organic vineyards hand pick their grapes, rather than using mechanical pickers. This allows only the ripest and healthiest bunches to be picked, with the minimum amount of stress/damage to the vine, fruit or soil.
Organic vineyards choose organic methods to obtain the strongest and richest grapes possible, with the fewest detrimental effects on the environment, and their wines reflect that dedication to quality.
Click here for Feature Article on Organic Wines: Back to Basics
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