The ins and outs of Organic Wine

I just read an eye popping statistic. From this Slate article on organic wine:

They found that the organic vines required about 80 times [PDF] as much fertilizer, by weight, as their conventionally-grown counterparts [PDF].

I’ve been thinking about and educating myself on this subject for years, ever since I was asked to classify and promote all of the organic and biodynamic wines we sold at the wine store I used to work at. I created a labeling system for the store that would carry through on the website, and put up signs around the store explaining the basic concepts so that people would know a green dot on the shelf label meant organic and what exactly organic meant. We had lots of what Brian Palmer refers to as ‘covertly organic’ wines, and we definitely struggled with how to deal with those.

I am always on the lookout for good wine packaged in tetra packs or other lightweight packaging, so as to minimize the carbon footprint of my purchase, so if anyone has one they’d like to recommend please do. Convincing people that you could get a good every day wine in an alternative package, or even with just a Stelvin screw cap, was yet another battle I fought daily.

I don’t have a biodynamic calendar handy… I wonder if today is a root day?

 

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