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ORGANIC AND BIODYNAMIC VITICULTURE

The number of winemakers in Italy who choose to be organic in their viticulture is steadily increasing as the small wineries realize that they can handle this more respectful relation to nature and, in the end, offering us consumers a choice of  purer wines.

What is organic wine?

An organic wine in Italy is defined as "a wine made from organically grown grapes” and is allowed to contain up to 60 ppm of added sulphites.

In the US a new and similar restriction now changes the category of wines that were just called Organic Wines in the past, and 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 sulphites.

Now an “Organic Wine” is a wine with no added sulphites.

While the effort of some winemakers to explore ways to eliminate the use of sulphur dioxide is admirable, the truth is that wines without added sulphites are very few in number and very unstable in quality, giving the public a negative perception of what an Organic Wine could be.

The wine industry has therefore the dubious honour of being the only one that cannot call its product "organic" even though it is made with more than 95% of organic components. With the higher permissible level of 100ppm SO2 present in the wine, the 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 confuse them! Moreover, a wine without sulphites should not be equated with an organic wine, since it is quite possible to make a sulphite-free wine with conventional (non organic) grapes.

The excessive attention given to this matter is perfect to distract the public from much more important issues like soil depletion and erosion, water pollution, loss of biodiversity, ecological impact, resistance to pests, chemical dependence, and product standardization to name just a few!

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 the minerals essential for healthy crops from the soil, necessitating 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.

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. As for not using pesticides, the organic alternative is to encourage natural predators of insect pests instead of using poisonous insecticides. 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."

How does Conventional Winemaking differ from Organic Winemaking?

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 sulphur 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 since it is only a physical process.

Minimizing the use of sulphur dioxide as an antioxidant is stringently observed. It's rather difficult to make a wine that will keep well without adding at least some additional sulphites to those naturally produced. 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 colour but with various tannins, a natural preservative.

How do Organic Wines taste as compared to Conventional Wines?

Nowadays, Italian 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 labelled "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.

Practically, this means that any huge winery is not able to follow the Organic standards as it is a lot of manual labour in the actual vineyards and it takes people's insight to work in the vineyard to know how to intervene and take the appropriate decision for each vine. So an organic wine to us means also an increase in the care that is taken to make the wine, and therefore a purer and finer product in the end.

Biodynamic wines are those made using the principles of biodynamic agriculture. In most cases, however, one speaks of wine made from biodynamic grapes, rather than of biodynamic wine. Increasingly these are becoming known as BD wines.
 

The practice of biodynamics in viticulture (grape growing) has become popular in recent years, especially in Europe, particularly in France, but also in the "New World" ie California and Oregon, Australia, Chile, South Africa, Canada and, back in Europe, also in Switzerland, Italy, Austria and Germany.
Like biodynamic agriculture in general, biodynamic grape-growing stems from the ideas and suggestions of Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), who gave his now famous "Agriculture Course" in 1924, predating most of the organic movement. The principles and practices of biodynamics are based on his spiritual/practical philosophy, called anthroposophy, which includes understanding the ecological, the energetic, and the spiritual in nature.
Many grape growers claim to have tried biodynamic methods and found immediate improvements in the health of their vineyards, specifically speaking in the areas of biodiversity, soil fertility, crop nutrition, and pest, weed, and disease management. Winemakers claim to have noted stronger, clearer, more vibrant tastes, as well as wines that remain drinkable longer. Critics say that many of these improvements would have happened if organic farming was used, without the mysticism involved in biodynamics. Nonetheless, there is an upsurge of interest among grape growers worldwide and in the media, with a number of very high-end, high-profile commercial growers also converting to biodynamic practices.
As a practical method of farming, biodynamics embodies the ideal of ever-increasing ecological self-sufficiency just as with modern agroecology, but arrives at this goal via ethical-spiritual considerations. Intention, focus on detail, inner attitude and so on, are valued as part and parcel of mastering excellence in grape growing and wine making.
 

By British wine writer, Monty Waldin, article about the production of organic Brunello di Montalcino (only 9 out of 150 wineries in Montalcino are organically certified):
Francesco Leanza’s Salicutti is the Montalcino estate that has most impressed me during what has become an extended stay in Tuscany (I came here to write a wine travel guide book, called Discovering Wine Country - Tuscany, published by Mitchell Beazley, 2006).I like the fact that the Rosso and Brunello wines are concentrated without being extracted. I can’t think of many red wines from the Montalcino zone brave enough to look as pale as Salicutti’s Rosso di Montalcino, for example, but which displays intense floral as well as fruity flavours. I am often confused by those Montalcino red wines which are as dark in colour as a Cabernet Sauvignon and smell of the baked fruits typical of the southern Mediterranean. Good Sangiovese should smell of flowers, not raisins, I feel. Anyway, and as a specialist in organic and biodynamic wine, I like the fact that Sr Leanza opted for organic farming methods when replanting and renovating the Podere Salicutti’s olive groves, buildings and 3-hectare vineyard, having purchased the estate in 1990. How does Sr Leanza get his wines to show such striking minerality, a minerality lacking in the wines of so many of his Brunello peers, with such young vines? Minerality comes from a) vine roots that can dig deep into the soil; and b) from vine roots which can draw mineral elements out of the soil. To achieve both these goals Sr Leanza ploughs very close to the vines after harvest every autumn. This has the effect of opening up the soil, allowing air in, which is vital for vine roots to grow. Ploughing close to the vine also means many small feeder roots (or laterals) are cut. This forces the vines to send its main taproot down deep, and forces the smaller feeder roots to find most of their food in the subsoil, rather than the topsoil. Vines which only root in the topsoil produce wines showing fruity flavours. However, vines which root in the subsoil produce more profound wines showing both fruity and mineral flavours. Also, vines which root in the subsoil are less likely to suffer stress i.e. in the heat of the summer. When Sangiovese stresses it can lose its capacity to produce floral wines, turning jammy or raisiny instead. After ploughing in autumn, Sr Leanza sows every second vine row with a mix of 20 plants or cover crops. These include flowering clovers to attract beneficial insects, grasses and cereals to open up crusted top soils, and legumes like beans which draw nitrogen (a vital food for vine growth) out of the atmosphere and into the soil where it can be taken up by the vine roots. Sr Leanza allows the cover crops to grow until they have flowered in spring, then he mows them to maintain a grassy strip up and down every other vine row. This prevents the soil from cracking in the heat of the summer, and allows easy tractor access if it rains. This is important for organic growers like Sr Leanza who must adopt a “prevention rather than cure” approach. The soil in conventional vineyards where weed killers are used and which thus have no grass cover erodes very easily and turns to a glue-like consistency after rain, and may take many days to dry out sufficiently for tractors to be able to pass safely. However, organic growers like Sr Leanza cannot use the strong and long-lasting systemic chemicals allowed for non-organic growers, but must spray “a little, and often” to maintain vineyard health using only traditional contact sprays like Bordeaux Mixture and sulphur, which are permitted under organic rules. These do not penetrate the vine sap (unlike systems) and wash off after rain. So, having quick access to the vines by keeping a grassy strip means Sr Leanza can respond quickly if rain fall looks like sparking an outbreak of rot. In autumn the grassy strip is ploughed in, providing organic matter which maintains good soil texture. Sr Leanza then sows cover crops in the alternate rows which remained ungrassed the previous year, meaning all vine rows are grassed at least every other year. This policy of plough-and-sow greatly reduces the soil erosion we see in many bare-earth Montalcino vineyards after rain; and it helps battle global warming (each time you plough, you not only send dust into the atmosphere, but lots of carbon too. Grassed vineyards preserve carbon in the soil, as carbon is a vital building block for plant growth). Small amounts of well rotted horse manure are applied to the soil too. This is used more to stimulate soil microbial life (worms, beneficial fungi and bacteria etc) than to provide fertility, as vineyards with too much fertility are prone to disease, says Sr Leanza. Soils with good worm and microbe populations allow vine roots to feed more easily deep down in the soil. Soil microbes attach themselves to vine roots and do two things: the microbes feed off the sugars in the vine roots, but allow the transfer of minerals from the soil to the vines. It’s a two-way relationship which effectively allows vine roots to punch through even the deepest, toughest soils - and Montalcino’s heavy clay soils can be tough work for even the most determined vine roots. By digesting the soil, the microbes living off the vine roots act like moles, allow spaces for the vine roots to pass. And because all those otherwise unobtainable minerals in the soil have been allowed to enter the vine via these microbes they then end up in the grapes; so the grapes literally taste of soil: minerally, and complex. You don’t get the same effect with chemical fertilizers as these contain not only contain no microbes or worms of their own but are actually antagonistic to existing soil microbes. Finally, having spent so much time and effort creating grapes with mineral complexity, Sr Leanza gives them gentle wood aging in large neutral casks called botti, rather than in smaller, and more oaky smelling French barriques. Hence his wines taste of minerals, flowers and fruit - not oak. The vast majority of the Brunello vineyard is young, at less than 20 years old and it is often said such young vines cannot produce complex wine. However, I feel that if more of the Montalcino vineyards were farmed in a similar way to Sr Leanza’s - ploughing infrequently but carefully, favouring organic manure full of microbes instead of ‘dead’ chemical fertilizers, and allowing grass to grow rather than killing soil vegetation with weed killers - then more Brunello wines would access the hitherto untapped but surely fantastic mineral scents locked in the regions soils.