The Evolving Science of Organic Viticulture
How we farm wine grapes constantly evolves as we learn to adapt to new knowledge, new climatic events, and new pest pressures. It’s not static. When we commit to organic viticulture, then, are we locking into only one option? Are we doing the same kind of viticulture year after year, despite annual variations and new problems?
If I’m a typical conventional winery owner, I may feel that organic viticulture ties my hands, and it costs more. If I choose to farm my grapes organically, I think, I’ll limit the tools I have to keep the vineyards healthy and, ultimately, sustainable.
There are several arguments here to parse out, and they are worth addressing individually:
1. Organic viticulture is static - FALSE
Organic viticulture evolves continually, both in products and in processes. It wasn't very long ago that copper and sulfur were the only sprays available to the organic grape grower. Now copper is being removed from many organic programs due to its toxicity, and sulfur spraying is being reduced due to the availability of newly approved organic options - like Stylet Oil, potassium bicarbonate, Romeo, and Sonata.
Additionally, we've learned how to take a holistic approach to vine health, rather than just a prophylactic one. We've implemented insectuaries and cover crops to build a diverse and balanced ecosystem which keeps pests in check. We've implemented different ways of cultivating internal vine health, through soil building and vine "vaccines," to enable vines to resist pathogens naturally.
It's important to understand that the percentage of organic viticulture has been very low, and is only recently starting to increase. Because it was such a small slice of the pie, we dedicated a respectively small amount of resources to research and development of organic products and process, so of course the organic options were slow to increase and improve. As the percentage of vineyards that are being farmed organically or biodynamically increases, we will see more resources dedicated to R & D, which will provide more options, which may reduce some of the fear of "going organic," which will lead to more organic vineyards... and the virtuous cycle will continue to grow.
Also, organic viticulture doesn't do the same thing year after year. At its best, organic viticulture cultivates the vineyard within an entire ecosystem that is nurtured and encouraged to naturally adapt to annual variations.
The argument that organic viticulture is "static" or non-adaptive comes from a mind-set that sees humans vs. nature, where nature must be dominated and controlled by use of chemical tools. New problem arises? Spray a new poison on it. Organic viticulture, on the other hand, sees that when properly cultivated an ecosystem has its own tools to take care of itself. Organic viticulture empowers the vineyard to manage itself, so to speak.
2. Organic viticulture has limited tools - TRUE FOR NOW, AND THAT'S GOOD
Yes, there are a huge number of pesticide sprays available to conventional grape growers - maybe twenty times as many as organic pesticides, or more. And many of those conventional pesticides are highly toxic, hazardous to human, plant, and animal life, and even carcinogenic or or worse and should be banned outright.
The number of organic options is on the rise as well. As mentioned above, the growth of organic options has been stymied by lack of interest until recently. That number is on the rise now, and will continue.
But this argument also presumes a "quick fix" approach to viticulture that is actually part of the problem. Our forebears didn't have many tools in their agricultural arsenal, yet somehow they managed to develop dozens of vitis vinifera vines that were adapted to their climate, able to be grown without irrigation, and resistant to the local disease and pest pressures. They did this over hundreds, even thousands, of years of breeding, hybridizing, and selecting grape varieties, often from those that were native to that particular area, to achieve delicious tasting AND hardy grapevines.
Rather than wisely following that example, however, we yanked the vines out of the area to which they had adapted for thousands of years and planted them in a foreign climate with radically different diseases and pests. Well of course that didn't work - and the vines were ravaged by all of the new challenges to which they haven't had time to adapt. So what was our solution? Poison the earth to sterilize it of anything that might present a challenge to these foreign plants.
We continue to employ this same approach today. We want to grow native European grapes in America, and we want simple, immediate solutions to problems that were originally solved over millennia.
3. Organic Viticulture is Unsustainable - FALSE
Organic viticulture limits the "tools" we can use for a quick fix because the real fix - the real path to vineyard health - is not something that can be sprayed on a vine - it's cultivating vines that don't need to have something sprayed on them.
Ironically, the arguments above are made as often by wine growers on the West Coast of the U.S. as on the East Coast. Yet somehow there is an organic winery in Virginia - a place as foreign to the Mediterranean climates of the West Coast and Southern Europe as can be. The existence of even one organic winery in Virginia makes the dearth of organic vineyards in a place like Washington State - while understandable - inexcusable.
While conventional viticulture may provide short-term benefits to a cash crop, it is clear that this kind of agriculture, and this kind of thinking, is unsustainable. The health of the vineyard is inseparable from the health of the ecosystem and larger environment in which it grows, and its becoming clearer that conventional agriculture is weakening and sickening our global environment.
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