The battle over organic wine: an update

Why isn't there more organic wine? That was the title of an article I wrote earlier this year for the Los Angeles Times, and also of a seminar I participated in last week at the Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim.

I didn't realize, standing on stage like a fool explaining the three-tier distribution system, that most of the audience were people who already make either USDA Organic wine or wine from organically grown grapes. The organic wine world is tiny and insular compared to the universe of organic products, and the Expo was a great example.

I hadn't been to the Expo before, and if you're an organic consumer like myself, it was a dream. Practically every company whose logo you see in Whole Foods was there, and plenty you haven't heard of yet. The Expo took up two whole floors of the massive Anaheim Convention Center; in about 8 hours over two days I didn't see it all. With thousands of healthy foods and drinks to sample, who could?

So it was depressing to go to the associated organic wine tasting and see only 13 companies in a small room in the neighboring hotel. I tasted a few good wines -- notably from La Rocca Vineyards, a no-sulfite winery that I'll write about in more detail later -- but frankly, much of what I tasted was, well, meh.



The reason was mostly economic. Most of the wines shown, both domestic and imports, were cheap. Certainly there were some that represent good value at $10.

The problem is that wealthier Whole Foods shoppers, who insist on organic milk and yogurt and ayurvedic toothpaste, and are willing to pay plenty for exotic probiotics, have moved on to other supposed eco-friendly categories when it comes to wine.

DON'T let me give the impression for even one second that I am not a firm believer in organic viticulture. In fact, that was my main point in the seminar: that in-fighting among the passionate organic crowd over the issue of sulfites has forced most wine lovers to simply move on.

Certified organic viticulture is on the rise in total acreage in California, and that's a good thing. But organic wines are surpassed in stores by biodynamic wines, and sustainable wines, and wines that offer Fish Friendly Farming and any number of other nebulous, possibly uncertified green claims.

It's unnatural. In the entire Natural Products Expo West, I saw one Demeter-certified biodynamic food company; they were importing tea leaves. I didn't see companies touting their sustainable business practices. What I saw were dozens and dozens of food companies that are certified USDA Organic. You just don't see that with wine.

I don't need to rehash my LA Times story about the sulfite issue; I encourage you to read it. But I will give this update: The petition I wrote about is not scheduled to be heard until next fall. In the interim the anti-sulfite believers are collecting signatures to keep the status quo; they were doing so at the Expo. In January I was told there are already thousands of letters to the NOP opposing the addition of sulfites to organic wine.

Unfortunately the main issue that has been used to mobilize these troops is a misnomer: that sulfites are a known allergen. That may be true (though the majority of people who think they're allergic to sulfites are not.) But it also doesn't matter -- the USDA doesn't exist to regulate allergens; if it did, we would have no organic peanuts. I'm allergic to tomatoes, but I don't oppose organic salsa.

The fair issue to discuss is whether preservatives of any kind should be allowed in an organic product. The problem is that without sulfites, organic wines (with the very rare exceptions from La Rocca) aren't long-lived enough to survive this country's legally mandated distribution system for alcohol.

Despite what my regular readers might think, I wasn't the speaker who ticked off the crowd; that was Hollywood organic chef Akasha Richmond, who stirred folks up by pointing out that her green-loving customers only buy wines that taste good. I loved her analogy: "If I burn a steak, I can't make you eat it by saying it's organic." Some of the makers of USDA Organic wines without sulfites had their backs up, complaining that we were saying that all of their wines taste bad.

I'm not saying that. In fact, after tasting the La Rocca lineup, I think they'll do just fine if USDA Organic wines are allowed to contain sulfites. No-sulfite wines will continue to be a plus for some consumers, and the La Roccas deliver some good ones.

But -- how can I put this tactfully -- the La Rocca no-sulfite wines stand out because they're drinkable. Some of the other no-sulfite wines that I tasted had obvious problems; some I might not have identified as wine, instead of sour beer, in a blind taste test. They were Chef Akasha's burned steak, in a bottle. Except I'd rather eat burned steak. (Boy, now I'm making friends.)

And it's a problem that these wineries have hijacked what should be a big category. The organic wine (NOT organic grape) community has become a group of zealots, small enough to fit in a conference room. They all love the earth, hate pesticides, fear agribusiness, and agree on practically everything else BUT sulfites.

Meanwhile, the green-minded wine drinker, and there are many because the demographics of wine drinkers closely track the demographics of organic consumers, wades through a Whole Foods "eco-friendly" wine section full of unsubstantiated claims about environmental goodness.

In California a wine can be certified sustainable if Roundup was used or if pesticide was used. That's not what I want in wine. But with so few wineries going through the rigor of the USDA Organic program -- because they can't use sulfites -- I have no idea how much pesticide I'm sampling every week.

After the Expo I wandered across the street to Downtown Disney for dinner at their ersatz New Orleans restaurant, where I had a decent version of shrimp and grits. I ordered a half bottle of Starmont Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc and saw on the back label that their estate vineyard is Napa Green farming. What that means, I have no idea. The wine list had not one USDA Organic wine on it.