Organic, healthy, low environmentally impacting wine, anyone?

In our current era of pesticides and climate change, words and phrases such as sustainable, organic, biodynamic, salmon-safe, carbon footprint, and the always popular green are being used more often then ever. As wine drinkers, what should our response be to this information?

The wine industry operates in a $21 billion yearly US market, so this is an important question. It’s necessary that we carefully consider any proposed answers as we enter the 21st century, which is increasingly looking like a turning point for our species.

As we see it, there are three separate, but related, issues. Can we organically grow grapes? Can we make healthy wine? Can we reduce the environmental impact of grape and wine production? To an extent, we think the answer to these questions is yes, but there’s still much to consider.

Organically growing grapes means doing it without using chemicals, such as pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. This approach follows the well-established guidelines for the production of organic food. Biodynamic production is another approach to growing wine grapes that is also gaining some momentum. We openly support these ideas, but issues such as the use of copper and sulfur to treat fungus and mold still need more flushing out.

A healthy wine will have been made from organic grapes without the addition of any contaminants. But what actually makes the healthiest wine is a bit more tricky and difficult to define. For instance, take the issue of adding sulfur dioxide (SO₂) during winemaking. Adding SO₂ could have negative health effects, however it greatly improves wine aging and storage properties. Can you store and age wines not treated with SO₂? If you do not use SO₂, what are the alternatives, and are they healthier?

Finally, there are the questions about the environmental impact of the wine industry. The issues here stretch from the selection of vineyard sites to the treatment of the empty wine bottle after the wine has been consumed. This is by far the most complicated topic. It has much more of a sense of urgency to it than the other two topics, since energy issues and climate change have more widespread social implications. There’s too much at stake for the wine community not to act responsibly.

Check out these related posts:

1. Organic, biodynamic, and natural wines — What I learned from my review
2. Organic wine — What is it anyway?
3. Drink wine responsibly, not sustainably
4. Copper and wine: the whole story
5. Biodynamic grapes, and the wines they make