Thread: organic wines
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Mark Willstatter
 
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Default organic wines

"pavane" > wrote in message >...
> "coyote" > wrote in message
> e.rogers.com...
> > I am not knowledgeable about wine, but I always try to purchase organic
> > wines, for health and environmental reasons, when available (not a large
> > selection here in LCBO-controlled Ontario). I would be interested in
> > hearing of any particularly good organic wines that people have tried

> which
> > are available here. Thank you,
> > Ian Murray
> >

>
> Fetzer Vineyards in California is primarily organic and a
> leader in the organic market although they do not state
> this on most of their labels...below is a link to an Ottawa
> Citizen article that you should find of interest.
>
> http://www.worldsofwine.com/citizen/...experience.htm
>
> pavane


Just so we're clear, Fetzer is generally supportive of organic farming
techniques but Fetzer wines are not "organic" in the sense of not
adding sulfites. Even the Fetzer label targeted to the organic crowd,
Bonterra, is only organic in the grape growing, not the winemaking.
As others have noted, organic grape growing in California is expanding
and there are many wines made from fruit grown in that manner, most of
which don't note that fact on their labels. True "organic wines" in
the no-sulfites-added meaning are few and far between and, in my
experience, not worth looking for. I believe the fact that such wines
are generally poor is the reason mainstream winemakers hesitate to put
the word "organic" on their labels, even when it refers only to
vineyard management. As we've seen here, there is wide confusion of
what "organic" means on a label.

- Mark W.