At Eco Terreno, Chamomile Has Super Powers

Thanks to Jennifer Tincknell at Eco Terreno for posting this beautiful photo today of chamomile flowers, harvested at Eco Terreno's vineyards in Alexander Valley.

In Biodynamic vineyards, Chamomile is used, along with other plants, in making compost as well as compost teas. Strengthening the vine's health makes the plants better table to withstand pests, diseases and climatic variations.

Research conducted at Washington State University with Dr. John Reganold and Dr. Lynn Carpenter-Boggs has shown that the Biodynamic compost preparations have a significant impact on compost and composting - they make compost burn hotter, mature more quickly and yield higher nitrate levels than compost made without the preparations.

Want to learn more about Biodynamic viticulture? Attend the first International Biodynamic Wine Conference. Tickets go on sale March 1 for Biodynamic Producer Day, a day long program with leading experts from the U.S. and abroad.

Compost experts Will Bakx and August York will present a session on Biodynamic compost. Mike Benziger will be moderating a panel of experts on the Biodynamic preparations. The panel features Joseph Brinkley (vineyard director for Bonterra's 300 acres of Biodynamic vines), Matias Baker (a renowned prep expert), and Brook Levan of Sustainable Settings.

Reganold  will also be at the conference, talking about soil and the microbiome and his research.

Mark your calendar and get your ticket starting Thursday!

Save the Date: March 24 - I'll Be Talking in Sebastopol on "What's On Those Vines?"

Wine Water Watch has invited me to speak March 24 in Sebastopol from 1 to 3 pm on pesticides in vineyards.

I'll be showing how to use the public tools and data from state government including the Pesticide Use Report and the Agricultural Pesticide Mapping Tool to find out what is going on close to where you live.

Details here.

Illegal Pesticides Sold on Amazon

An incredible story that was not widely reported is this one, reported by the Seattle Times. The EPA recently stepped in to fine Amazon $1.2 million for selling many pesticides that are not supposed to be sold and are not approved for use in the U.S.

Read the story here.

Today I'm attending CCOF's Organic Hotspots conference and had the great privilege of hearing Brian Leahy, who heads the California State Dept. of Pesticide Regulation, give a presentation on how pesticides are regulated in the state and how California goes above and beyond the feds in pesticide regulation. I'll be writing about his presentation in the coming week.

Is It the Sulfites in Wine That Make You Sick? Take This Easy Test to Find Out

Thanks to Blake Gray for this helpful decision tree that should help readers understand what's really causing your wine reactions.
 

In most cases, it ain't the sulfites. It's usually the histamines or the additives or added yeasts. 

Belgium Based Concours Mondial Predicts a Bright Future for the "Organic Wine Revolution"

"The Organic wine revolution will continue well into 2018," predicts Concours Mondial in its newest article, Wine Trends That May Shape 2018.

Here's what the international competition's staff says on this topic (boldings mine), reflecting a perspective that is more European and global than the general (mostly non-existent) message in American wine industry circles:

"Consumers are more knowledgeable and curious as to what goes into the wine they consume. Just as foodies focus on what is on their plate, wine lovers will seek out wines made with attention to detail. In 2018, retailers and restaurants will have to figure out new ways of attracting consumers who see the “making of” wine as a key aspect. 

Over the last 3 years, we have seen remarkable growth of nearly 80 % in organic and biodynamic wine entries in the CMB. This is a result of strong consumer interest in both categories. 

Recognizing this market development, we introduced a new category dedicated to organic and biodynamic wines for the first time in 2017. 

The top five countries awarded in the organic category were Italy, France, Spain, China and Portugal. They were closely followed by 3 countries from Eastern Europe: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Republic of Moldova. 

In 2017, the CMB panel distinguished as a genuine “Revelation” in the organic category “Selendi Sarnic Shiraz 2013” from…Turkey. 

We expect more and more key players from various countries across the world to start applying the principles of organic and biodynamic wine growing. Consumers will show an increased awareness of the origin and production methods for wines, favouring organic and local products." 

It's Live, It's Happening, It's Real - The International Biodynamic Wine Conference (and Web Site) Launches!

It's been a slow month for blogging and now you'll know why - I've been working hard - very hard - as the Conference Program Director for Demeter USA's first International Biodynamic Wine Conference.

With my colleagues Monty Waldin (international Biodynamic wine expert extraordinare), Elizabeth Candelario (President of Demeter USA and previously a wine marketer for 25 years), and Glenn McGourty, (a friend and a soil scientist, U.C. Farm Advisor, Demeter board member and researcher), we've put together an amazing collection of brilliant panelists, talking about the coolest part of the wine world.

We hope you'll check out the program and attend! Producers can enjoy a full day of educational programs while Trade and Media (invited guests) will have their own special day focused on their perspective. All are invited to Grand Tastings of Biodynamic wines from around the world. Come and enjoy!

Visit the conference web site to check out all the great speakers, panels and events. 

BIODYNAMIC PRODUCER DAY

Day 1 of the conference is for Biodynamic Producers and is focused on science (soil and the microbiome), Biodynamic viticulture, winemaking, the emerging Biodynamic food and wine marketplace, distribution and business topics. It's a varied and exciting program.

Starting March 1, conference registration for Biodynamic Producer Day will be open to all. The cost is $250 (which includes the full day of programs and a bag lunch). (Demeter members enjoy advance registration before March 1 with special rates - contact Demeter USA if you are a Demeter member and have not been contacted via email this week). 

TRADE AND MEDIA DAY 

Day 2 of the conference is by invitation only for trade and media. (Invites and ticketing are being handled by Balzac Communications.) There is also a Grand Tasting with Demeter certified wineries from the U.S., South America and Europe participating. 

The cost for accredited trade and media is $50 for the day (which includes a full day of programs and a bag lunch).

DEMETER ROCKS - CONSUMER GRAND TASTING AND PARTY

On March 15, tickets will go on sale for Demeter Rocks, for consumers (and industry who didn't come to the Trade and Media Grand Tasting) with Biodynamic bites, the international Grand Tasting and live music. You won't want to miss this party! (Ticket prices to be announced.) 

Check out the conference web site and programs which provide a wealth of information on the event!

CONFERENCE APP

Conference participants will be able to stay in touch with each other before during and after the conference with the conference app. (App use is limited to paid conference attendees.) 

Glyphosate Ban Back on German Agenda: Rogue Pro-Glyphosate Ag Minister Sings a New Tune

When Christian Schmidt, the Ag minister of Germany, voted yes to renew glyphosate's license to be sold in Europe last fall, it sent shockwaves through European circles, where the herbicide had become a political hot potato. But with a giant deal between Monsanto (which makes the herbicide) and German-based Bayer deal in the offing, it wasn't that hard to see what was up.

Schmidt's vote to go pro glyphosate renewal was not, however, in accordance with the wishes of his party or the country's leadership. He'd gone rogue, baby, rogue. Now he's been reigned in and forced to agree to a 180.

Angela Merkel's new government reigns in the rogue Ag
minister who prolonged the use of glyphosate in the EU

This week Germany's political leaders announced a new coalition government headed by Merkel that rearranges much - but the glyphosate issue remains, with the majority of the country favoring a ban.

Anti-glyphosate proponents are continuing fight, and this week Schmidt told the press that its use would be limited in Germany and "as soon as possible essentially terminated," according to European press.

No date was set for a ban to take place.

The draft from the new government states; “We will with a systematic minimalization strategy significantly restrict use of plant protection chemicals containing glyphosate, with the goal of fundamentally ending usage as fast as possible.

“We will develop alternatives jointly with the agricultural sector as part of an arable farming strategy which will regulate environmentally friendly and nature-compatible use of plant protection chemicals.”

Green Wine Insights: An Interview with Eco Wine Survey Author and Sonoma State Wine Business Professor Liz Thach, MW

At the end of 2017, Professor Liz Thach, MW, released the results of a survey on eco-certified wines conducted with her MBA students at the Sonoma State Wine Business program. (I originally published a post about it in late Dec.) 

The survey asked the question: would consumers pay more for eco certified wines? Though it was an informal survey, the results were noteworthy. You can find the results of the survey as well as graphs of the data on her site. 

I asked Liz if she would discuss more about the survey and sharing some of the background and insights it gave her. Thank you to Liz for agreeing to participate in our phone interview.   

Liz Thach, MW

What led you to conduct a survey on this topic?

I find that a lot of Millenials are really fascinated by the concepts of sustainable, Biodynamic and organic wines as one of the things they like to talk about a lot.

And so we ended up doing this study to try to understand if wine consumers understood eco wine certifications and if they would pay more for them.

We did another study related to this several years ago on this, too, where we analyzed the values of wine consumers - trying to find out what types of consumers were more apt to purchase eco label wines (sustainable, organic or Biodynamic) and we did find that there’s a certain type of consumer that’s really attracted to purchasing these types of wines. 

So this latest survey, we did it in May of 2017 (published Dec. 20, 2018), was an online survey. This was what is called a convenience sample. It’s not a random sample ,so we can’t say that it’s applicable to the whole nation. But it just sort of gives you a taste of what people are thinking. And it does have a large number of Millennials in the sample, if you look at the breakdown.

How were the participants selected?

In a convenience sample, you just reach out to an email list of people that you know. The criteria was they have to be 21 or above and they had to be a wine drinker. So we only wanted to talk to wine drinkers. 

When I do a representative or random sample, I have to hire a survey company and it’s much, much more expensive. So we can only afford to do that sometimes. 

A convenience sample can’t be generalized to a whole population. And we only had 301 respondents, which is enough for a sampling, but, if I could do it again, I would love to do a much larger sample - and across the nation.

What did the students learn from the survey?

Well first of all, I think we were all of us surprised to see that people were willing pay more for a bottle. 

 

A large percentage, 85 percent or above, were all willing to pay at least a dollar more a bottle, which would definitely work in the wine industry. And then a good number were willing to pay up to $2 a bottle, but then after that it dropped pretty abruptly - except for Biodynamic. 

The Biodynamic category was interesting. The people who wanted the Biodynamic continued to be willing to pay more for that.

Why do you think that might be?

I’d love to do more research to find out why; all we can do without more data is just surmise. 

We gave people definitions of sustainable, organic and Biodynamic. So part of what we were trying to do - sometimes a survey does this - is education. Sometimes you educate people just by doing a survey. And so we wanted to make sure that people participating in the survey understood the differences. 

And I think if you look at Biodynamics, it’s about the earth, it’s about bringing systems back into balance, and I think that’s pretty motivational to a certain segment of the population.

And how did you come up with these definitions?

We used them out of published definitions on the topic.

 

I think the definitions were really the crux of the survey. Did the students think that they had gained insights? 

I’ve been teaching for more than 20 years and I find that this generation is much more interested in this topic than I’ve found 15 years ago in my classes. They were very excited about the survey. I mean this is important to them. 

If you look at the values of Millenials, you know that responsibly produced products - organically produced, environmentally friendly, socially responsible - are important to them, and so they were thrilled with this survey.

What aspects of the survey do you think the industry should pay attention to in terms of retailers or wineries?

Our study focused on consumers and what was the consumer perception is. And what we find in this most recent study of consumers is consumers are willing to pay a small premium.

How did you decide to focus on a price premium as the data point for the survey?

Well, our program focuses on the business side of wine. We don’t teach enology or viticulture, and we focus mainly on marketing and finance, and we wanted to take a look at that piece. 

We couldn’t find anybody else who had actually done that type of survey before - asking consumers are you willing to pay more for an organic or biodynamic or sustainable wine.

(Note re consumer price premium in the marketplace today: currently there is no price premium in the market place for organic or Biodynamic wines - i.e. a Bonterra table wine sells for the same price as wines of similar quality.)

(Note re farming costs: whether it costs more to farm organically or Biodynamically after the initial three year conversion is a debatable issue with strong arguments from producers on both sides of the fence. Current data from U.C. suggests that Biodynamic vineyards are competitive in terms of costs. Find the full report here.) 

Have you taken a look at some of the studies on consumer preference for organic wines in Europe? And, if so, how does it compare with your survey data?

Yes, in my earlier study (2010; link here) - we did a comprehensive review of organics around the world, and yes, we found that in Europe, in certain parts of Europe, especially that there’s a larger percentage of consumers that are interested in buying organic products.

What do you see on the horizon?

In the U.S. now we’re seeing that the younger people - not just the Millennials but this new generation - which has two names (Gen Z or the I Generation) - is even more interested in food source. And they’re almost getting fanatic about it. 

They read ingredient labels, they’re wanting to know how the food was prepared, where it was sourced from, how the animals are treated...it’s become even more important with the younger generation. I think there’s definitely more growth in this area

Vive La France - More Slides on Organic Vines in France

Florent Guhl, Director, Agence Bio

Perhaps it is because we have such little published data on organic vines in the U.S. that I love these slides from the Millesime Bio conference, where organic wines are taken seriously as a growing part of the industry.

While I published a few slides from the Agence Bio conference presentation, today's slides come from a study put together by Agrex Consulting for SudVinBio, the group that puts on the conference.

WHERE THE FRENCH VINES ARE

The chart below shows you the percentage of certified organic vines by region. You'll see that PACA (Provence-Alps-Cotes-D'Azurs) has the highest percentage - 17.8% - but is actually not the largest when it comes to acreage.

PACA has 40,000 acres of organic vines, but the leader in acreage is Occitaine (includes Languedoc-Roussillon) with more than 62,000 acres of certified vines and another 10,700 acres in transition to certification. About 35% of all organic vines in France are in Occitaine.

Also you can compare this chart to the one from Agence Bio (see previous post) which breaks down the regions on more granular levels. Bordeaux looks to be less than 2% organic in the Agence Bio map. Nouvelle Aquitaine includes the Dordogne and other regions, which accounts for the 5.1% statistic. (Read Caro Feely's latest book for a first hand look on that story from an organic producer on the ground there).

Overall Spain and Italy outpace French organic vineyard acreage, but France's 9% (and growing) statistic far outpaces California, which is "underperforming" at 2.4%.

WINE SALES - EXPORT MARKET IS ALMOST HALF

This second slide is a telling one. Almost half of the French organic wines are exported. Overall the organic wine sector is worth 975 million Euros which amounts to $1.2 billion in U.S. dollars. Nothing to sneeze at.

Organic wines are exported more than other French wines with 47% (in 2016) going abroad. In comparison, only 32% of all French wines are exported.

The economic value of organic wines has more than tripled from 2010 to 2016 which shows that this is a fast growing market.



Read the rest of this presentation and others like it at the conference web site. (Most of the slides are in French; but there is one presentation in English from a Dutch wine writer. You can also use Google Translate for the French presentations.)

Organic Update from France: Presentation from Millesime-Bio - Vive La Difference

The U.S. wine industry gathered last week in Sacramento for its largest trade show - Unified Wine & Grape Symposium - with 14,000 attendees, representing most of the wines sold on supermarket shelves in the U.S.

Just a few days later in France, 5,000 organic winemakers, distributors and wine buyers from the four corners of the earth gathered in Montpelier for their largest festival - Millesime-Bio.

Exhibit floor at Unified Wine & Grape Symposium, Sacramento

At the Unified show, the most anticipated event at the show is the State of the Industry panel, an all star, data download that features four speakers and lasts 2.5 hours, during which you dare not blink, as each slide is a telling moment in the year's story of wine and the industry outlook. (You can get an idea of the incredible depth of the information in the 2017 presentation from Danny Brager from Neilsen Data here.) Get a newspaper account of Brager's 2018 talk here.

Wine buyers at the Millesime-Bio show in Montpelier, France

Millesime-Bio, too, has a boatload of great presentations. I've taken a little time today to sift through some of them and pull some of the highlights. Thanks to the presenters for their great slides. They're well worth a gander, as they paint a portrait of the increasing market for organically grown wines in the EU and how this growing sector of wine producers are thinking about the market.

What's most striking is the contrast between the organic wine producers and market in the U.S. where virtually no attention is paid to these producers in industry gatherings. There was not a single slide on organics in the 2.5 hour span of the Unified morning session. You can compare that to how seriously the Millesime-Bio presenters take organic wine production and its growing economic influence in the EU. Viva la difference.

Most of the slides here are from the Agence Bio presentation, but I urge you to explore all the presentations from the conference.

Here is information about the growth of organic vineyards- which has tripled over the last 10 years in France. There are 10,000 hectares now (172,973 acres). (The U.S. has maybe - at most - 25,000 acres of organic vineyards). France now has more than 5,000 producers.



You may have wondered, where are most of the organic vineyards located in France? This chart shows you exactly which regions are into organic. As you can see the Rhone and Provence are very strong, as is Alsace (15% organic or Biodynamic) and other regions. Though Champagne has been talking a blue streak in the wine press about going green, the chart shows that few vines are organic in that region (less than 2%). Bordeaux is still moving very slowly (0-2%) compared to Napa (7% certified organic vines).



Markets are growing, too, as this slide shows. Since 2005, the trend is up, up, up. (But not in the U.S.) Note the variety of sales channels.



This next slide was good news, too. It says that in 2014, 50% of restaurants offered an organic wine, up from only 40% in 2011.

When a restaurant offers organic wines on its list, in general the restaurant has at least 5 different bottles on average. And each of these restaurants had, on average, 5 different organic wines on their wine lists.



Selling direct was more important for organic wine producers compared to organic food producers. (When will stores "get it"? Organic wines are often not even on the shelves here in the U.S. - just try finding one at Safeway - even in Berkeley)



Wine makes up 12% of the organic products in France.