Neal Family Vineyards Suffers Losses in Fire on Howell Mountain

From Wine Searcher today comes news of one of Napa's leading organic vineyard experts on his family vines and wines.

Neal farms approximately 1,000 acres of organic vines and is the vineyard consultant/manager for Heitz Cellar, the largest organic vineyard owner in Napa.

On Monday, Neal Family Vineyards was surrounded by fire on all sides.

"My son and I helped the fire fighters who were just wiped out from fighting the fires the night before," Mark Neal, Neal Family Vineyards' owner and the co-founder of the Jack Neal & Son Vineyard Management company in Rutherford, recalled on Tuesday morning. "This fire is nasty, there's a lot of wind, and it's burning a lot hotter than wildfires have in past years because there's so much dead brush in the forests, plus the hot weather and low humidity. Some of this is Mother Nature, but some things, like practicing better forestry, would have made the fires a lot less intense."

The firefighters and the Neal family saved their vineyard and structures, but the fruit is lost. He grows grapes organically for himself and others; about 10 percent of his haul goes to his own 3000-4000 case line, but the remaining 90 percent goes to other winemakers.

"I am dropping 150 tons on the valley floor this year," Neal says. "I don't want my name attached to that fruit."

Depressing Study: Consumers Don't Care About Where Their Wine Comes From? (Or Do They?) AND TTB Opens Door Wider to Calorie Labeling on Wine

A new market research study shows that confusion about wine choices continues to dominate the market - and no wonder. It is almost impossible to decipher the wall of wine in the average retail setting.

Contrast that with food, or even the wine industry's biggest competition, hard seltzers like White Claw - ingredients and calorie counts and additives are clearly labeled on the packaging. 

Not so with wine. The more obfuscation the better. The industry has built a mountain of messaging on labels that gives no clue to what lies inside. "Sustainable"..."terroir driven"..."generations of our family"..."stewards of the land"..."pairs well with (everything)"...

A 2020 survey sponsored by the Wine Market Council probed into the minds of nearly a 1,000 people to try to gain insights into the consumer's mindset. 

The results could be somewhat depressing. But they mirror what common sense also tells us: the wine industry is better at camouflage than transparency - and the survey shows the price of that fuzziness.

BAD NEWS?

According to the survey, only 16 percent of consumers always want to know how their grapes are grown. That is actually a pretty impressive number given that most consumers never give that topic a second thought - at least the ones I talk to. Food consumers are much more focused on additives - since that is something they are accustomed to seeing on a label. It's a visible stat. In wine, it's invisible. (But a lot of people have tried to weaponize that as a selling point for so called natural wine, confusing sulfur with other additives and creating even more confusion).

GOOD NEWS

A more encouraging way to look at the study is the 40 percent of people do want to know - at least sometimes - how the grapes were grown. 

Given that organic grape growing gets short shrift in consumer publications - when was the last time you heard organic grape growing accurately described in a factual way? - i.e. most growers and the industry never want to mention the widespread use of chemicals in the growing process - this is actually a pretty positive stat. 

Add the 40 percent to the 15 percent and the study is showing us that MORE THAN HALF of the people surveyed DO want to know how the grapes were grown.

Soon consumers may be able to better compare calories in various alcoholic beverages.

TTB ANNOUNCES NEW LABELING OPPORTUNITIES FOR CALORIES AND INGREDIENTS

Clobbered by White Claw and other low cal alcoholic drinks popular with younger drinkers - I even saw Kirkland Hard Seltzer recently at Costco - the wine industry now has more latitude in labeling the carbs and calories on wine, distilled spirits and malt beverages.

• Wine Institute Press Release

• TTB Information

In the past, labeling for calories was allowed but had to be precisely tested with each vintage. Under the new guidelines, calorie counting will be more standardized. As the TTB states:

"For example, a label showing 100 calories is acceptable if TTB analysis of the product shows a caloric content of no less than 90 and no more than 105 calories."

This is similar to the way food calories at tabulated by the FDA.

The UK already has calorie labeling for wines. A label from the giant supermarket chain Sainsbury here tells the story. It also includes a very prominent display of the alcohol percentage.

CONSUMERS AND TRANSPARENCY: THE TAKEAWAY?

So what to make of these data points? 

The path ahead could lead to opportunity for more mainstream brands to be more transparent about what's actually in the bottle. While certifiers already do that, most consumers - and leading industry experts - are mostly unaware. 

And who can blame them? 

Natural wine makers try to claim the high ground on winemaking purity (but often not wine grape growing, which often gets swept under the rug.) Sustainable grape growers crow from the rooftops about how green they are by using solar power or sheep (and omitting disclosure of their pesticide use including neurotoxins, carcinogens and bird and bee toxins that consumers, if those residues were required on the label, would definitely want to know about). 

Among the 200+ wineries with organic estate vines in the U.S., roughly half also produce non-estate wines from pesticided vines. Not wishing to draw attention to the difference in wares, and anxious to get a leverage their organic side as a green halo, the vast majority of these wineries do not bottle label the certification on the organic bottles, leaving consumers in the dark as to whether or not they have purchased an organically grown wine.

It's going to take a lot more education to turn this ship around so consumers buy the wines with grapes grown the way that consumers might prefer, if they knew they had a choice - if they could find them on the shelf. 

Biologicals Are B I G: How Big? Pam Marrone Will Tell You All About It...

California's ag community is blessed in many ways...there's the soil science group under Kate Scow...the pesticide use reporting law (no state or country has anything like it) and then, there's Pam Marrone.

Honored by California's diehard organic farmers at EcoFarm, Marrone's contributions in the field of biologicals are deserving of a Nobel prize, for she has created companies and products that have done more to reduce toxic exposures in ag - and help growers and farmers achieve higher yields as well - than anyone on the planet today.

She's also a great public speaker and has been our main evangelist for biologicals for use by both conventional (mostly) and organic farmers. 

Here's one of her many talks, in which she gives you a tour - at warp speeds - through the evolving landscape of this crazy growing industry. Many of her products are used in vineyards.

She recently left Marrone Biopesticides to spawn more offspring - in incubators and other think tanky groups.  

Get the mini course right here in this video of a plenary talk given last year in Belgium. I've heard her speak numerous times, and this version is great - good production values and, of course, great content. Straight from the horse's mouth.

And lest you say, why does this matter: just remember - these are the commonly used vineyard chemicals that are used unless people switch to biologicals:

It's great to say bye bye to these, and hello to biologicals.

Four of California's and Four of Oregon's 10 Largest Wineries Have Organic or Biodynamic Brands

Think of an organic or biodynamic brand and you're likely to picture a small, semi-profitable, all estate winery run by an overeducated wine dude and his family toiling away. 

Throw that picture away!

Although the U.S. is far behind its European counterparts in empowering the organically grown wine marketplace, I looked at a list of the largest wineries in Oregon and in California and discovered, lo and behold, that a surprising number of the "big guys" each had at least a toe hold in the organic sector. Who knew!

Producers with organically grown wines are bolded in the list below:

OREGON'S BIGGEST PRODUCERS

1. Union Wine Co.
2. A-Z Wineworks - Rex Hill
3. Willamette Valley Vineyards - Bernau Cellars 
4. Sokol Blosser - Estate Wines 
5. Copa di Vino
6. Argyle Winery
7. Dobbes Family Estate
8. Northwest Wine
9. Stoller
10. King Estate Winery 

CALIFORNIA'S BIGGEST PRODUCERS

1. Gallo
2. The Wine Group - Benziger
3. Constellation
4. Trinchero
5. Treasury
6. Delicato - Earthwise (boxed from Spanish grapes, from the producers of Bota Box)
7. Bronco - Shaw Organic (Trader Joe's carries this brand)
8. Jackson Family
9. Deutsch
10. Fetzer - Bonterra (the largest domestic producer of organically grown wines)

So maybe organic is one way to position yourself for the future...or Gen X...or health conscious consumers surviving a mass pandemic. 

Cheers!