In an attempt to bring you back to Highway 29, but without the traffic, Napa Valley vintners are touting special pricing on wines and experiences to tempt you to visit, now that it's spring, or just enjoy in your own home or at a party.
And remarkably, the deal site, hosted by the Napa Valley Vintners, actually seems to be allowing wineries to state in their offerings, whether the wine is "sustainable" or "organic."
This may not seem like much, but for years, the powerful Napa Valley Vintners (a marketing group like no other) has not allowed wineries to say anything about their greeniness in their winery directory other than to mention their own "brand" - Napa Green.
Many years ago I told them that nearly 10 percent of the vineyard acres were organic, a factoid which subsequently started to appear in tiny print at the bottom of a one page handout. But generally "organic-ness" is kept under the carpet.
In this deal ad page, each organically grown wine is labeled as organic. As it should. Welcome to the beautiful, big, new world, Napa Valley Vintners!
Here's the link to the deals page and here are the organically farming wineries on the list. If I were looking for one of these deals, I'd pick Gallica's hands down!
Six bottles of her rosé and an estate tasting is a great deal.
Many of the offers are not nearly as tempting in terms of price, but I'll leave you to explore on your own. The deal ends March 25 at midnight. (But who knows - maybe someone will be flexible...if you ask...nicely...)
Cain
Ehlers
Frog's Leap
Gallica
Grgich Hills Estate
Ghost Block
Long Meadow Ranch
Oakville Ranch
Rudd Estate
Staglin
Storybook Mountain Vineyards
Tres Sabores
ZD Wines
Postscript: When I say that Napa Valley Vintners has not allowed wineries to list that they are organic, I mean that the pulldown menu on winery features here does not have and has never had an organic options - only a sustainable one, and in Napa, to the NVV, that means Napa Green.
Thank you for spreading the NVV word on this nice collection of offerings. I would like to correct something that you stated, "has not allowed wineries to say anything about their greeniness other than to mention their own "brand" - Napa Green" Having been a participating member since the mid-80's I would like to point out that whenever a winery enters a new wine into the NVV website [database], we are specifically asked [within a large criteria section] whether the wine is 'sustainably' grown, 'Organically' grown or 'Biodynamically' grown... there is no cabal, that I know of, with the Napa Valley Vintners to minimize those criteria. In fact, my experiences is quite the opposite!
ReplyDeletePlease see the postscript for what I am talking about re: NVV and organic.
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