“We Didn’t Want to Greenwash Our Way Through Life” | Tasting Room Manager Camille Cherry on Why Her Family’s Winery, MAHA, Has Always Been Certified Organic and Is Now Regenerative Organic

The Napa Valley Grapegrowers’ final event in the four part series of organic education month (July) hosted a conversation with certification experts from ROA and CCOF, along with a Paso winery.

At the closing session in the Napa Valley Grapegrowers’ organic series event held in late July at COPIA in Napa, Paso Robles based Camille Cherry from Villa Creek and MAHA (left) talks about her family’s certification journey with organic certifiers Alania Lindquist of Regenerative Organic Alliance (center) and Jessie Beckett Parr (right) from CCOF.

See this post on Substack for photos. 

Question | Tell us why did you all decide to be organic, and then what led you to be regenerative organic?

We have been farming organically since the very beginning. We acquired our estate property, MAHA in 2001 when it was a organically farmed walnut orchard. And organic has always been the pillar of how we live.

Growing up, my parents always bought organic produce, acquiring the the cleanest possible products that we could consume, and so when it came time to plant our vineyard, we farmed always with the attention of being certified. There’s a lot of greenwashing these days, and getting that third-party certification just helped solidify what we’re doing, and it lets the consumers know that we are farming the way that we say that we’re farming, without having to greenwash our way through life.

Question from Audience | What does that [greenwashing] mean?

[Greenwashing means pretending to be green when you are not}.

By having the third-party certification, you get an inspection once a year. You have to keep methodical records of everything that you’re doing, all of the inputs, whether it be a compost lay down or spraying something in the vineyard.

In my experience, there’s a lot of wine brands that are out there that say they’re doing something, but you drive through in the spring and everything is yellow. It has been sprayed out with some sort of glyphosate product, even though they’re saying that they’re farming organically.

Being able to have that [organic] certification is letting the consumer know that we are actually doing what we say we are doing. We’re not just saying that we’re doing it and doing something else. It’s just kind of solidifying what we are as a brand, and it is who we are.

So false advertising is greenwashing?

Yes, pretending to be green.

Inside an ROC Tasting Room | What Do Consumers Want to Know?

Question | Camille, can you talk about managing your tasting room and a lot of your consumer-facing work? Tell us about your consumer research and what people assume when they walk in, and how the different labels that you carry–organic and now ROC–change that conversation for folks.

Camille | Probably about a quarter of the people that walk into the tasting room find us because they’re searching for wine that is certified [organic or regenerative organic], or they’re looking to make a change in how they consume wine.

I think in the general population, eating organic has been around for decades, and a lot of general consumers don’t, or haven’t in the past, put that same consideration into what they’re drinking.

Over the last five or six years, people are getting to realize, oh, ‘there’s a lot of stuff that goes into conventionally farmed wine,’ and whether that’s in the vineyard application or in the cellar… and the health benefits that people may or may not feel when they’re drinking an organic wine versus a non-organic wine have kind of changed the general mindset of the consumer, so they’re starting to look for organic wine as opposed to just picking a pretty label off the shelf, and they’re putting more thought into what they’re consuming on the beverage side of things.

Jessie | So it sounds like people are seeking you out…they’re coming to find you. Yeah. That’s great. That’s what we want. We want people to seek you out.

I’d love to pivot into Camille and talk about the trade-offs when you’re thinking about certification. It sounds like you all started as organic, but when you’re going into our ROC, what did you weigh? Cost, increased labor costs, timeline, yield. You know, how did you kind of progress through that journey and in deciding how far to go? What were the main barriers to entry?

Camille | I think barriers are always on a sliding scale depending on how you’re farming and what size your production is, and for us, it there weren’t really any barriers. Honestly, we’ve basically been practicing all of these things already. [The vineyard and winery were Demeter certified biodynamic for years].

I think the biggest part that was that’s created the biggest struggle is the paperwork. My mom was the one who who filled out the application, and it took probably the better part of nine months. We are a small-scale, family-owned and operated team. There are seven of us total, and we cover tasting room, office, vineyard, and cellar. And when you have a limited amount of time, based on what you already have to do, that super intensive application can kind of be prohibitive, but in the long run, it’s worth it.

Jessie | What surprised you or your parents as they were transitioning towards regenerative organic certification? Like, was there anything in the process we were like ‘Didn’t expect that to happen.’ Sounds like the paperwork. But beyond that, what surprised you about the process? It could be biological, too. It doesn’t have to be about the certification itself.

Camille | Yeah, I think what shocked us the most was how quickly things changed. We farm with the idea that we’re just borrowing this land from future generations, and we want to be able to leave it in a better position than we found it.

When we implemented no-till farming, for instance, and utilizing the cover crop, which then slows down the water runoff, and which increases the water absorption. That also and then, as Jason [Haas of Tablas Creek] was talking about the soil temperature and having during our extreme heat waves that we see in Paso–having the vines be more resilient when it comes to extreme changes–I think that how quickly that changed the wine. Like we have a block of Carignane that is diseased with red blotch, and that specific block, the year that we changed over, it was the cleanest fruit that came off the property that entire vintage. So I think it was amazing how quickly everything became more resilient once we fully implemented all of the practices.

Alania | I just wanted to respond to the record keeping challenge that you expressed, and this is definitely something that’s hurt. People get paperwork fatigue, and we’re constantly looking at ways to help improve that aspect of our certification. One of the things that occurred to me when you were saying that is that that’s really the meat of this work, and that’s where the story of how you’re applying the regenerative practices is really happening.

There’s definitely some good juice in there that you can leverage as your storytelling as well…What are we doing? How is that changing every year? So it’s kind of a fun part, too. Not saying paperwork is fun, but like there’s like good nuggets in there.

Camille | Oh, I just had a memory come back to me.

My brother has always been a very enthusiastic ornithologist, and one of the parts of the application for ROC is tracking migratory birds and migratory critters that come through your property. And I think my brother had quite a blast tracking all of the birds that that come through the property, and that now we’ve been certified since 2022, he’s kept on with that process, that practice of bird watching.

See this post on Substack for photos. See the photo of Henri here on Substack. CAPTION Camille Cherry’s brother Henri Cherry pouring at the Mindset conference in June pouring the family’s Clairette Blanche

He now leads a once a month bird watching hike around the property, which I think is kind of cool that we get to incorporate the benefits of farming this specific way and showing people, ‘oh hey, there’s this migratory bird that is only here for three weeks out of the year, but we didn’t used to see it, and now we do.’ And being able to just kind of see those super cool, the critters and the various native plants that might crop up now is really fun to see.

Jessie | So ROC has bronze, silver, and gold tiers. Can you talk to us about a reasonable entry point for a grower that’s just starting out?

Alania | So the idea behind the tiers is to make the certification accessible and meet you where you’re at, and encourage you to continue to improve along the way.

Looking at a practice like rotational cropping, for example, or cover cropping. For the bronze level, you might only have three [cover crop] species required, and at the silver level, five species, and then at the gold level, it’s like 10 to 15 species.

Another factor is how much cover crop is being left in the vineyard. At the gold level, it’s 100% year-round coverage. Whereas bronze, I think, it’s maybe more 25 to 50%.

Jessie | For somebody who’s already certified organic, because there’s a bunch of growers here [at the event] that are already certified organic…Roughly, how does how long does the process of getting into ROC take?

Alania | Some organic growers are already incorporating a lot of these practices into their operations already, and so that’s going to be as simple as submitting your application to the Regenerative Organic Alliance.

We are going to review the application, and then we’re going to send it over to your certifying body of choice. They’re going to review it and then reach out to schedule an audit.

Ideally, you’re able to bundle your organic and regenerative organic audits together, so that auditors are coming to the property once.

I think that our estimated timelines to achieve from the time of application to receiving your certification is between three and nine months. But it depends. If you’re having to kind of start from scratch–conventional organic–you’re going to need to incorporate some practices. It might take you a little more time.

Jessie | So, Camille, just back to the tasting room experience. We’re trying to thread the needle here between organic and regenerative organic, and find out what will work for this audience as they’re exploring their pathways.

So, how do you describe the difference between organic and regenerative organic in a couple sentences to somebody who’s just coming in to drink wine? They’re just there to drink wine.

Camille | My basic tasting room spiel is organic.

The base elements are no synthetics, whether that is herbicides or pesticides, and then with regenerative, you’re throwing in soil health, social fairness, and animal welfare.

And from that point, we then get into mostly the soil health aspect of things, the no-till, using cover crops, crimping to help replenish the soil, creating a nice batch of organic material that then lowers the soil temp, increases water retention, all of that good stuff.

Jessie | And do people usually lean in wanting more, or do their eyes glaze over?

Camille | They do. I’ve been working in the tasting room since I was 18…But being able to kind of read the guests in the tasting room and whether or not they’re engaged in wanting to know more versus a a couple that walks in that’s on their third date and they decided to come up from LA to do a weekend in Paso and they only want to talk to themselves.

It’s a fine line between educating the guests that come in, and also ensuring that they have a good time because in this wacky world of wine, you want everything to be enjoyed, whether it’s wine or blending the lines of enjoyment and education.

Question | Well, I have a question: when you’re sharing your practices and some of the concepts of farming on your property as you’re tasting wine, how are people connecting those things? Or how are you messaging the connection between the way that you’re growing grapes and how the wine tastes?

Camille | Kind of a hard question to answer. Every vintage is different. Mother Nature is a very fickle business partner, and so whatever like every vintage is going to show different things in the bottle, and so it’s kind of hard to to explain to a consumer what you might taste differently. Every palate is different, so it’s hard to pinpoint one specific thing that might that they might pick up.

Wine is all very vintage specific, it’s site specific, and it’s bottle specific.

My dad likes to say ‘there’s no bad wine. There’s only bad bottles of it,’ and so taking that same concept into how the wine is perceived based on its farming practices, if that makes sense.

Question | You said the words “red blotch’, and everybody’s going to want to know what was the practice you changed that made the red blotch disease pressure less?

Camille | I think it really came down to the soil and the soil health and the root health.

Question | Right, but you’ve been farming biodynamically and certified for a long time... So, what changed?

Camille | What changed was going from discing the vineyard rows to mowing and crimping instead. And I don’t know the science behind why the red blotch toned itself down, but from what I’ve observed, there’s something that’s happening underground that made the vines a little bit happier.

They’re less stressed during the heat spikes, which is when our vines tend to show their the red blotch the most. They do tend to shut down sooner, but the fruit itself is cleaner. It’s cleaner and higher yield.

Alania | I just wanted to add on. This is somewhat anecdotal. I was recently at Bedrock Vineyards in Sonoma Valley, and we were looking at vines planted in the late 1800s. And when they did tissue analysis on these vines, they found that they basically carried every pathogen and virus that you could imagine, but they weren’t expressing that because of the resiliency and the immunity that was actually in the vine. So maybe there’s something to that.

Haas+Matthiasson in Conversation: Regenerative Organic Offers a Cost Effective Way to Farm, to Reach Millennials, and to Face Climate Stressors (Part 3 of 3)

 In this third post, two renowned organic vintners discuss their paths in regenerative and organic wine grape growing, winemaking and selling at a Napa Valley Grapegrower event.

This is part 3 in a series. Scroll down for Part 1 and Part 2.

Thanks to the Napa Valley Grapegrowers for this entire series of workshops and this public conversation, held at COPIA in Napa. Following the conversation, attendees enjoyed lunch served with both Tablas and Matthiasson’s gobsmackingly wonderful wines.

IT IS WAY BETTER TO READ THIS ON SUBSTACK WHICH IS FREE AND YOU GET THE PHOTOS!

Napa’s Opportunity: Messaging Wines’ Green Farming for Values Driven Millennials

“How many seminars have we heard of Rob McMillan telling us that we’re not doing a good job reaching out to millennials?…” said Steve Matthiasson, a famed Napa vineyard consultant and vintner who has been an organic leader in the community for decades. “…And we know what millennials want. They want to buy things that they believe in from a values perspective, and they vote with their dollars.”

Costs of Organic Viticulture

In the Q and A portion of the program, one audience member asked if it costs more to farm organically.

Matthiasson responded, “it’s very site specific in terms of whether we’re talking more expensive or not. For input substitution, which is sort of like what people think it is in the first phase of converting to organic, it can get expensive because the organic materials are pretty much all more expensive, other than like sulfur or something.

“But the idea is to start rethinking the way you do things.

“If you start going down the list, essentially, we’re still growing a cover crop–that is just part of good winegrowing at this point. So that’s just a wash.

“Mildew materials are more expensive. I think there’s a lot of room for using integrated pest management for powdery mildew now. I tend to think that we overcontrol mildew in our industry. We’ve gotten to a zero tolerance, and it doesn’t need to be a zero tolerance. The contracts all have 2% in them. You know people who now say 2% mildew in your vineyard [means] you’re a fail, you’re a terrible vineyard manager.

Matthiasson: “There’s no reason you can’t have a small amount of mildew, and the difference between a small amount of mildew and no mildew can be a lot of sprays, basically.

So again, site specific… in Carneros, we barely hang on mildew-wise, and we’re treating all season. But in Calistoga, we’re getting by in a typical year with three sprays organically…”

“Weed management. If you’re down by the Napa River and you can hoe plow once, that’s pretty cheap, probably cheaper than applying herbicides. If you’re weed whacking up on a terraced hillside, then that’s really expensive, and so that’s site specific.

“Hedgerows–we’ve been able to get grants for almost all of our hedgerows, and so like we just got a $20,000 grant for a hedgerow we’re putting in in Carneros, so the hedgerows don’t have to be super expensive.

It’s unfortunate that organic wine grapes can’t command the organic premium other organic crops can, he added.

Employee wages were another topic.

Pay is, “an individual decision for everybody, but I feel that transcends the discussion of regenerative organic,” Matthiasson said. “It’s what kind of community do we want to live in, and what quality work do we want, and what can we afford…That’s just [something] everyone has to make that decision for in their own businesses, basically,” he said.“But the way the market is now, it’s not about premiums. It’s about getting a buyer.

Jason Haas of Tablas Creek quoted his farming costs to the discussion. “We harvested 387 tons. So where we were, at two two and a half tons an acre, more or less.”

“Our total farming costs were $1.765 million, so that’s $12,600 per acre, or $4,564 a ton at those relatively low tonnages, and this is ROC gold certified, so paying all of our people full living wage and all of that.

"I don’t push back on the idea that farming regeneratively is prohibitively expensive…there are some additional costs. There are paperwork costs. There’s time costs. There’s training costs. There are transition costs for sure if you’re not already farming that way."

“But it’s not like Monsanto is in this for our benefit. You also are replacing products that you have to pay for every year with processes that become self-regulating, and that has some real benefits.”

Tablas’ Dry Farming Strategy Amidst a Drought: Bigger Spacing But More Crop Per Vine

“We dry farm a whole bunch of different grape varieties…almost every variety,” Haas said.. “Everything else we have done in at least one dry farm block at this point. The big difference is spacing.

“So instead of our trellis blocks, which we used to plant eight by three, we’re now planting eight by six.

“The dry farm blocks are either 10 by 10, 10 by 12, or 12 by 12 diamond spaced. So we can’t cross cultivate. We do get lower yield per acre on those blocks, but not as much as you would expect from the lower vine densities. Because the vines are so much healthier, we can allow them to carry more crop. We feel like that reducing the number of vines per acre, but increasing the crop per vine, also helps for balance, because that slows down ripening, slows down sugar accumulation.

“For us, we feel it gives more elegance to the wines.

“We feel that that [high density] model, which has been transplanted out of Burgundy, where you’re trying to put the vines as close together as possible to compete with each other [typically 1 meter by 1 meter] or reduce the crop per vine to get intensity and get ripening…

"That’s not what we need in Paso Robles."

"We’ve got plenty of ripening, we’ve got plenty of intensity. We want to be doing the opposite to slow things down and give us more balance.”

New Organic Requirements for Its Patelin Growers

Haas said that Tablas Creek changed the grower requirements for their Patelin, non-estate wines–which is about a third of their production–to organic farming or certification. The Patelin Paso growers all planted the Tablas clones, the original grower criteria for Patelin. [Patelin means neighbors in French.]

In 2021 Tablas Creek told its growers, that “within five years, we were going to require them to be farming organically for us to continue purchasing from them, and that we would offer our own our help of our own team, as well as a 10% increase in what we were paying per ton, if they made the conversion to organics.

“We were able to get that through in three years rather than five. So since 2024, everything that we’ve been buying for the Patelin tier has been from organically farmed, not all certified, but all organically farmed sources.

Tablas also has a second tier called Lignee de Tablas that comes from other vineyards planted to Tablas clones around California, and, “those are all farmed organically or better,” Haas said.

Certification can lead to discovering new growers, he added, illustrating the point with a case study.

“We just added a new vineyard from Lodi this year, which is the first regenerative organic certified vineyard in Lodi [Vino Farms]. We would never have bought from them if they had not gone through that certification. They would never have landed on our radar, so I do think that there are brands who are specifically looking for that [ROC certification] and who will pay more for it,” Haas said.

Matthiasson+Haas on “Do Greener Practices Make Better Wines? + Mosley: “Does Napa Promote Its Greener Farming Enough?” (Part 2 of 3)

This is part 2 of a three part series with organic and regenerative organic icons Jason Haas and Steve Matthiasson hosted by the Napa Valley Grapegrowers at the group’s Organic Month educational series in July. [Scroll down for Part 1.]

UP AGAINST IT

What role does regenerative organic farming play in combatting the challenges of heat and drought?

A big one, said Jason Haas, who credited this type of farming for being able to survive in hot Paso. 

The Paso region famously had four major heatwaves (as high as 113 degrees) in 2020 and several in September of 2022 (spiking to as high as 115 degrees).

“Anybody who lived through the 2020 growing season,” said Haas, “has to realize that these sorts of issues–the issues with climate change, the issues with water, the issues with farm labor, all these things–these are not something we need to worry about for the future. These are things we need to worry about now.”

“Paso Robles is a pretty extreme climate. It is very hot. It is cold at night. It is very dry, and so all of these investments that we were making anyway, because we were biodynamic certified before we were ROC–those were mostly designed to try to reduce the stress levels on our grapevines a bit because it’s such a high stress area that we were finding that the vineyards were exhausted after 25 years, and we would like to have longer lived grapevines, and we want to have healthier soils.” 

He continued, “We want to retain more moisture. All of the things that biodynamic and regenerative farming help you get to… but I think the fact that Paso is such a high-stress environment has made it a particularly attractive place for people to pursue this kind of farming.”

Do Greener Practices Make Better Wines?

SEE THE MISSING PHOTOS OVER ON OUR FREE SUBSTACK

Mosley recalled Steve saying that ‘almost anything a winegrower does that is a sustainable practice for the environment will result in better wine quality.’ He asked Matthiasson to dive into that topic. “Let’s talk maybe conservation tillage or a natural practice,” he said.

“We can go down the list,” Matthiasson said. “Habitat, less pesticides, any sprays on the surface. We try to minimize sprays on the surface of the fruit, so that we maintain the waxy bloom better. We have less dehydration late season, and so you don’t need to put on insecticides, whether organic insecticides, pyganic [derived from chrysanthemum flowers] and spreader and buffer for leafhoppers, for example, versus the leafhoppers are taken care of by an anagrus parasite because we have the beneficial insect habitat. Conservation tillage.

“Basically, this is just good viticulture. As you’re looking for the appropriate amount of water stress, and so often tilling less, leaving or having more ground cover is going to help with fine balance. But for sure, winter cover crops. I can’t think of a better viticultural tool after pruning than cover crops because cover crops are how you can adjust your spring moisture for the vines so you can regulate vine growth.

“Before cover crops, every year the vines just grew as much as they were going to grow, depending on their rain. Now with cover crops, you can leave the cover crop in longer. You can decide not to till it. You can till it early. You have this phenomenal tool that has a byproduct of all the soil management soil benefits you get from having it over the winter.”

Worker fairness requirements are part of the ROC requirements, but they just make good business sense, Matthiasson said.

“Well paid, well treated employees are going to prune better. They’re going to shoot thin better,” he said. “They’re going to do everything better, because they value their job, and that’s going to directly translate to quality. That’s why we just don’t have a compromise. That’s the beauty of it.”

SEE THE MISSING PHOTOS OVER ON OUR FREE SUBSTACK

Communicating Better Farming: Does Napa Do A Good Enough Job?

Mosley posed the question, “How does this [farming] translate to a conversation with the consumer about how we make our wines?

“We have some amazing brands and cult wine brands here in Napa that farm with these principles and practices. However, you don’t really hear that in their marketing materials.

In contrast, in Paso Robles, six ROC wineries got together and sponsored a big media tour, inviting 25 writers to visit the region and tour and taste wines to learn about regenerative organic farming. 

In comparison, vintners in Napa, which has more ROC acreage (700+ compared to 659 for Paso) have collectively done nothing to promote their ROC wineries. The ROC vintners in Napa are but a small minority in a region that sees 3.8 million visitors a year. Paso sees 2.5 million wine tourists a year. Each region has around 40,000 acres of grapevines. Roughly 14% of Napa’s acreage is organic. Paso has far fewer.

Like Sonoma, Lodi, Sta. Barbara County and other regions, Napa promotes its own sustainability program (Napa Green) instead of organic certification programs which are less popular with vintners (because the organic standards are much stricter on the use of vineyard chemicals). However, Napa Green is the highest of the regional sustainability programs, and the only sustainability program that prohibits synthetic herbicide. Though many Paso vintners are SIP certified (a sustainability certification [valuable though not as strict as organic chemical standards]) Paso has not promoted a regional sustainability standard.

“You don’t hear about ‘hey this is a great wine because of these practices and this is what we’re doing and I’m wondering if we’re missing some leadership there,” Mosley said. “Both of you champion your farming practices outwardly and to inform consumers, but also to hopefully influence others to continue their journey in sustainability. So, are we missing something there from these folks that do farm this way but don’t necessarily talk about it?”

Eisele Vineyards and Spottswoode were mentioned as good examples of companies that talk about their farming. (Both are Demeter certified biodynamic. Spottswoode is also regenerative organic certified).

Matthiasson said his son is working at Screaming Eagle right now but the brand does not communicate publicly about its high quality farming.

“Their farming is so impressive from a regenerative organic standpoint, and the world has no clue,” he said. “People just assume that everyone a chemical zone and [they] don’t know how much they’re [Screaming Eagle] pushing the envelope. I have no idea why people aren’t talking about it.

“Everyone stewards their brand in their own way that they see fit, and so I wouldn’t get involved in that. But I do think from a Napa standpoint to be able to [would be a benefit.]

“I think that for the general public to understand how tied high quality wine is to this style of farming would be a very good thing for the health of our industry” he said. 

Organic Stigma Fading | “Regenerative” Popularity Is Growing

Said Haas, “‘Organic wine’ [in the US] got a bad reputation because it got conflated with no added sulfites, …the U.S. is out of step with the rest of the world.”

No added sulfite wines have higher risks for spoilage, a risk that does not categorically apply to wines made from organically farmed grapes.

[Much confusion stemmed from the federal government’s topsy turvy approach which ultimately evolved to three different standards for wines from organic grapevines. 

1 Only one of the three standards defined “organic wine” as “no added sulfite,” and the background reasoning for that ill-fated decision stems from salad bars laden with excessive amounts of sulfites. 

2 Two other organic standards for wine in the U.S. –”Made with Organic Grapes” or “Ingredients: Organic Grapes”–offer market-compatible sulfite adjustments.]

Recounting that historical era, Haas said that the poor associations with organically grown grapevines are fading with generational turnover.

Promoting greener and regenerative organic farming is popular with newer generations of wine drinkers, prompting Tablas Creek to start bottle labeling its certifications.

“You have an opportunity with regenerative that doesn’t have that same negative connotation among anyone’s minds,” Haas said.

“Even though we’ve been certified organic since 2003, we did not put an organic certification on our label until we got the regenerative organic [designation],” he said, “and now we have the regenerative organic seal and the CCOF organic seal together on our back labels, but that didn’t come through till the 2021 vintage.

“I think we have an opportunity to communicate, and I think we have more and more urgency to communicate this also because we know that one of the things that newer generations of wine drinkers are really looking for is more transparency.”

“That whole idea of marketing through exclusivity and marketing through mystique–I feel like the benefits of that are maybe a little less than they used to be, and the risks of that are a little bit more. Whereas the benefits and risks of marketing the great farming that so many of us are doing, those have flipped. So the risks of that are getting less and less, and the benefits are growing more and more.”

Said Mosley, “You’ve just put two together and said, ‘hey, this is a better way to even explain what I’m doing,’ and it seems like you might get more traction and open up more conversations and have the farming practices lead the conversation instead of saying ‘here’s the wine, let’s have some chats about the flavors, and then we’ll talk farming if you’re interested.’”

“All of the impacts on the wine quality of these farming choices are positive,” Haas said. “So it’s not in any way a compromise between doing the right thing and making the best wine.”

“One of the things that we know really impacts the the sugar and alcohol, the balance of flavors in wines in any hot dry climate is the impact of heat spikes and what happens when it does get to 100 or 105 degrees over the course of a few days, or a week, or however long it however long it lasts.

“One of the things that I really love about what we’ve seen since we converted to biodynamics, which I think of as a sort of subset of regenerative farming, is that we’ve seen lower soil temperatures, higher organic matter, better water holding capacity because we are tilling a lot less of our surface.”

“We’re tilling with more intention rather than tilling to make everything look good because that’s the way it’s done. So when we have ground cover, we’ll notice that the sections where we have crimped, for example, rather than tilled–if we do a soil temperature probe, it’ll be 20 or 25 degrees cooler under that crimped mat than it is on the the surface that’s exposed to the sun,” he said.

“So it stays cooler, which means that the vines are getting less of the stress indicators that their roots are giving them. They shut down less. We get less dehydration.

“We have 6% organic matter in our soil, so we know that that’s holding more of the water that we get in the winter.”

“Half of our vineyard acreage is dry farmed, unirrigated, which we think is only really possible because of the way that we farm.”

“So I think if you have a year where you don’t have a lot of those heat spikes. If you don’t have a lot of these incredibly high stress moments, it probably matters less how you’re farming.

“But we feel like what we’re doing means that the vines can sail through those heat events in a way less changed, less impacted with the chemistry, less changed than they otherwise would be. I feel like that allows us to avoid those days where our Brix levels jump a degree or two in a day through dehydration, and allows us to keep a more gradual, steady, ripening path.”

All of which makes for better wine balance because of the farming practices, Mosley said.

This is part 2 of a three part series with organic and regenerative organic icons Jason Haas and Steve Matthiasson hosted by the Napa Valley Grapegrowers at their Organic Month educational series in July. [Scroll below for Part 1.]

Wine...Is It Still Relevant? | Yes, But...AND New Study Shows a Third of Consumers Say “We’ll Have It Our Way,” Mixing It With Juice, Ice, Sparkling Water, Etc.

New research suggests consumers don’t dislike wine but they do not buy into wine’s elitist tropes and complications.

A national survey of 900 U.S. wine consumers from the Wine Market Council and consulting researchers at Material broke down a wide cross section of wine drinker types and generations to help marketers find steps to take to sell wine.

Some of the study’s most surprising findings:

1 Three in ten respondents said they mix wine into cocktails or serve it over ice. Twenty percent mix it with non-alcoholic drinks like soda, juice, or sparkling water, or drink it blended and frozen.

2 Compared to other alcoholic beverages, wine is not showing up in social media feeds that lead to discovery. Wine marketing is not keeping up.

3 Wine branding is comparatively weak with consumers unable to recall which brand they saw content for.

4 Consumers dislike showing wine pairings with fine dining: “just give us the everyday pairing ideas (burgers, taco, pizza, etc.)”

An Image Problem? Not Exactly

Presenting the findings in a members’ webinar, Wine Market Council president Michelle Egan framed the core insight up front: consumers already see wine as welcoming, approachable, fun, and enjoyable. Those are real strengths.

The catch is that wine also remains tightly bound to tradition, older generations, and special occasions.

The opportunity is to broaden the invitation — helping consumers picture wine in the moments they’re already enjoying, and making it easier to discover, choose, and try.

How the Study Was Constructed

The research is the second phase of a broader WMC project.

Phase two validated cultural signals with hard numbers: a survey of 900 U.S. alcohol consumers, split evenly across Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X+, and further divided into core wine drinkers, marginal drinkers, and non-adopters — 100 respondents in each combination of generation and consumption tier.

Consumers aren’t asking for more wine education-they’re asking for wine to feel simpler, more approachable, and easier to try.

Four Key Takeaways

Material’s Caroline Heizee walked through four themes that anchor the report:

1 Relevance, not reputation, is the real barrier. Wine is already perceived positively; it just isn’t associated with enough everyday occasions.

2 Engagement changes what wine “is” to a consumer. Core drinkers see wine fitting almost anywhere — relaxing at home, hanging out with friends, traveling — while non-adopters keep it confined to formal, special-occasion use.

3 Wine needs to show up differently to stay part of the conversation. It has lower visibility than other alcohol categories across major media, and discovery paths vary sharply by generation.

4 Consumers want confidence, not more education. They’re asking for practical inspiration — food pairings, clear labels, simple selection tips — not deeper wine knowledge.

Breaking the Rules on Purpose

One of the more striking findings involves how people are actually drinking wine.

While most consumption is still straightforward — wine on its own, with or without a meal — three in ten respondents said they mix wine into cocktails or serve it over ice, and 20% mix it with non-alcoholic drinks like soda, juice, or sparkling water, or drink it blended and frozen.

Even among core wine drinkers, three-quarters reported drinking wine in a non-traditional way at least some of the time.

Younger consumers are driving much of this experimentation, but classic serving styles remain prominent across every generation. The takeaway for marketers isn’t to abandon the traditional wine occasion — it’s to normalize the non-traditional ones alongside it, so consumers don’t feel embarrassed serving wine “incorrectly.”

The Discovery Gap | Why Is Wine Sort of Silent on Social Media?

When it comes to media visibility, wine shows up far less than other alcoholic beverages across platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and TV — and there’s no single channel where wine outperforms alcohol overall. Importantly, Material’s researchers argue this isn’t because wine content feels intimidating or overly academic; it’s that wine simply isn’t showing up in people’s feeds often enough.

Generational patterns diverge from there:

• Gen Z discovers wine primarily through social platforms and responds to short-form, relatable content.

• Millennials have the broadest media footprint, blending social discovery with more traditional sources — and content needs to both inspire and inform them.

• Gen X leans on established sources: food, wine, and lifestyle websites, plus retailer and producer sites.

• Non-adopters are the least plugged into wine media specifically, meaning broader lifestyle content — not wine-specific outlets — is the more effective entry point.

Notably, most consumers who encounter wine content on social media can’t name the specific creator or account behind it. Discovery is happening, but it’s passive — which points to a need for clearer next steps (learn more, find where to buy, save for later) rather than more content alone.

What Consumers Are Asking For

Open-ended survey responses reinforced the data. Consumers described wanting wine marketing that reflects everyday life rather than fine dining, plain-language explanations of terms like “dry,” pairings with street food and home cooking instead of just cheese boards, and more low-commitment ways to sample wine — such as variety packs and tasting events — before buying a full bottle.

Guided tastings, variety packs, and at-home relaxing occasions emerged as nearly universal points of interest across every generation and consumption tier — notably including Gen Z non-adopters, who turned out to be the most open non-adopter segment in the study.

Turning Insight Into Action

Material closed with several concrete ideas for wineries and marketers, including:

• Everyday pairing content — short-form video pairing wine with pizza, burgers, or takeout rather than formal cuisine

• “Wine Works Here” campaigns — positioning wine for movie nights, game nights, and casual at-home occasions

• Modern serve content — spritzers, sangria, and other non-traditional formats, paired with messaging that there’s “no wrong way to wine”

• A shop-learn-save content framework — ensuring every post gives consumers a clear, low-friction next step

The Bigger Picture

During the Q&A, Material’s team pushed back gently on the narrative that people are simply “drinking less.” Rather, they argued, consumers — especially younger ones — are drinking differently: diluting wine to avoid overconsumption [or masking it with flavors they KNOW], favoring smaller formats, and finding new social contexts for a category that still carries real emotional resonance. As one presenter put it, some of what makes wine feel out of step with the moment — its traditions, its formats, its associations — may actually be underused strengths rather than liabilities, if repositioned toward relevance instead of formality.

The full survey report, including generational breakdowns and additional data on packaging formats and AI-assisted wine research (used disproportionately by Millennials, followed by Gen Z), will be distributed to Wine Market Council members alongside a recording of the webinar.New research suggests consumers don’t dislike wine but they do not buy into wine’s elitist tropes and complications.

Matthiasson+Haas | Greener ROC Farming Tops Marketing Wine the Exclusivity Way, Regen Organic Icons Tell Napa | Part 1 of 3

Jason Haas of Tablas Creek in Paso and Steve Matthiasson of Matthiasson Wines in Napa offer insights at Napa Valley Grapegrowers’ organic event.

See this in its full glory WITH PHOTOS here.

Cover crops, farming costs, drought, climate change, resilience and the magic word “regenerative” topped the list of topics two pioneering, organically farming wine industry icons discussed at the final session of the Napa Valley Grapegrowers Organic Month.

It was standing room only at Copia in Napa July 29 as Steve Matthiasson of founder of Napa based Premiere Viticultural Services and Matthiasson Wines (with his Jill Klein Matthiasson) and Jason Haas, general manager of Tablas Creek Vineyard in Paso Robles, shared an in-depth exploration of what it’s like to farm under Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC).

“How many seminars have we heard where Rob McMillan is telling us that we’re not doing a good job reaching out to millennials?” said Matthiasson. “We know what millennials want. They want to buy things that they believe in from a values perspective, and they vote with their dollars.

Napa Valley Grapegrowers president Caleb Mosley (left) with Haas (center) and Matthiasson (right)

From Sustainable to Organic and now Regenerative Organic

Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC) was created by the Regenerative Organic Alliance (ROA) in 2019, two years after the Rodale Institute was outraged over the USDA’s contentious decision ruling that hydroponic agriculture could certified organic.

Appalled that soil-less agriculture could be certified organic, Rodale partnered with Doc Bronner’s and Patagonia to create the ROA and then established ROC standards that included many things the original organic movement leaders felt federal laws and USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) had left out–mostly focused on animal welfare and worker fairness.

ROC requires organic certification as a baseline. ROC certifies only farming, not winemaking standards.

The rise of the no-till movement, originally based primarily in the Midwest, made no till or less till a core tenet as well, as scientific studies further validated the impact of heavy tillage and plays a role in ROC. North Dakota farmer Gabe Brown started a no till movement that continues to resonate with row crop farmers.

Wine grape growing standards were developed later, with the help of the late Bonterra founder Paul Dolan. Haas oversaw Tablas Creek’s transition to ROC. It became the first regenerative organic certified vineyard in the world in 2020.

Haas and Matthiasson shared their journeys on the challenges and the rewards of regenerative organic farming and certification.

Said Matthiasson, “I feel that regenerative organic is getting back to the more holistic approach, but also with a modern understanding, because we’re learning all the time.”

July 29 | Harvest Already?

Though the event was originally planned to take place after harvest, it kicked off with Matthiasson telling the crowd that harvest had started at his vineyard that very morning.

“It’s another one of those ‘Mother Nature is always in charge of the schedule when you’re in farming’ kind of moments to sink into,” said Caleb Mosley, Napa Valley Grapegrowers executive director.

The event capped off a month which featured three organic field days Wednesdays in July at organic estate wineries–Balducci, Quintessa and Opus One–in Napa.

“The reason we’re here is to talk about regenerative organic farming…–the intersection of all those somewhat new terms, but kind of ancient practices,” Mosley said.

What exactly is the history of regenerative farming?

“To me, it dates back to some of the early days of organic farming and a more holistic ethic,” said Matthiasson, “around organic farming that got distilled down [with federal regulation] to nowhere. [The national organic program] became just against synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, essentially, in terms of the letter of the law.

“Regenerative organic is getting back to the more holistic approach, but also with a modern understanding, because we’re learning all the time.

A Moving Target

Matthiasson has been involved in wineries’ search for greener farming since the 1990s when he worked in Lodi.

“When we did the Lodi Winegrowers workbook back in 1999, we had nothing in there on the carbon footprint because we weren’t as aware of it at that time.

“Our human resources was all on safety, but it wasn’t on diversity and opportunity.

“Things are evolving, and so I feel that regenerative organic is the result of all these decades of work in sustainable agriculture, but it’s also just still a moment in time. I don’t think it’s finished by any means.”

The core tenets are soil health and soil conservation, he said, and though the principles remain the same, the practices vary depending on the site and context.

“Tillage, non-tillage, all these other things are practices that get at the principle of soil conservation and soil health, sequestering carbon into the soil…soil health ties into water infiltration, less runoff, less nutrient loss, all kinds of downstream stuff from that.

“So we have [as tenets] reducing carbon footprint, water conservation, soil conservation, habitat creation and maintenance, so your land is being managed in a way that migratory animals can get through your land and prosper and not die off on your land, or find a wasteland essentially, but instead be able to find forage and keep moving. You’re connected to that to a healthy ecosystem on your land.

“It could be hedgerows. It could be all kinds of different things. Again, that’s site specific, but creating habitat on your land, and then social equity, so the people that work on the land have a safe place to work, have a place for opportunity, have a place where they can grow and develop as human beings and healthy members of our community,” he said.

The Certification Process

Mosley asked Haas if his definition of the core tenets changed at all as the winery went through the regenerative organic certification process.

Tablas Creek was already certified organic in 2003 and biodynamic in 2017 before ROA recruited it to be the first ROC vineyard. It is half owned by the Perrin family in Chateauneuf de Pape, which has long been organic (since 1956) and relied on biodynamic practices, and half by the Haas family, its U.S. importers.

Tablas Creek became the first vineyard in the world to be regenerative organic certified in 2020, snd there are now 28 regenerative organic vineyards in the U.S. (out of 43 total around the globe).

“I would say that our understanding of the tenets didn’t really change, but what did change was the way that we thought about how to get there,” Haas said.

One example is explaining what regenerative organic is to consumers and trade –it’s not a simple matter, Haas said. He leans in on talking about problems people can easily grasp.

“Resource scarcity and climate change and inequality, topsoil loss–” he said, “those are probably not solvable problems. The conception of it being part of the solution to these big picture problems is, I think, what provides its main appeal for us.”

Worker integration into the decision making processes was a bit of a change, but also improved communication, he said. “Our tractors stopped breaking,” he said, because the channels of communication deepened and workers found it easier to say when a machine was early signs of a potential maintenance problem.

The Question of Certification: Getting Beyond the Challenges of Personal Resistance and Paperwork

Matthiasson said he had to overcome his feelings about any kind of certification.

“Caleb knows how allergic I am to any kind, any organization, whether it’s the feds, the state, the county, just anyone that wants to tell us what to do and make us fill that paperwork–I’m not a fan of. ” he said. “So why are we doing this voluntarily? This is crazy.

“We had been organic years ago, and I had actually quit because I had been protesting some of the organic certification decisions I just didn’t think made sense, and so we just kept farming organically, and we weren’t certified.”

Others in his circles (he named Ted Hall and me) pushed back, he said, and because he believes so strongly in it, he recertified with CCOF.

“I just believe in the values and the ethic of organic farming.”

He said he realized, “if you want to have an impact on the organic movement, then you should probably be certified and participate in it, so we got recertified [in 2018].”

In 2020, he and his wife and partner Jill Klein Matthiasson started on the path to regenerative organic certification but were delayed by the pandemic and the extra workload that meant for their back office.

ROC Certification Challenges: Farm Labor Issues When Contractors Are Involved

Both vintners [and others] still struggle with the regenerative organic labor requirements though both have predominantly their own vineyard workers.

Said Matthiasson, “How do you handle farm labor contractors? Because we’re not going to get the level of certification that we want to [gold level] because [although] we’re in house, we still need help from outside when we can’t handle a job, and we don’t have control over the way that the businesses run internally on farm labor contractors… we’re not going to work with someone we think is abusing their people. But on the other hand, we can’t ask them to go through what we’re going through [a human resources audit]. This is just the way it is. It’s going to keep evolving in terms of getting it streamlined.”

Read more in the next installment covering the two leaders’ wide-ranging conversation in Part 2 (coming soon) where the headline above (green wine marketing) is a topic the two touched on.

Ground Cover Trial | A New Agroecological Framework? | Napa Valley Grapegrowers' Organic Field Day at Opus One (Part 2 of 2)

This innovative trial, inspired by a challenge from agroecology consultant Mimi Casteel, explores a variety of test plots of native grasses to solve water issues.

This is part two of the Napa Valley Grapegrowers’ Organic Field Day at Opus One. See it FREE ON SUBSTACK with photos and graphics.

Kaplow’s Critique | Multispecies Seed Mixes Planted All At Once Create Too Many Weeds

Native grasses expert Steve Kaplow, consulting to Opus One, said regenerative, current seed mix practices have problems. Kaplow was speaking at an Oakville site that Opus recently acquired and plans to add to its estate.

“I’ve looked at the ground covers and test plots in many vineyards,” he said. “One of the things I’ve noticed over and over again is that people put in all these wonderful seed mixes. Yet when I come out to do the vineyard tour, 90 percent of what I see are weeds, and I’m not seeing the ground cover.

“For most people, the common definition is a plant I don’t like. It’s a plant I don’t have a use for. It’s out of place…I have my thoughts about weeds too, but I describe it from an agroecological point of view. A weed is a plant that spreads due to disturbance. It’s what’s called in ecology a pioneer plant, and wildflowers are pioneer plants, but they’re not weeds. So what’s the difference?

“Well, weeds are plants that had a particular ability to grow with the kind of disturbance that humans make, and so they’ve been around since the beginning of agriculture. They’ve been these same weeds you see now are the same weeds that have been around for 5,000, 6,000 years, and people have been controlling them for 5,000 to 6,000 years, and they keep coming back.”

“The plants learn to adapt to it, and they’re going to keep trying to come back. You’ll see a modern-day example of this, where the plants are adapting. A lot of weeds now are becoming herbicide resistant because the plants that were vulnerable died, and the ones that are not vulnerable came back, and so now we’re getting plants that are herbicide resistant because they survive.”

To Get Past the Weeds: Mow, Mow, Mow Your Way

FREE ON SUBSTACK with photos and graphics.

Said Kaplow, “The weeds here are survivors of physical resistance, and the things we’ve been doing to mow or remove or till, they’re going to keep coming back.

“The weeds have another characteristic that makes them troublesome for me when I’m trying to do a project. These plants, when they want to grow, stick their elbows out and try to push sideways and push up, and so they try to kill all the plants around them, too, so that they can get big and they can produce seed, because pretty much all the weeds in the West Coast are annuals. They’re going to die at the end of the season. Pretty most of the weeds are dead already, but they produce seed, and they’re coming back next year from seed. So what they do is they try to kill the plants around them, get big, they produce seed.”

He continued, “All of the methods we use for doing an annual ground cover, particularly in a vineyard…are inadvertently improving conditions for weeds, because you let them get big.

“You say, ‘I’m going to let them get big. So what you’ve just done is give conditions that favor the weeds to grow, and they’re going to grow real big…You don’t want to mow it down till the end of the year. You’ve just let them go to seed, and now you’re going to mow them down, and you’re probably going to till the ground. So now you’ve disturbed the ground again. You made it easier for the weeds…you’re doing all the wrong things.”

The Right Way to Treat Weeds: “It’s A War Going On Out There”

FREE ON SUBSTACK with photos and graphics.

Kaplow has an answer for how to treat weeds: animal grazing or regular old mowing. Those favor perennial plants and natives, he said.

“What’s the timing? You don’t want the foliage to get any more than six inches…If I seed a native grass project in the fall, you’ll see all the nice, native seedlings in October, November, December. They only get about an inch or two tall the first year. They get bigger later. All their energy is going into their roots, so if you let the weeds get taller than that, any taller than two or three inches, they’re starting to grow on top of the natives. They’re starting to grow on top of your wildflowers. They’re trying to grow on top of many of the plants you really want. And by the time the weeds are six inches tall, most of what you seeded is probably already dead. And so it may look all peaceful and green, but it’s a war going out there, and the weeds are going to win. And if you don’t control them, the weeds win.

“It’s a matter of keeping it mowed low, particularly for the first couple of years, because you’re trying to suppress the weeds, keep them from killing the natives, and keep them from reproducing, so you want to keep the weeds short.

“You don’t want them to go to seed, and that’s that’s the mowing system. It gets less intense as years go by. In the first year, you might be mowing three, four times,” he said. Opus said it had already mowed four times by July 22.

Frequent mowing means gentler mowing. “Because you were mowing often, there wasn’t a whole lot of foliage to mow, and so it wasn’t rough on the equipment. It was almost like mowing your lawn, a little more than that, but on that basis,” Kaplow said. “So repeat mowings through the growing season, and then in the summer you can let it go.”

“[If you wait till the weeds get high,] you’re dealing with a lot of thick, tall stuff that’s going to bind up with your mower and wear your equipment out. But if you mow more often–yes, there are more mowings, but they’re easier and faster, and it puts your vegetation in a much better place…Eventually the weeds grow under control, and then you can start getting the vegetation you really want.”

Little Strips of Prairie Grass

FREE ON SUBSTACK with photos and graphics.

Kaplow recommends native perennial grasses over annuals.

“They have certain major advantages over the annuals that you’re using. When you look at the grasses, you’re going to see foliage even in the height of the growing season. They may only get six inches tall if you didn’t mow them. They don’t get tall. They’re little bunchgrasses, but underground, they’re putting roots that are going down five or six feet, and they’re putting a lot of carbon into the ground.

“Around the world, it’s well known that the soils with the highest amount of soil carbon are all grassland soils. They’re all prairie soils. So, in a sense, what I’m talking about doing here is putting in strips of linear prairie into your vineyards.”

Carbon Sequestration and Microbiome Advantages of Native Perennial Grasses

FREE ON SUBSTACK with photos and graphics.

“If you want to put the carbon in the ground, you have to let the roots do it,” Kaplow said.

Kaplow said the native grasses inject a lot of carbon into the soil and create a stable environment for the beneficial bacteria and fungi to grow. “Versus, if you have annuals, their roots only go down about a foot, and they’re going to die at the end of the season,” he added. “So you’re kind of starting from zero again for the microbial community, or at least their habitat is pretty much starting from zero. Whereas with perennials, you have a stable environment, and you can get the microbes to grow much better.

“Perennial grasses are very good for mycorrhizal association, bacterial association. So if you’re trying to get soil microchlora, perennial grasses are a great way to go.”

Native Grass Establishment: “Like Prepping a Canvas”

FREE ON SUBSTACK with photos and graphics.

Kaplow said he loves wildflowers but recommends waiting until the native grasses are established before planting them.

“The first step you’re trying to do in a perennial cover,” he said, “is get a stable background. It’s almost like prepping a canvas. You’re trying to get a stable surface that’s going to be weed resistant, and as the perennial grasses grow, their roots are going to fill the soil, and they’re going to basically make a wall of roots. And when weeds try to germinate in that; their roots are going to hit the native grass roots, and they’re going to stop.”

He is not an advocate for planting legumes as cover crop for nitrogen. “If you don’t need the nitrogen, don’t put the legumes in, because they’re going to harbor a lot of pests. Too much nitrogen in the soil creates a weed problem. If you don’t need the nitrogen, don’t do it. If you do need the nitrogen, absolutely, that’s not a question. But if you don’t need it, don’t do it,” he said.

Kaplow cautioned against using fescues and bluegrasses. “I didn’t use any fescue or bluegrass in this project, and the reason is that I’ve worked with them in restoration projects a lot, and fescue and bluegrass are northern grasses. They’re moist site grasses. If you are in Washington State, it’s a no-brainer. If you’re in British Columbia, absolutely.

“There are native fescues and bluegrasses here, but they’re on the north side of a hill. They’re in the shade of trees. They’re in the fog belt next to the ocean.

“You don’t see them wild out here. You can seed it, and you will get scattered plants. But you’re not going to get reliable results. You’re not going to get a full cover. It certainly won’t live. So that’s the only reason I didn’t try those.”

FREE ON SUBSTACK with photos and graphics.

Bentwood grass

Seeding Is A Bit of An Art Form

McGraw cautioned, “With native grass seeding you really have to be careful. The seeding rates are so low. You say, ‘Oh, I bought seed for five acres,’ and you use it up after one, because ‘it just doesn’t look right.’ You seed it, and you don’t really see anything, and you go, ‘I’ve got to put more. Well, by the time you did, you’ve overseeded. So you really have to learn to stretch it out.

“Sometimes what people do is they will mix it with rice hulls, or they’ll mix it in with something else to spread it out, so that it looks better…It’s as light as humanly possible, and even then, you’re probably putting it on too heavy. So that’s a major case of self-control.”

The rest of the morning was devoted to grass plot by grass plot inspection.

Kaplow said that even after just one year, some of the grass roots would already be about three feet deep.

“They’re reaching for water. They’re trying to make it through the summer. Now eventually they’re going to be six, eight feet deep. They’re going to hit the water table at some point. Maybe they have, but I don’t know. They’re still young.

“Eventually they’re going to not only grow down but sideways, and the root systems can start banging into each other. So it’s going to become a wall of roots…each year it gets a little more like that.

FREE ON SUBSTACK with photos and graphics. 

California oatgrass (Danthonia californica) is old-growth grass in California is a long-lived native perennial bunchgrass that can live for up to 200 years and helps sustain ancient meadow ecosystems.

“Danthonia has a very, very long term strategy,” said Kaplow. “This grass, when it’s going, will live 120 years. It would be an old growth kind of grass. This is the redwoods of the grasses, but it’s hard to start it.

“I’m not quite giving up on it for here because that is one that will stay green and will dry this field out if that’s what you need,” Kaplow said. “It’s long lived and once it’s in, it’s in forever. It’s just a great plant. I have high future hopes for it. I’ve got this growing in my front yard in Santa Rosa. I don’t water it and it’s still green.”

The final event in the NVGG organic series on July 29 featured a keynote conversation featuring two respected organic producers-Steve Matthiasson of Matthiasson Wines and Jason Haas of Tablas Creek Vineyard.

That will be the subject of a future post here.

UPDATE: The SF Chronicle published a new article on the winery's new eco-direction. 

Ground Cover to the Rescue? Innovative Opus One Trial Explores Impact of Tiny Natives on Water Uptake | Napa Valley Grapegrowers' Organic Field Day at Opus One (Part 1 of 2)

This innovative trial explores a variety of test plots of native grasses to solve water issues.

See the post as God intended (with photos, etc.) on free substack post.

A Long Term Relationship

Mankind has been “managing” weeds for more than 5,000 years, and hasn’t found the perfect system in crops or vineyards yet, but the latest frontier in researching ground cover for wine growers is taking an unexpectedly rigorous turn at Opus One with the help of Selena Vengco, biologist and native plant specialist at U.C. Cooperative Extension and veteran agro-ecologist Dave Kaplow (of Eco-Management in Santa Rosa).

Kaplow’s approach stands in contrast to regenerative organic cover crop initiatives that focus on quick start biodiversity, planting seed mixes with as many as 28 species in a vineyard.

Kaplow says his approach, though slower to take root, is road tested and built for the long haul.

Opus One assistant winemaker and viticulturist Kimberlee Marinelli shared the innovative trial on ground cover with a crowd of about 30 people attending the third field day July 22 in a forward-thinking series on organic wine growing education (under the leadership of the Napa Valley Grapegrowers) during their “organic month” series in July.

A New Estate Vineyard | Ground Cover Trial Site

Vengco and Kaplow worked with the Opus One team as the winery takes on a newly acquired, 33 acre Oakville vineyard (the former Stanton vineyard) along the Napa River.

See the post as God intended (with photos, etc.) on free substack post.

Kimberlee Marinelli photo

“Opus One purchased it in early 2025 so this is kind of our first couple of years really understanding this property,” said Marinelli. “A big thing that we’ve been doing at Opus One is questioning all of our viticultural practices, really thinking about how stewardship is at the crux of what we do.”

Farmed organically since 2011, she said, the estate was certified in 2022.

In 2022, the team heard from Mimi Casteel at a Napa Rise event talking about regenerative farming practices and how do wine growers really make an impact with a changing climate.

“She talked about a lot about hydrology and how on the hillsides there’s such great opportunities for larger micro and then macro climate cooling. So this got our gears turning about thinking about hydrology, when we think about vineyard redevelopment,” Marinelli said.

The estate winery is moving toward regenerative organic practices (and potential ROC certification).

“We have since transitioned 60-65% of our vineyard over to perennial cover crop. It’s not all grasses,” she said. “We have different mixes depending on the goals all over the estate. But here…the plan is to have this area fallow for hopefully a few years to have some time to understand the property.”

A Unique Site | A River Runs By It

Like many others in Napa Valley’s central corridor, the site has a really high water table along the river.

“That is a blessing in the drought conditions that we have,” she said, “but it also can be a challenge. So we really have to think about managing that….it’s a biodiversity hotspot, and a riparian zone…This was a floodplain, and so we really want to honor that when we think about how we’re going to approach redevelopment on this parcel.”

Enter Oregon born, agroecologist Mimi Casteel, a well known champion of vineyards and biodiversity, who consulted for the winery and challenged them to consider options.

Mimi Casteel speaking at Napa Rise in 2023 See the post with photos, etc.) on substack free

“We had done soil pits and talked about the high water table…It was August, and we were hitting water at 456, feet, and having standing water. So there was a lot of water here, especially as you get to the back of the property [by the river],” Marinelli said.

“There’s obviously some active hydrology happening here, and when Mimi came to the property with the team..and we love Mimi because she really does not hold back at all…[and her comments were] ‘How are you going to develop this?’”

Experimenting with a New Agroecological Approach | Can Plants Mitigate the Hydrological Challenges?

“We’re doing so much to promote agroecology,” said Marinelli, “… And she was kind of challenging us, pushing us. ‘How are you going to plant vineyards all the way up to the riparian zone? Does a vineyard really need to be there?’”

“From this challenge came a lot of curiosity, and from that friction came this trial. So that is how we connected with Dave Kaplow,” she said.

The vineyard could lie fallow for some period of time which gave the team time to do research.

“We’v go some sediment, but then we’ve got some clay and sandy soils and higher clay as we get towards the river,” she said.

French drains and drain tiles were options. But the Opus team pivoted to a new approach.

“Potentially grasses could help fluctuate some of the water table…or help absorb so that vines could coexist without having to use some super invasive vineyard development techniques,” she said. “From that, this grass trial was born.”

Embarking on an Innovative Native Grasses Trial

Missing photo See the photos, etc. as God intended on free on substack.

With Kaplow’s knowledge of native grasses from years of working in conservation and on golf courses, the team set about creating a field trial with a variety of Kaplow’s recommended grasses.

Vengco brought her research skills to the project.

First, the site was treated with biochar and compost (at a rate of 10 tons an acre), spread throughout the fallowed field, then disked in, smoothed out, and ring rolled. The team then marked out a grid with the different strips for the trial.

Kaplow recommended five grasses and two combinations to try.

Planting the Seeds | Not As Simple As It Sounds

“The biggest challenge in seeding was the different sizes of the seeds. The Diego bentgrass, for example, has seeds that are really, really fine, almost like a dust or powder,” said David McGraw, production manager at Silverado Farming. “So they just slipped right through the seeder. We had to mix them with rice hulls and organic granular fertilizer to bulk up the volume, and then we were able to seed that at a better rate.

“Calibration probably took the most time and was the most critical part,” he said. “A lot of these native seeds are small productions, so they’re quite expensive. So we really wanted to make sure we didn’t overseed and run out because purchasing more was not an option. So we would seed, calibrate the seeder for each seed, seed all of it, the different strips all the way down. Once that was finished, we’d switch to the next seed, recalibrate, and repeat the process seven times.”

By the time it all was seeded, they lucked out with some nice rain that came in and germinated everything. “And from there, we just let Mother Nature take over,” said McGraw.

Preliminary Establishment Results

Researcher Vengco’s reported on how quickly the native seeds responded in the first year.

The first year results are published here. See the post as God intended (with photos, etc.) free on substack.

An Ecological Approach to Grasses

As background, Kaplow said, “The work I did from the beginning had to do with native grasses, so I was learning all about native grasses and how to manage native prairies, and that’s my orientation coming into looking at a vineyard ground cover.

“I’m looking at from the perspective as an ecologist, and how are the maintenance techniques or the seed selections affecting what the ground cover does, and how does it behave? So I have learned from all these years.”

“My preferred ground cover is working with perennial grasses, particularly natives, and from there I can enhance onto using wildflowers and perennials and all the other things. But I always start with grasses first.”

Why Grasses?

Kaplow recommends native perennial grasses over annuals.

“They have certain major advantages over the annuals that you're using. When you look at the grasses, you're going to see foliage even in the height of the growing season. They may only get six inches tall if you didn't mow them. They don't get tall. They're little bunch grasses, but underground, they're putting roots that are going down five or six feet, and they're putting a lot of carbon into the ground.

“Around the world, it's well known that the soils with the highest amount of soil carbon are all grassland soils. They're all prairie soils. So, in a sense, what I'm talking about doing here is putting in strips of linear prairie into your vineyards.”

Carbon Sequestration and Microbiome Advantages of Native Perennial Grasses

“If you want to put the carbon in the ground, you have to let the roots do it,” Kaplow said.

Kaplow said the native grasses inject a lot of carbon into the soil and create a stable environment for the beneficial bacteria and fungi to grow. “Versus, if you have annuals, their roots only go down about a foot, and they’re going to die at the end of the season,” he added. “So you’re kind of starting from zero again for the microbial community, or at least their habitat is pretty much starting from zero. Whereas with perennials, you have a stable environment, and you can get the microbes to grow much better.

“Perennial grasses are very good for mycorrhizal association, bacterial association. So if you’re trying to get soil microchlora, perennial grasses are a great way to go.”

Native Grass Establishment: "Like Prepping a Canvas”

Kaplow said he loves wildflowers but recommends waiting until the native grasses are established before planting them.

“The first step you're trying to do in a perennial cover,” he said, “is get a stable background. It's almost like prepping a canvas. You're trying to get a stable surface that's going to be weed resistant, and as the perennial grasses grow, their roots are going to fill the soil, and they're going to basically make a wall of roots. And when weeds try to germinate in that; their roots are going to hit the native grass roots, and they're going to stop.”

He is not an advocate for planting legumes as cover crop for nitrogen. “If you don’t need the nitrogen, don’t put the legumes in, because they’re going to harbor a lot of pests. Too much nitrogen in the soil creates a weed problem. If you don’t need the nitrogen, don’t do it. If you do need the nitrogen, absolutely, that’s not a question. But if you don’t need it, don’t do it,” he said.

Kaplow cautioned against using fescues and and bluegrasses. “I didn't use any fescue or bluegrass in this project, and the reason is that I've worked with them in restoration projects a lot, and fescue and bluegrass are northern grasses. They're moist site grasses. If you are in Washington State, it's a no-brainer. If you're in British Columbia, absolutely.

“There are native fescues and bluegrasses here, but they're on the north side of a hill. They're in the shade of trees. They're in the fog belt next to the ocean.

“You don't see them wild out here. You can seed it, and you will get scattered plants. But you're not going to get reliable results. You're not going to get a full cover. It certainly won't live. So that's the only reason I didn't try those.”

See the post as God intended (with photos, etc.) on free substack post.

Diego bentgrass photo 

Seeding Is A Bit of An Art Form

McGraw cautioned, “With native grass seeding you really have to be careful. The seeding rates are so low. You say, ‘Oh, I bought seed for five acres,’ and you use it up after one, because ‘it just doesn't look right.’ You seed it, and you don't you don't really see anything, and you go, ‘I’ve got to put more. Well, by the time you did, you've overseeded. So you really have to learn to stretch it out.

“Sometimes what people do is they will mix it with rice hulls, or they'll mix it in with something else to spread it out, so that it looks better…It's as light as humanly possible, and even then, you’re probably putting it on too heavy. So that's a major case of self-control.”

The rest of the morning was devoted to looking at each grass plot.

Kaplow said that even after just one year, some of the grasses, which were only about an inch high, would have roots extending three feet deep.

“They’re reaching for water. They’re trying to make it through the summer. Now eventually they’re going to be six, eight feet deep. They’re going to hit the water table at some point. Maybe they have, but I don’t know. They’re still young.

“Eventually they’re going to not only grow down but sideways, and the root systems can start banging into each other. So it’s going to become a wall of roots…each year it gets a little more like that.

California oatgrass (Danthonia californica) is old-growth grass in California is a long-lived native perennial bunchgrass that can live for up to 200 years and helps sustain ancient meadow ecosystems.

“Danthonia has a very, very long term strategy,” said Kaplow. “This grass, when it’s going, will live 120 years. It would be an old growth kind of grass. This is the redwoods of the grasses, but it’s hard to start it.

“I'm not quite giving up on it for here because that is one that will stay green and will dry this field out if that's what you need,” Kaplow said. “It's long lived and once it's in, it's in forever. It's just a great plant. I have high future hopes for it. I've got this growing in my front yard in Santa Rosa. I don't water it and it's still green.”

This is part one of a two part article. We will post a link to Part 2 here soon.

The final event in the NVGG organic series on July 29 featured a keynote conversation featuring two respected organic producers-Steve Matthiasson of Matthiasson Wines and Jason Haas of Tablas Creek Vineyard.

That will be the subject of a future post here.

UPDATE: The SF Chronicle published a new story today on Opus One and its eco-management shifts. 

Namaste. Now Hold My Wine Glass. Asian Food and Wine Pairing Experts Offer Inspiration in Wine Market Council Webinar Co-Hosted with Asian Wine Association of America

Wineries have offered yoga classes to attract younger wine drinkers. But they might try something better – offering Indian food and wine pairings. Wine with Indian food is a growing field.

SEE THE PHOTOS AND CHARTS HERE https://organicwineuncorked.substack.com/p/namaste-now-hold-my-wine-glass-asian

A recent Wine Market Council event cosponsored with the Asian American Association of America featured Indian wine pairing experts. Wine marketers and wine lovers have new horizons to explore.

I recently had to select the wines for a friend’s wedding where the theme was Indian (Neither the bride nor the groom was Indian but they like India). The caterer was Rooh, a very high end Indian restaurant in the Bay Area, and I had recently returned from a wine press trip to Cava country in Spain (in Penedes, the Cava Meeting was the event), so I ended up getting cases and cases of an organically grown rosé from Vilarnau, available at Total Wine. A sparkling wine, it delivered bubbles and a satisfying bit of fruitiness, all for $20 a bottle–far less than Champagne–and it was quite festive and pretty as well.

But the whole exercise led me to consider more deeply just what does go with Indian food. Luckily there was this Wine Market Council webinar to help me for future occasions.

For a wine industry that’s floundering, the Asian community offers plenty of new wine lovers to cultivate, industry experts said at a recent Wine Market Council co-sponsored event with the newly formed Asian Wine Association of America.

Earlier this year, wine industry trend watcher Danny Brager tracked dining shifts, showing how eateries in the US have swiftly changed as demographics and changing food tastes have impacted what we eat. There are FAR fewer fine dining–white tablecloth places are down around 50 percent–and a growing number of eateries featuring global flavors.

While Apple TV Slow Horses’ fans delight in its slovenly hero’s relatable love of curry takeout in London, new, elite restaurants have extended the range of Indian foods on offer in the U.S.

Think Rooh in SF, near South Park, in the heart of San Francisco’s AI and tech entrepreneur heartland. There is, of course, also a Rooh in Palo Alto, the other epicenter.

Indian food’s growth in the US has been driven by two forces moving together: a fast-growing, increasingly affluent Indian-American population, and rising mainstream American demand for the cuisine.

A few things stand out:

Restaurant count roughly doubled since 2018 — Indian restaurant openings are up 113% since 2018, with 9,438 Indian restaurants in the US as of April 2026, concentrated in California (2,035), Texas (1,318), and New York (841).

The population base grew even faster — the Indian population in the US has increased by roughly 3.1 million, growing about 174% since 2000, and that group now has a median household income above $151,000, compared with about $105,000 for Asian American households overall.

Revenue growth has been more modest — industry-wide, revenue is climbing at a CAGR of about 2.1%, reaching roughly $4.9 billion, with 1.4% growth in 2024 alone, which is slower than the restaurant-count growth, suggesting a lot of smaller/independent openings rather than one big chain expansion — about 77% of Indian restaurants in the US are single-owner operations.

The high end is where the real momentum is right now — upscale Indian dining has seen a recent boom, and the shift is generational: second- and third-generation Indian-Americans eat Indian food out far more than they cook it at home, unlike their parents’ generation.

How This Relates to Wine

All too often, Indian eateries are not pushing wine. At the high end, it’s fruity cocktails. Across the spectrum, it’s beer. But all that might be changing as more and more Indians grow to love wine.

Background | “The Most Important Demographic in America”

Speaking at a WMC webinar in 2025, market researcher Mike Lakusta of Ethnifacts said it’s important to realize what this Indian demographic represents. He wants to, “help everybody understand why this is the most important demographic in America.”

According to Wine Market Council data, Indian Americans make up about 6.3% of the population, but only about 5% of wine consumption in America. But he said, “it’s the fastest growing racial population, the fastest growing buying power growth, the highest income and a higher skew toward wine drinking generations within the population.”

“If you look at projections between now and 2060, what a lot of people don't realize is that the non Hispanic white population is going to decline by 27% as a contribution to growth, the largest will be Hispanic but the Asian American population will contribute 23% to that growth,” he said. Not only that, but the Asian American population tends to be more affluent, he said.

“If you look at the buying power of Asian Americans in California, it’s $469 billion…that is almost as big as the $530 billion of Hispanics in the state of California,” he added. While China is the biggest Asian American population in California, Indian ethnicity is number one in 24 states, he said.

“So if you’re not marketing to these groups, particularly Asian Americans and Hispanics, you’re not reaching the new drinkers that are hitting America right now,” he said.

Enter the 2026 Experts

In the most recent WMC webinar “Mastering the Art of Pairing Wine with Indian Cuisine,” Shekar Sathyanarayana, founder of Nalla, and Neeta Mittal, founder at LXV Wine, explained how things are dramatically evolving in our understanding of Indian food and wine pairings.

Sathyanarayana began with the basics–there’s not just one kind of Indian food.

Spice does not mean heat, he said, emphasizing the aromatics and spice sophistication that Indian food embodies.

Getting a sweet wine to mask the spices is a huge mistake, he said.

“People say, ‘Oh gosh, it's got all this heat, or it's spicy, and you know what? Let's just get a sweet wine.’ You're really drowning the cuisine when you do that. It's not to say that a sweet wine does not work, but it's not really the intention or purpose.”

He interviewed Indian restaurant owners to find out which four different dishes were most popular during COVID because Indian restaurants did extremely well then.

The reason?

“Indian cuisine is one of those things that travels very well, not so much like a burger or a steak, where the moment it comes out of the kitchen, you’ve got to eat it immediately. But with Indian cuisine, you're rewarded with patience, and these were the most common items that people would order,” he said.

Suggested Wine Pairings from Pam (All Are Certified Organically Farmed)

• Sparkling | Vilarnau Brut Cava or Rosé ($19, available at Total Wine)

• Sauvignon Blanc | Frog’s Leap (also available at Total Wine ($29), BevMo and more)

• Grenache | Tablas Creek Alouette $105 for 3L Box (= 4 btls.) (box available from the winery only); 750 ML bottles also available

• Cabernet Sauvignon | Matthiasson ($85 from the winery and available from select retailers; 99 points on Decanter)

A Wheel in Process | Neeta Mittal

For Neeta Mittal, Indian food is like a playground for food and wine pairing. A grower and a vintner in both Paso Robles and St. Emilion, she has tips for getting started, developed over years.

Her tips:

SEE GRAPHIC FOR TIPS

She’s also been working hard on a pairing wheel and one can download the app version on her website.

Mittal also offers an exotic variety of spice kits.

She is also working to educate Indian restaurant owners on how to incorporate wine into their businesses.

Where to Find Organically Grown Wine from Indian Winemakers in California

Indian owned wineries farming organic grapes with wine for sale:

• Nicholson Ranch in Sonoma from Mumbai-born Deepak Gulrajani

• Parr Wines in Cambria from famed former sommelier Raj Parr (originally from Calcutta), now turned farmer and winemaker

Listening to this webinar and its tantalizing description of Indian food made me lust for the food itself. As soon as the webinar ended, it was off to my favorite Indian restaurant–Ajanta in Berkeley–to satisfy the cravings this webinar awakened. It is one of Alice Waters’ favorite restaurant picks, too. I was told today that the produce all comes from the farmers market.

Here’s to more organically grown wines to pair with delicious Indian food.

To view the full webinar, become a member of the Wine Market Council. 

Opus One at a Natural Wine Festival? Mais Oui. Classic Napa Winery Starts to Use Its Native Yeasts

 Native yeast expert Sydney Rogers explains it all at Unfiltered Wine Festival panel in Berkeley.

Native Yeasts | Not So Pure After All?

What about native yeasts–another hallmark of the natural wine movement but one that winemakers who don’t call themselves natural frequently use?

Things are getting ever more complex on that front, as Opus One’s Sydney Rogers reported at the Unfiltered Wine Festival held in Berkeley July 26.

She researched natural fermentation during her education at U.C. Davis and was asked to speak about her findings on a panel about natural versus conventional wine.

SEE SUBSTACK FOR PHOTO OF Sydney Rogers

She isolated yeasts on Pinot Noir grapes from four different California AVAs across multiple vintages, and then made wine with them.

“We were trying to see if they could compare to commercial strains,” she said. “But the interesting part that I found from the project is that there are genetic signatures of vineyards, so yeasts can have terroir. They can be found in one vineyard across multiple years.”

Her study turned up somewhat perplexing results about what can be considered native yeast.

“I think that the term native yeast is hard because what do you consider native yeast? Do you consider it just something that’s not bought from a store, or do you consider it something that is truly genetically native to the place?”

Surprise: Bicontinental Yeast?

“We found that there’s actually a yeast that has a genetic admixture of lineages from California oak trees combined with European wine strains,” she said.

“So they sexually reproduced, and they created a new hybridized yeast strain that has characteristics of both. And I think that that’s a really interesting.

“They actually outcompeted even the strongest of fermenters like EC-1118 [a popular active dried wine yeast strain (Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. bayanus) originally isolated in Champagne] in these spontaneous ferments.

“That just shows that sometimes you have to take something of the traditional ways from the European lineage of yeast, and something from the new way or the new place that you’re trying to make wine from, and this combination of both things can end up with something really strong.”

SEE PHOTO OF CROWD ON SUBSTACK

There was a lot of enthusiasm in the crowd when it was time to sample the 2018 Opus One, a $400+ classic from Napa Valley.

To illustrate yet again the promiscuity of yeasts, Davis said, “Jared and I had a conversation last week, and there was a brewery near [a winery], and they were curious to know what their yeast in the wine was. Turned out to be Trumer Pils yeast, so a lot of their wines were being fed with yeast.”

Said Rogers, ‘We actually looked at the populations of many of these different yeasts, and there were many that were commercial…but some of these strains that have genes from oak yeast that are native to California seem to be better suited for the environment here, because they can outcompete the other ones. Now it may not happen in every winery. I don’t know. I guess the Trumer Pils yeast could be just really going into beast mode.”

But knowing what yeast ends up in your wine is not cheap to find out.

“It’s really costly to analyze what yeast you have in your wine, right?” she said.

Rogers, who brought the all important 2018 Opus One wine the audience was excited to try, said that Opus One transitioned to native yeast.

“We used to use commercial, and winemaker [emeritus] Michael Silacci wanted to start doing native, but he felt it can be risky, especially for a wine like Opus One [a coveted $400 Napa Valley classic co-owned with a Bordeaux partner].

SEE SUBSTACK FOR PHOTO

Serving up the 2018 Opus One. Rogers is in the background.

“So we isolated some native strains from our vineyards. And from each of our estates, we have a strain, or more than one strain, that comes from those vineyards. They’ve been compared to many databases of commercial yeast, and they are native.

“So my job is to scale them up from petri dishes to 100 liter biofermenters every day, and use those biofermenters for yeast to inoculate tanks. So it’s a native strain, but we inoculate with it,” she said.

While for years, natural winemakers have debated pros and cons of various winemaking approaches, Rogers said it was best to sidestep all the analyzing, if audiences are not interested in natural wine minutiae.

“What does your consumer care about? What does your audience care about? If they really care about natural wine and how you define how you make natural wine, then sure, talk your ear off about it.”

“I think we need to stop making people feel bad for not knowing the rules or not knowing the definitions, and just get people excited about drinking something new–especially the younger generations–because wine is so intimidating and it’s really hard to learn.”

“I think being supportive–like [answering questions] ‘why do you call it natural?’ ‘Oh, but someone else calls it natural, but they don’t do what you do,’ and then just explaining nicely why,” she said.

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UPDATE: the SF Chronicle posted a new story on Aug. 19 about Opus One's broader eco-management practices.