Donum Estate on Track to Becoming Sonoma County's Second Largest Organic Vineyard Owner

Donum Estate, a high end Pinot Noir producer in the Carneros, is on its way to becoming Sonoma County's second largest organic vineyard owner. Now in its second year of using only organic farming practices, the estate is anticipating organic certification with CCOF in 2022.

The winery's organic vineyards, based mainly in the Carneros, also put it on track to become the largest organic vineyard on the Sonoma side of the Carneros.  

The 190 acre estate in the Carneros is home to 121 acres of planted vines on two vineyards. 

Additionally the winery has a 16 acre vineyard in the Russian River Valley and a newly acquired and newly planted 20 acre vineyard site in Bodega, adjacent to Benziger's de Coelho vineyard near Freestone.

The county's biggest organic vineyard owner, Ridge Vineyards, has vines in the hot inland Dry Creek Valley and Geyserville AVAs. There it grows Zinfandel and Rhone varieties on its 288 acres of organic vines.

In contrast, Donum Estate is in the cool climate Pinot growing regions. 

The country's other large organic producer, Benziger, has 100 acres in various Sonoma AVAs, including Sonoma Mountain, Sonoma Valley, the Russian River Valley and the Sonoma Coast.

Increases Organic Carneros Acreage 

Other local, all organic estate wineries in the Carneros that have organic vineyards in the region include Adastra, Crazy Flower, Grgich Hills Estate, Madonna Estate, Robert Sinskey Vineyards and ZD Wines, all on the Napa side. Larson Family Winery and Nicholson Ranch on the Sonoma side make some wines from certified organic estate vines in the Carneros.

Donum: An Arty Destination

Donum is popular with visitors for its wide range of Pinot Noir wines, made in varying styles, along with its world class collection of 40 outdoor sculptures. Its most famous is Zodiac by Ai Weiwei. 

Mei and Allan Warburg

Owners Allan and Mei Warburg have collected sculptures from leading international artists over years of living in China. (See Christie's article about their collecting here).

Allan Warburg was recently a guest on a YouTube video with Jean-Charles Boisset, talking about his life and collecting art. Here's that interview:

WINEMAKER INTERVIEW: DAN FISHMAN

Why did you and the team at Donum decide to go organic?

Mostly it's a wine quality thing. But there are a lot of good reasons independent of wine quality, as well.

I'm trying to kind of reduce the number of impacts that, that I have as winemaker and trying to use as light a touch as possible.

How are the vineyards doing this year during the conversion?

I've already seen our Carneros soils–which is our biggest vineyard by far–doing better despite the drought. 

Here in the Carneros we have soils with pretty heavy clay content. Outside the vineyard, the soils are cracking. 

We never saw insects or worms in there before. Now there's tons of life and worm castings everywhere. 

The soil is holding water a lot better and holding its structure much better. 

The feeling of being in the vineyard has changed a lot, too. We're just seeing so much more life and energy in the place. We're starting to see a big improvement on that front.

What's it like implementing a composting program?

Doing our own compost is really cool, too. 

We also opened our estate winery in 2019, so now all of our must and vine cuttings goes into building our own compost. We are taking that a step further with some biological additions. 

Are you also using some biodynamic practices?

We also started working with a biodynamic consultant and we can already see in the vineyard how some of the compost teas and the biodynamic horn manure (BD 500) has really brought a lot of life back to those soils. 

How have the workers responded to the conversion project?

I think our vineyard team really does love the fact that they don't have to get into all that protective equipment to do sprays. I think they feel just safer and happier working in a healthier place.

PART 1: Boom Times for Organic and Biodynamic Certification in Napa

Organic and biodynamic wine certification is on the rise in Napa. 

In the past year, several new wineries have come on board, certifying hundreds of acres of vines, and making the region the organic and biodynamic hotspot in the US. It now has the highest number of organic acres in any fine wine region in the country. 

However, many Napa producers still rely on dangerous chemicals. No large, corporate owned wineries are certified organic, a group that includes Beringer, Constellation, Gallo, Treasury Wine Estates and others. (The single exception is Opus One which is jointly owned by the Bordeaux-based Rothschild family and New York-based Constellation Brands.)

BIODYNAMICS: 727 NEW OR IN TRANSITION ACRES

The largest organic vineyard owner, Demeine Estates, is now in the transition to certify all of its 550 acres biodynamic. Many of its brands are already 100 percent organic estate wineries: Stony Hill, Heitz Cellar, and two new brands–Brendel and Ink Grade. All of these vines are already certified organic. 

It also owns Burgess, Haynes Vineyard and Wildwood Vineyard, each of which is in the three year transition to organic and to biodynamic certification. 

The uber green producer Spottswoode (17 acres) became Demeter certified biodynamic in 2020. (It has been certified organic for decades.)

Before Spottswoode joined, there were only 170 biodynamic acres in Napa–primarily at Raymond Vineyards.

ORGANIC: 201 ORGANIC NEWLY CERTIFIED ACRES

After nearly a decade of declaring itself to be organic, but, never being certified, Quintessa (160 acres) finally crossed the threshold in August of 2020. It has also applied for biodynamic certification. The winery also has one vineyard that is in transition to organic for its Faust estate wines.

Tiny Hoopes Vineyard, with 12 acres in Yountville, also became certified organic this spring. It has an additional seven acres on the Oakville AVA that are on the verge of being certified.

Opus One (136 acres), also in Oakville, became certified in April of 2021.

Others are in the certification pipeline, a process which takes three years or organic farming to complete. 

BORDEAUX

While Napa currently has about 10 percent of its vineyards certified organic (not including in transition acreage), Bordeaux now has 11 percent. That's in a country where nationwide the figure is 14 percent. 

The Languedoc, home to lower priced wines, often exported, is 27 percent certified (or in transition) organic. 

About 300 more wineries are expected to become organic in Bordeaux this year, according to local authorities.

See the next post in this three part series.

PART 2: Napa: The Dark Side–"Green Farming" Includes Herbicides and Fungicides

NON-ORGANIC VINEYARDS: HERBICIDE AND FUNGICIDE USE

Most wineries in Napa still use glyphosate or glufosinate ammonium for weed control. 

In 2018, more than 22,000 acres–about half of the vines–were sprayed with glyphosate (the listed active ingredient in Roundup), an herbicide that is still permitted under the county's Napa Green sustainable standard. Another 6,640 were sprayed with glufosinate ammonium.

The total number of acres in vine is roughly 44,000. 

Here's where the glyphosate is used:

All data displayed is from California Dept. of Pesticide Regulation; mapped by California Dept. of Health's Agricultural Pesticide Mapping Tool.

You can generate your own maps at that link, searching for various chemicals including the other form of glyphosate-isopropylamine salt and glufosinate ammonium. The tool also lets you select chemicals by class: carcinogens, developmental and reproductive toxins, endocrine disruptors and more.

For more, visit https://trackingcalifornia.org/pesticides/pesticide-mapping-tool

Fungicides, including neonicotinoids–which are highly toxic to bees, birds and butterflies (including Monarchs)–are more widely used. 

Their use is permitted under Napa Green standards.

See the next post in this series.

PART 3: What Organic Certification Costs

ORGANIC FARMING AND CERTIFICATION COST COMPARISON

Organic vineyards use alternative methods for weed control and protection against fungal diseases and pests. There is much debate about the cost of farming organically and a lot of rumor mill lore about how "expensive" certification is.

Organic Farming Costs

Some experienced producers say it costs the same to farm organically as it does to be conventional or "sustainable." 

Some long term organic producers say it costs 20 percent less to farm organically. 

Others report costs of 10-30 percent more to farm organically. 

Terrain has a lot to do with it and costs vary widely  depending on the site, disease pressure, insect population and other factors.

Grapes as a Cost Center in Wine Production Expenses

Another variable to consider is what percentage of the cost of wine is in the farming and grape costs. Most of the cost of producing a bottle of wine is not in the grapes.

In general, the rule of thumb is that a wine costs 10x what the grape cost. 

So, for a $60 bottle of wine, the grape cost would be around $6. 

If it costs 10 percent more to be organic, the grape price would be $6.60 on a $60 bottle of wine. 

Certification Costs

Many do not realize the costs of certifying grapes is actually quite low and even lower when government rebates are factored in. (See my article from Wines & Vines on the subject). The federal government picks up 1/2 of the costs of certification fees. (CCOF is trying to get the reimbursement back up to 3/4 which is what it was before Trump.)

Take this example: a Napa farmer growing 10 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon yielding 4 tons of wine grapes has grapes valued at $6,000 per ton (for a per-acre yield of $24,000).

For $24,000 worth of grapes (in each acre), the California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) certification fee works out to $435 (before government reimbursements kick in). Inspection fees are no more than $400-800, according to the CCOF website but let's use their average quoted price of $550, though it could be lower. The reimbursement can be up to $500 per company.

For four tons, with a conversion rate of 750 bottles per ton, and a wine price of $60, it would cost $435 plus $550 in annual inspection fees or about $1,000 for 3,000 bottles. Then subtract the subsidy and the cost is about $500.

The total value of the wine would be $180,000 ($60 times 3,000 bottles). So the $500 cost in certification fees would be .00005% of the cost of the wine or 3 cents per bottle.

If the farming costs added 60 cents per bottle (assuming a 10 percent increase in organic farming costs) and certification fees added 3 cents per bottle, is that too a high price for consumers to pay? Maybe it's time to ask consumers how they would vote. 

Would they like to pay 3 cents to know the grapes in the bottle were certified organic? 

Wine consumers are clamoring for more transparency in food and wine. This seems like a low price to pay to give consumers piece of mind.

Lodi Growers Meet Mondavi and the Modern Marvel That Is the Monarch Tractor

It was hot in Lodi–104 degrees, to be precise–on Thursday in Victor, just north of Lodi, when the Lodi Winegrape Commission met to see the newfangled gadget Carlo Mondavi and his electric tractor colleagues are selling.

Lodi growers Jon Wetmore and Aaron Shinn of Round Valley Ranches hosted the event which brought more than 70 growers together to witness a truly modern marvel–the first, self-driving, electric tractor.

Douglas Kolker, Head of Growth at the Livermore-based Monarch Tractor company, gave the pitch. "Thank you all for coming. I'll just talk for a couple of minutes.

"Our tractor driver Zach is recording the route and then he'll just press a button and the tractor is going to run the same rows in the same path in the same manner autonomously by itself.

"That will be the highlight of the show, and the magic," he said. "So get ready for that–get excited."

Douglas Kolker, Head of Growth, Monarch Tractor, introduced the demo

"What we have found from all the farm owners that we've been speaking with when we've been doing this, bringing the tractor to farms for almost a year now–we've done dozens and dozens–that there are several reasons why the tractor is of interest."

"There are three main things that we bring to the party," he continued. "One–that it is electric. No diesel. And the cost of diesel, the messiness of it, the fumes, what it does to your crops–so that's eliminated. That's number one.

"Number two is that it's autonomous, driver optional. So your best driver records the route, hops off and the tractor runs it from then on–for as long as you want it to run in terms of months and years. And it will improve upon the route. It's actually better. 

"Anyone ever have a tractor run over a vine? That won't happen. Whatever the tractor driver recorded, every single time the tractor makes a pass on it, the tractor improves on the route. 

"And then the third piece, which you will see when the tractor comes to rest, and you can kick the tires and look at it, is that it has 12 cameras on it, so it provides real time data collection. So you can look for pests, moisture levels, anything and everything that you need to capture will be captured automatically by the cameras. You can look at it and analyze it on your phone and on your apps whenever you want. And the data belongs to you."

An onlooker watching the tractor in action

Just like ET, the tractor will phone home, Kolker said. "Unlike an electric car,  there's no range anxiety. The tractor will always come back to the charging station," he told the crowd.

A $500 deposit would lock in the current price, he added. "A 2 x 4 is $58,000 and the 4 by 4 is $68,000."

Many wineries in other regions have already ordered the tractors, and some–including Scheid Vineyards in Monterey County–have already applied for grants to offset the purchase price through California's Air Board FARMER program. 

"You turn in your old diesel tractor for one of those grants," said Mondavi.

It was his grandfather, Robert Mondavi, who famously grew up in Lodi, when his parents, Cesare and Rosa, moved the family of four from Hibbing, Minnesota to a house here, just 6 miles as the crow flies from Round Valley Ranches.

Cesare (standing) and Rosa (seated) with their children:
Mary,  Helen, Peter and Robert

"This is kind of a return to home for me for my family," Carlo said. "We're no longer farming here in Lodi, but we had been farming here since 1919."

Indeed, Robert Mondavi founded the nearby local powerhouse producer, Woodbridge in Acampo. (The winery is owned today by Constellation Brands.) Mondavi's mass market wines marked the market transition from old school jug wines to the modern varietals. That, of course, was in addition to putting Napa and its wine on the global stage.

The challenges of the 21st century are different from those days.

"For me, the Monarch tractor is the solution to a challenge called the Monarch Challenge, which is an effort to raise awareness" said Carlo. "Since the introduction of chemicals in farming, the population of butterflies and bees–due to climate change, migratory path disruption, and chemicals in farming–the Monarch population of butterflies have gone from 4.4 million individuals in the state of California down to 19,110. They're on the brink of extinction."

Carlo Mondavi (in black hat), Chief Farming Officer, Monarch Tractor, in Lodi

"So I started a challenge called the Monarch Challenge to try to create awareness. Because I'm a farmer. All my friends are farmers. Farmers are the most important people on earth, next to maybe doctors.  

"I realized that we weren't going to be able to solve this problem unless we could bridge the economic divide. There's a massive economic divide between multiple passes and fewer passes. That's just common sense. It's also a carbon footprint divide. 

"So if you can drive a Tesla or some of these autonomous vehicles, why can't you do that with a tractor? And so I partnered with a brilliant team and we formed Monarch Tractor."

"The crazy thing about this is it solves not just the carbon footprint issue that we deal with in farming, but it also solves the economic divide."

That footprint has big bottom line implications, he said.

"We're swapping in–in just one family's operations–about 150 tractors over the next five years. We're going to be saving them over $3 million per year. The carbon footprint savings is about 8,000 metric tons. 

"There's big big savings when you look at this from a financial standpoint, and that's what we need, as families, to continue farming and doing what we love."

Looking back on his own experience growing up as the son of Robert's son Tim Mondavi, Carlo said he was a mechanic's assistant from the age of seven until he was about 16, and he got some sage advice from the mechanic.

"He said, 'Carlo, you need to realize the most dangerous place on this farm is in a tractor seat.'" 

The Monarch solves that safety issue, he said.

"By being able to have your skilled operators get out of the tractor seat, and manage a fleet of tractors–versus being in a dangerous place, which is dirty and dangerous job–you're protecting your farm. You're also increasing your profitability. 

"And so that's one of the reasons why we know that this technology is needed–not just for all the challenges that we face on a planetary basis, but also on an economic basis."

The company says that the first tractors will ship in the fourth quarter of 2021, but most customers will get delivery for orders placed now in 2022 and 2023.

During the Q and A, growers asked about the right to repair, labor laws, charge times, horsepower and a variety of other questions.

Stephanie Bolton, the research and education director of the Lodi Winegrape Commission, 
got a chance to sit in the tractor

One questioned whether the company let farmers have the right to repair. 

"We are 'farmers first,'" said Mondavi. "You have the right to repair. The whole team is committed to 'farmer first.'"

Data is stored in the cloud and the farmer owns the rights to their data, the team said.

The discussion touched on labor laws and cost savings. "With the Monarch, there's no overtime," said one speaker."

"And no ten minute coffee breaks and no lunch breaks," an audience member chimed in.

The battery life depends on the amount of energy needed to do various tasks. "For mowing, the battery lasts about 10 to 12 hours," one speaker said. "Higher draw tasks take more energy so the time is less."

Apps are in development that will identify insect pests or count missing vines, and other tasks, the team said. 

At the end of the session, my phone shut down from excessive heat. But could a Monarch tractor keep going when a regular farmworker driver would faint from the heat? Probably it could.

Congrats to Opus One - Now Certified Organic - And Happy Fourth of July to French-American Unions

April 12, 2021 was the magic date that one of Napa's most prestigious wineries, Opus One, had its 136 acres of estate vineyards certified organic. It's sort of the wine equivalent of putting a ring on it, isn't it?

Founded by Baron Philippe de Rothschild S. A. and Robert Mondavi, the winery is now owned by Rothschild and Constellation Brands. It is Constellation's only organic property.

Bravo - well done. 

So far, Napa and Bordeaux are neck and neck in the competition to see who will have a higher percentage of organic vines. Both are at about 11 percent this year.

Opus One might be the proper wine to drink on 4th of July and on Bastille Day, representing as it does that the U.S. was founded on French Enlightenment ideals that are embodied in the US Constitution. 

Viva La France, Viva Les Etats-Unis d'Amerique. Et viva Opus One.

The Passing of Legendary Old Vine Champion Don Galleano: Winemaker Carol Shelton, Queen of Zin, Weighs in on the Man and His Legacy

Don Galleano, 2014

Not many wine lovers know that Southern California and Los Angeles were the first California wine country. Fewer still believe that remnants of the world of sweet wines and sherries lives on or that one could have 300 acres of organic dry farmed Zinfandel, some of it 80 year old bush vines growing in sand by the freeway. 

But for Don Galleano, this was a lived reality. The patriarch of an historic holdout in the Cucamonga Valley AVA, he presided over vines preserved due to his love and passion - until his death on June 2.

I had the good fortune to meet him once and to interview him in his home, an experience I will never forget. 

For starters, he greeted me with a plastic water tumbler sized glass - a red one like you might have had at your grandmother's house - and it was filled with Zinfandel. No four ounce pours here.

I felt like I was immersed in a world I could only have read about in wine history books. No history book could possibly match the experience of talking and drinking with him.  

First of all, what wine guy invites you into his home to drink and talk while he's sitting in his recliner ?

I loved the fact that he had an old wine country tourist map of the region showing The Road to Romance circa the 1940s.

I marveled at many details in Jon Bonne's 2014 article. He wrote that the dry farmed roots of the José Lopez vines, "push 30 feet or more into the sandy soils, strewn with granite rocks washed from the mountains above."  

Galleano's sherries reflect Old California.
 Its gorgeous, sumptuous Rose of Peru
is a unique tribute to an historical grape.

Galleano's old vine vineyard

We talked about water - he was on the local water district board for years and he knew the ins and outs of the allocation system thoroughly. 

He dry farmed all of his vines - no conflict of interest there. 

Under his watch, the winery certified all of its vines as organic.

In 1995, locals got their own Cucamonga Valley AVA. The region had once grown 40,000 acres of grapes, but by 2000 had only 1,200 left. Galleano's were the only organic vineyards among them. 

While most of the vines were Zin, others were Carignane, Grenache, Mission, Mourvedre and Palomino. Galleano worked with Cal Poly Pomona to make sure cuttings from historic vines were preserved at the college's Horsehill Vineyard.   

Galleano's grandfather founded the winery in 1933. 

A community minded leader, Galleano was very engaged in local groups and served as a judge in wine competitions, where he was also an influential presence.

INTERVIEW WITH CAROL SHELTON

Sonoma winemaker Carol Shelton, often called the queen of Zin, produces an outstanding Zinfandel from the historic Jose Lopez Vineyard, which was planted in 1918. The tiny bush vines still bear delicious, tiny sweet berries. (I was there just before harvest once and tasted them for myself. They grow unpretentiously on the side of the freeway).

Last week I spoke with Carol Shelton, who bought grapes from Don and his son Dominic, to make her Monga Zin ($26) about Don and his legacy. 

Carol Shelton with grapes at the José Lopez Vineyard, planted just before Prohibition

What was Don like?

He was a cool guy. He was kind of like a mafia don. We used to call him The Don or Donald.

He wore his pants high up on his waist with a belt and his hair was slicked back and he wore a turtleneck a lot of the time. Marlon Brando had nothing on him. He was great.

How did he work to preserve his old vines?

Don was passionate about protecting his vineyard and making sure it got recognized and he was fighting to get it made a historic landmark so it's a big loss. I don't think he had finished that job. So that’s really sad. 

He got the winery property landmarked. I registered the vineyard in the Historic Vineyard Society but he didn’t manage to get the government to name the vineyard an historic landmark which would have protected it from future development. 

They've already lost a good portion - probably two thirds - of the vineyard to development, because there weren't any freeways when it was planted, right? And they put ten lanes of Route 15 in, and then they put 210 in, which bisects the vineyard. And then there's all this new housing. There’s tremendous pressure to develop the land. The land is actually, I believe, owned by a rich Singapore businessman. I've never met him, I don't even know his name. I think he just leased the property to Donald and it was just a line on his income statement, you know, and he didn't really know what it was - just an asset. It was a much more valuable asset for housing.

José Lopez Vineyard 

What was his winery like?

The Galleano family has a 12 acre vineyard adjacent to their Mira Loma winery, which is kind of a sprawling place. Actually, every time I go there, I think, “Oh my God, I've just seen Pancho Villa with crossed bandoliers coming out, shooting, because it just looks like something out of old Mexico or something.

Don had great stories. Some of them would change a little bit every time he told them. 

I heard that the Jose Lopez vineyard was very old - it was planted in 1918. And then I heard different years in Don's subsequent retellings of the story.

He said that his property right there at the winery in Mira Loma was acquired in a poker game with one of Pancho Villa’s lieutenants - Esteban Cantu. They actually made a freeway exit for him.

Cantu was either one of Galleano's predecessors, and he owned the land around the winery. Then there was a big poker game, and he lost the land to Domenico Galleano. 

Don had a lot of colorful stories.

How did he die?

He contracted a virus about five years ago that was one of those weird things that took the doctors a long time to diagnose. He came very close to dying in the hospital, and it weakened his heart. So I think the biggest guess is that he died in his sleep when his heart gave out. 

He wasn't one for doing a lot of exercise and for taking care of himself. He smoked cigars. He drank. It was his lifestyle. He wasn't an alcoholic by any means. But he just definitely liked his lifestyle and he wasn't about to change it. And that's kind of what ultimately caused his demise.

  

Will the old vine plant material be saved?

As for the vineyard, there have been a few people that have taken tissue cuttings and propagated. Cal Poly Pomona and ZAP have some of the plant material. 

What, are there any of his wines that inspired you? Like his sherrys? I know you made that Tawny Monga once?

Well his Zin was your basic Dago Red. It was classic as an old school jug style. 

But his sherrys were really good. And that's how I got to know him when I worked for Windsor Vineyards, and we wanted to bottle port and sherry. 

I came down because he had some of the best stock in the country. So I went to see him once when I was doing a wine competition. So I flew in early and had a big tasting session with him and his winemaker, Jason Bushong (who’s up in Paso now). We tasted through all these different barrels and I'd say, “Okay, I want this one, this one this one, and skip those.” So then they loaded up a tanker and I took it back up north to Windsor. 

What he did with those sherries was amazing. He really had the handle on dessert wine.

He also farmed a lot of vineyards around the area. He had a real love for the heritage of the Cucamonga Valley.

So your Tawny Monga - was that inspired by his sweet wines? 

It was in a year that was very tough to harvest, because there was a terrible heat wave, and it’s a long story but the truck from the vineyard got a flat tire in the middle of a cell phone dead zone that was between Cucamonga and Temecula. 

For the first 10 or so years that I got the fruit, I had to crush in Temecula because of the glassy winged sharpshooter quarantine. So I got to know everybody down there.

The truck got stuck on Highway 15 and the guy had to walk out to get help. By the time we saw the truck, it was past eight o'clock at night. It had left the vineyard between 12 and one in the afternoon in a heat wave. The heat was radiating off the pavement. The fruit was a bit cooked, so we took the press fraction, fortified it and made port out of it. It made a damn good port.

Yes, I had some of that when I came to your place several years ago and I loved it.  I just absolutely adored it and I should try to get some more of that.

Make sure you get some from Galleano's place - he's got some really really good stuff. His cream sherry and Angelica are amazing.

Yes I have some Rose of Peru and a Mary Margaret sherry, which were his best.

His legacy was really amazing. It would be a great loss if it wasn't protected.

CELEBRATION OF LIFE PLANNED

Southern California friends of Don Galleano are planning a memorial service to celebrate his life. A date has not yet been announced.

Batonnage Forum Spotlights Women Made Wines at Sonoma Tasting: Meet the Ones Crushing It - Organically

 

It was perfect weather for a tasting, and Sonoma Broadway Farms was a great venue for Batonnage, the women in wine organization, to showcase 15 tables of women run wineries at a walk around tasting that displayed the enormous breadth of women's presence in the wine world. 

There was sparkling wine, there was natural wine, there was white wine, there was rosé and plenty of it. There was plenty of geeky winespeak, too, with inquiring minds wanting to know arcane points about winemaking. 

I went in search of organically grown wines. Initially I was chagrined by how many women were actually making wine using grapes sprayed with Roundup (their names will not be mentioned). It felt like the first time I got a speeding ticket from a woman cop. How unfair! But oh well. Life is full of learning. 

However, the producers featured here all had at least one wine from an organic vineyard and were finding more and more organic sources to buy grapes from. I was happy to raise a glass to that.

Birdhouse is the love child of winemakers Katie Rouse (left) and Corinne Rich (left) who met and fell in love when they were students at U.C. Davis where they each got a master's in viticulture and enology. 

CCOF certified Vista Luna Vineyard in Lodi (farmed by
Marcus Bokisch) is the source for their fresh, lively Verdelho.

Camins 2 is the brand birthed by Spanish born Mireia Taribo, educated in Barcelona, and Tara Gomez, a descendant of the Chumash tribe who studied winemaking at Fresno. Their winery is based in Lompoc, where they source a lovely Gruner Veltliner and a Syrah from the nearby Spear Vineyard (organic) in the Sta. Rita Hills AVA. They're looking forward to releasing wine from the biodynamic vineyard Christy & Wise.

Erin Mitchell makes wine with her partner Randy Czech under their Unturned Stone wine label. 
The couple were the first to make wine from the unique coastal planting of Cabernet grapes at Waterhorse Ridge in Cazadero.

Their first white wine is a Sauvignon Musqué from Vecino Vineyard in Potter Valley. They also make a field blend, called The Stowaway, from another Mendocino vineyard, Buddha's Dharma, in Talmage.

Another up and coming vintner in the mostly organic lane is Terah Bajjalieh, who studied enology in Montpelier, France and worked briefly at Montinore Estate. Her sparkling Tempranillo was kickass. (It comes from Rorick Heritage Vineyard). She makes only 125 cases of wine so most of her current releases are sold out. Next year she's moving out of her Morgan Hill garage and upping production to 300 cases.

First Heat, Then Frost: 2021 Chablis and Rhone Wines Off the Menu? Climate Scientists Say Climate Change Increased Chance of France's Worst Wine Frost 60%, Losses Estimated at $4.85 Billion

Weather stations with March (left) high records broken and April (right) low records broken in 2021 in France. Source: Météo-France.

Chablis from the 2021 vintage may no longer be available on the menu. Nor Rhones. Nor Champagne. Or at least it will cost more - possibly a lot more. 

The frost that occurred in early April in France is, “probably the biggest agricultural disaster in the beginning of the 21st century,” according to experts at the French Ministry of Agriculture, resulting in billions in losses and reducing wine production for the 2021 vintage in key regions by as much as 90 percent.

Climate modeling scientists from the World Weather Attribution initiative say the risks of the extreme high spring temperatures causing early bud break - followed by early frosts - were increased 60 percent due to climate change. And, they say, this alarming trend is predicted to continue. (See full study here.)

The National Federation of Farmers' Unions (FNSEA) estimated that a third of the country’s overall wine production could be lost.

Climate scientists collaborating from four European countries calculated climate change's impacts on the early bud break/early frost debacle say it's the anthropogenic climate changes that are messing with Mother Nature.

Quoted in Euronews, Philippe Pellaton, President of the Inter-Rhone Association of winegrowers, said the frost means this year will result in "the smallest harvest of the Côtes du Rhône in the last 40 years." Burgundy reported at least 50 percent of the crop was lost. Chablis reported losses of 80 to 90 percent.

The new climate report details a sort of climate change induced traffic jam, where rising temperatures that bring early bud break also increase the dangers of running into early frosts, climate researchers said.

The study was authored by the World Weather Attribution initiative and conducted by an international group of scientists from the Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (from the French National Centre for Scientific Research and the Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission), the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, the University of Oxford, the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry Jena, and Météo-France.

Sadly, one of France's leading organic wine regions, the Languedoc-Roussillon, was among those hit hardest. Due to its Mediterranean climate, the southern region is one of the first to warm in the spring. 

In the Gard, Hérault and Aude, vintners said as much as 90 percent of the crop was lost in the worst hit areas.

One organic vintner, in Hérault, Émilie Faucheron posted a heart wrenching video about the frost, which was viewed by thousands throughout France, bringing the human element to the crisis reporting.

Slide of the Day: Energy Accounting - Nitrogen Fertilizer Versus Compost

 

The Future of Wine in the Americas: Sustainability Conference To Take Place June 1-3

As climate change solutions dominate the national and world stage, the wine industry is focusing more heavily on solutions inside its wheelhouse. A newly launched conference aims to dig into some of the key issues and ongoing dialogues on chemical versus organic farming, "low carbon wine," and other areas.

As senior editor of Slow Wine Guide USA, I've been asked to speak on a panel on what retailers can do to promote sustainable wines as an opportunity. Slow Wine Guide USA is the only wine and winery guide that tries to feature only wineries that follow eco friendly baseline practices. Slow Wine Guide is a breakthrough for consumers in that it provides more transparency on a winery's eco practices than any other guide.

Interested in learning more about the conference? Find info here.

UPDATE June 1: 

Some Slow Wine Guide wineries are features in this conference. See here for more details. 

At 26, Mini Banks Takes On Cowhorn Winery with a Dream Team That Includes Andrew Beede and Raj Parr

Katherine "Mini" Banks, the new owner of Cowhorn in southern Oregon, talks about her path to buying the acclaimed biodynamic producer of award winning Rhone varietals and her values, vision and team for the project.

Your family has a long history in the wine and hospitality industries as former investors in Screaming Eagle, Mayacamas, Qupé and Sandhi [the last with famed rockstar somm turned winemaker Raj Parr].

How did you personally decide to get into the wine industry?

Yes, I grew up in this industry my whole life. At the age of seven, my parents started getting into the wine industry and the hospitality industry. When I was eight, I was allowed to just explore on my own and roam the vines on 150 acre properties. At age nine, I started working harvest. At every winery that we were part of, we would go out and work harvest. I think when you do anything starting that young, it leaves a very strong mark on you. 

 

Growing up in Santa Barbara, California, in a holistic lifestyle, what was always around us was seeing our bodies and the earth and the environment as one. So I was always interested in understanding what part we play in how we affect our environment. I especially loved making wine as a combination of that.

 

As I got older that fascination grew and grew and grew. And yet, I had a little bit of a segue: Do I really want to be on the land? As you get into your teens and you're in high school, you're like, is this really what I want? Should I be exploring more? 

MANHATTAN

I'd grown up in all these rural areas and so at college age, I went to the opposite end of the spectrum. I went to New York and studied at Parsons and did my education there. But that quickly proved to not be a fit. The concrete jungle was not where I was meant to be. 

I missed everything about what I had grown up around, and especially since the lifestyle and the culture there was just so drastically different. Very few people in New York seemed to care about what they were ingesting and what they were putting in their bodies. The conversations were not about what the wine is or why we're drinking it. It was “Oh, we're at this place and this is what we need to order here.” 

 

I still took on a great job there in fashion, and I was enjoying it. But then through friends of a friend, I was poached by the Goop team. Despite all of the things that are said about Gwyneth Paltrow and her company Goop, it was an incredibly impactful few years being there with them because their whole goal in what they were doing was pushing boundaries that they felt were necessary to push to bring more awareness. Their brand helped people think more about  the things that we're putting into our bodies and the way that we're treating our environment. While they wrapped it all up into this trendy, lifestyle brand, at the root of it were things that were incredibly inspiring. These are things I had always been drawn to back in California. So this brand Goop definitely piqued my interest. 

Those ideas were what I  felt I needed to be doing - but not necessarily for this corporate, odd company that was doing some of these kooky things. I began to think: if they can do this, then I can jump back into what I love and depart from what I'm doing in New York.

 

PRELUDE

So I started reaching out to a lot of the people that I had grown up around who are in the wine world, and seeing what they were doing. One of those was Raj Parr. He’s such a wonderful human. I've always loved him and I looked at what he was doing. [Parr is involved in two wineries - Evening Land in Oregon and Sandhi in Santa Barbara County]. He'd taken the leap and jumped into biodynamic farming.

 

So that made me think: How do I find this intersection between what I love and this holistic sphere? And how do I combine that with my love of wine?

So that made me think I should get back into wine.

 

COWHORN

We started looking and basically Bill and Barb Steele [of Cowhorn] found us. They had been seeing a lot of potential buyers who wanted to make Cowhorn a lot more than it was. The prospective buyers were interested in making canned wines or going into mass production. But Cowhorn is an small, estate only producer making beautiful wines and certified biodynamic, a practice that is getting more attention as people recognize how important nature is in farming.

When Barb found us, we walked the property a few times and had meetings - me and her - where I think she could really tell that I had every intention of maintaining the integrity of this property and continuing what they're doing and doing more of it. 

 

It's truly spectacular - what is here and what Bill and Barb have built - and to be able to maintain that while also continuing it and growing it is such an honor. I feel it's what the world needs. I feel this [regenerative agriculture] movement is so important. People care about what they're putting into their bodies. And they should. 

Wine is the thing that brings everyone around the table and I think people are so drawn to wine because there's a story behind it. They see where these grapes are coming from. They see how it's being made. It's so much more than just, "oh here's this other you know bottle of yet another on a shelf." 

There's really a history to it. People are craving this understanding. With everything that's going on now, especially with Covid, if you're around a dinner table, where we're trapped, you want to have something that's part of that brings you around the table and is more than just beverage. 

 

For me, that is part of hospitality, of what wine does. Wine has a special power and people are drawn to that, especially me. It's a draw. It drew me back very quickly and especially when I was talking to Bill and Barb who share that passion.

THE FUTURE

 

You mentioned you want to make some changes at Cowhorn. What are you thinking about?

I want to go deeper into regenerative farming and permaculture. 

This property is so large, and the soil and everything here is ready for it. And it's craving it. So, long story short, that's what's brought me to where we are. 

Bill and Barb had a few orchards that I would like to replant. We currently have asparagus and truffle trees which are hazelnut trees inoculated with truffles. But their focus was heavily in the wine, which makes sense. That is what needed to be the focus.

 

I'm going to be hiring a winemaker, which just leaves a little bit more bandwidth to be able to give the land the attention that it needs to be able to grow these things. 

 

Going forward, there's a huge opportunity to go deeper into permaculture and regenerative farming and bring in chickens, pigs, sheep and cows, and let them graze, and let them go into more areas, naturally digging up the soil and feeding it where it needs to be fed, and allowing nature to do what it needs to do. That’s replicating the natural ecosystems that exist. 

 

Humans come in and we do what we do. We're often looking for just one product. Aside from wine, there are so many more crops that can come from this land. 

 

Of course, everything that we do is going to be a really slow rollout. You can do nothing fast in farming and in biodynamics. You need to ease the land into it. You can't all of a sudden start dry farming one day. You need to allow the environment to transition with you. I think that over the next five years, 10 years, 20 years, we will start to execute these visions. We'll start making our own compost versus bringing it in.  We'll start doing these little things that one after another hopefully 20 years from now, we will be fully regenerative and having our own closed system. But that's, you know, that takes time. 

There's no rush and I think that right now for the first year or two years, our goal would be to initially plant more grapes. There's a few plots that are definitely ready for it. Bill and Barb had the intention of doing it last summer and then the world kind of ended.

 

It's all a long-term vision here that will be executed over a long period of time.

 

THE TEAM

Bill and Barb are part of the transition team. They're going to be consulting for the next few months or years. It's a very amicable relationship. So they will be involved. 

On the land front, Andrew Beede, a biodynamic consultant, is helping us. He will be part of our team here for the next year or two years. And then I have Raj helping on the wine as well - just in the meantime, until we have a winemaker. So we are building up these powerhouses of intelligence around this type of wine and the direction it’s going.

We're looking for our own winemaker right now, but we don't want to rush. We want a biodynamic winemaker, we want someone who's able to continue what Bill and Barb were doing but also kind of put their own stamp on it.

 

But, with what I just explained, this is a 20-year project, so it needs to be someone who's really going to fit into that vision, and have the same interest that we do and really understand what we want to do. We're really taking our time on that front. 

 

Who are your investors?

In my own family, my Aunt Patricia wanted to be involved. I have just always been incredibly close to her. We had a beautiful relationship and she has always supported my path. And I've been a huge supporter of her and all that she's done. When we were finalizing things, she called and said she really wanted to have a part in it. “I don't know what that looks like but please, you know, let me know what that is,” she said. And I said, “Absolutely, I mean, what do you want? I would love to have you involved in whatever way.” 

The other two investors are old time family friends from Santa Barbara, the Gustafson's, who I've known my whole life. Will and his son Grant were eager to be involved when the idea was just surfacing. 

 

I am the majority owner and happy to have these three who have been amazing helpers. While you could say it's an investor group, it feels so much more personal than that. It was kind of this group of like-minded individuals who really want to do this project.

A LIFE HORIZON

 

How old are you? 

I'm 26 years old. 

 

Wow, that is really a great life adventure to embark on. 

I’m planning that it's going to be a whole life. And that's in partnership with amazing people. 

When I was about to finalize buying Cowhorn, I had a really inspiring conversation with Raj where he said if this is what you want to do, it's a huge commitment, but it's incredibly fulfilling and it's worth it. If you go down this path - treating and viewing the land in a holistic way - you will see the result.