The Emperor's New (Green Marketing) Clothes: "Sustainability" Program Ramps Up in Sonoma - Headed by Marketing Professor

Today the Sonoma Winegrowers announced that the group is launching a new Sonoma County Center for Ag Sustainability.

While you might think that means something about being green and good for the environment, listen up. Here's what the press release statement from director Karissa Kruse actually says the center's mission will be:

"...to identify and focus on the most challenging problems facing the local wine community [industry] to ensure its continued success and the preservation of Sonoma County's agricultural heritage." 

Today that "community" - i.e. industry - is under siege from residents fighting against overdevelopment.

The trade group defined its job:

"[to]...preserve and protect our agricultural legacy and way of life for future generations. The reality is that ag is on the brink of a crisis. Not only are thousands of acres of farmland being lost to developing in California every year, but there are serious threats to the financial viability of our businesses due to increased regulations, rising labor costs, new overtime requirements, drought and more."

So what is the sustainability concept Krause is talking about here? It sounds like overregulation as a threat to wineries' survival.

FACTCHECK: WHAT CRISIS?

1. How much farmland has Sonoma lost?

Of all counties in California, Sonoma has been the least affected by farmland losses, according to a California Farmland Conversion Report (as reported in the Press Democrat in 2014).

Sonoma ranked dead last - 47th out of 47 counties - in California in farmland losses. The report stated that most of the farmland losses have been in the Central Valley and were caused by farmers fallowing land during the drought, not from housing development.

2. Have wine grape crop values declined in Sonoma?

No.

In 2015, the county crop report reported that the wine grape crop value was $446 million. Ten years ago the figure was $430 million. Not a significant difference for a decade.

3. Has Sonoma lost vineyard acreage?

No. The number of acres of vineyards cultivated in 2015 versus 2005 was 58,820 acres in 2015 versus 57,050 in 2005. Not a significant loss.

Sonoma's "Agricultural Legacy" - How Threatened Is It?

So if acreage and crop value aren't threatened, what "agricultural legacy" is Kruse referring to that is on "the brink of a crisis"?

Is she talking about more roadside attractions that the "wine community" (aka industry) needs? i.e. the desire to have even more tasting rooms line the highways tourists visit in Sonoma County?

What's really happening is that new wineries and tasting rooms in Sonoma County have increased dramatically since 2000. More than 300 new wineries and tasting rooms have been approved by the county in the last 16 years.

The "Threats"

So if these aren't threats in Sonoma, what is Krause talking about?

Mostly those pesky government regulations.

Kruse says in the news release that the threats facing Sonoma's vintners and growers are "increased regulations, rising labor costs, new overtime requirements, drought and more." I think if I was serious about ag, I think I would have ranked drought and climate change - and soil health - way before overtime requirements and regulations.

In fact, it's more enforcement of border controls that's responsible for the labor shortage and the new overtime requirements. Attending a dinner held by the Pesticide Action Network at this year's Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Sacramento this fall, I had a chance to meet and dine with the UFW leaders who successfully pressed for this legislation.

They told me that it now costs $5-7k for a coyote who will get you across the border from Mexico to the U.S. With prices that high, fewer immigrants are coming to California. That's how the overtime bill was finally passed - in response to U.S. government enforcement that reduced the labor pool of farmworker immigrants.

And the new overtime bill takes four years to phase in. Vintners were already having to pay workers overtime under existing legislation after 60 hours. Under the new legislation, overtime pay begins after 40 hours.

While labor shortages worry vineyard managers, many have already turned to mechanization, which is widespread in the Central Valley. Now U.C.'s Oakville station in Napa is conducting research with U.C. Extension specialist Kaan Kurtural, who worked extensively with mechanization in the Central Valley, to show North County top tier wineries (see page 42 of linked issue) how well the technology works for high end wines.

Driven by economic issues, viticultural equipment and industry expertise, this is a transition that is already happening in the industry, and not the worrisome result of government regulation. The wine industry is following a broader trend toward mechanization similar to what has happened in the Midwest industrial sector, where autoworkers lost their jobs to mechanization and robots.

The Emperor's New (Green Marketing) Clothes - Marketing "Sustainability"

Sonoma's wine grape growers also say that consumers are far more interested in buying "sustainable" wines than wines not labeled as sustainable.

Perhaps that's why they hired, as the center's founding director, George Day, a B-school professor of marketing and a former chairman of the American Marketing Association instead of a true sustainability expert.

And what is the center going to deliver? A white paper in two years time that promises innovative thinking for the industry's future. It sounds a little fuzzy - are the winegrowers going to lobby the government for less regulation? Or innovate to - er - wha?

It's just one more facet of the Sonoma "sustainability" adventures that leaves me confused and weary.

Organic Group in Sonoma: Axed by Sonoma Winegrowers

There was a time when the Sonoma Winegrowers paid some small amount of attention to organic growers, sponsoring quarterly meetings of a group devoted to looking at organic practices and going on vineyard tours. No more. That's been cancelled and replaced with meetings focused only on "sustainability."

Consumers Confused: 43% Think Sustainable Means Organic

Today's consumers are also mighty confused about what sustainability really means. A survey released at the Oregon Vineyard Supply's Jan. Grower Event shows that, based on 2015 data, 43 percent of consumers surveyed believe "certified sustainable" means "organic grapes."

Sonoma's Sustainability Initiative: Fueled By Self Interest in Keeping Secrets

In 2015, I was fortunate enough to attend the annual general meeting of the Sonoma County Winegrowers. But what I saw and heard shocked me. The candid discussion among the community of industry insiders was not the kind of professional conversation I expected to hear.

• An Ag Commissioner saying he would fight tooth and nail to prevent California Dept. of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) hearings from resulting in farmers losing the right to spray pesticides as close to schools as they can now (too close, according to public health experts for the DPR).

• Coppola Wines defending "our right to use glyphosate, our right to use Roundup" to local residents who complain about vineyard practices

There was more. But perhaps the most revealing discussion at the meeting was why the Sonoma County Winegrowers wanted everyone in the county to get "certified sustainable."

Though the business benefits of (fake) green marketing would seem to trump all, there was yet another agenda: not having to tell wineries how much water, pesticides, etc. is used on vineyards. Their idea was that they could get a countywide pass for all Sonoma growers, if all the growers signed up for the sustainability program.

Karissa Kruse, speaking at the Sonoma Wine Grape Commission's annual
grower seminar

As I wrote in that June 5, 2015 post, Walmart's sustainability programs require that its supply chain providers disclose facts about the use of water, farming practices and more. And since Kendall Jackson, for example, sells to Walmart, KJ asks its growers for that info, too, in order to satisfy Walmart's requirements. Here's a section I wrote from that post:

Kruse said retailers' sustainability programs ask wineries who buy Sonoma growers' grapes, "a lot of questions."

Walmart asks the wineries where are the grapes from?" she said. "How many acres? How much water was used? Why type of pest management was practiced? What type of canopy management?"

The information they request is taboo from a grower's perspective, "Mike Rowan, a grower, added. "I don't like to give up that information and I don't know of a farmer who does."

Said Krause, "My answer to that is that through our own sustainability program, we can create a Sonoma County report card that shows that countywide, we're good farmers, versus giving away your detailed farming practices to Walmart."

Speaking later in the program, John Aquirre, president of the California Association of Winegrape Growers, agreed, saying that information requested by Walmart's sustainability program was "confidential."

 John Aguirre, president of the California Association of Winegrape Growers

"I'm concerns about them having to know how much nitrogen was used, the amount of water used," he said. 

"Providing people with that information reveals your cost structure. It might be used to unfairly criticize your practices, or to start demanding you reduce your prices. If you have a 17% margin, someone might think it needs to be reduced to 12%."

Back to the Present: "Socially Responsible" and "Environmentally Conscientious"

In addition, the press release says the county's winegrowers "take a triple bottom line approach to sustainable practices that measure grape growers' being socially responsible in how they treat their employees...and environmentally conscientious with their farming and winery practices..."

If wineries are serious about social responsibility, why is overtime pay an issue? Should farmworkers not get overtime pay and instead rely on charitable foundations and farmworker benefit programs instead?

I won't go into "environmentally conscientious" here in over much detail (I'll save it for a later post.)

Look at the State Dept. of Pesticide Regulation data on "carcinogens" applied by Sonoma County wine grape growers in 2014.



Is this environmentally conscientious and the neighborly thing to do?

File Under Great Photos: Cowhorn Winery in the Snow

Cowhorn is a southern Oregon farm and winery, started by Barbara and Bill Steele, that's a total poster child for Biodynamic practices, making great Rhone wines and also growing food crops on its Applegate Valley estate.

I've only visited in summer when it's hot and dry there. Exciting to see this winter photo, posted on their Facebook page this week, of record snowfall on the vines...with a rainbow no less!

EU Citizens Launch a Legal Initiative to Ban Glyphosate

Greenpeace and other groups have launched a Ban Glyphosate campaign in the EU.

I am still researching this more but wanted to share the initiative basic info here.

One interesting note: the initiative calls for all evaluations to be done on published data only. In the past, and at the EPA, industry data has not been open to all to view.

Live: Soil Health Summit Today at CDFA - Listen Online

The California Department Food and Agriculture is hosting a Soil Health Summit today to help address some of the state's most pressing soil heath issues.

Listen in here: https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/egov/Press_Releases/Press_Release.asp?PRnum=17-00

For more info about the new Healthy Soils Initiative, visit the CDFA materials here.

The initiative's goals are to protect and restore soil organic matter in California, find financial incentives to encourage healthy soils, fund education and research that promotes healthy soils, and more.

Glyphosate Chronicles, Continued: New Study Finds Link to Low Doses and Liver Disease

I haven't digested the study yet, but you might be interested in doing so...see here. The study was published in Nature here.

Here a radio report on the story from BBC4's Farming Today show online. The story begins at 8:00 into the program.

Dr. Michael Antoniou, the study's lead researcher, comments.

U.S. and EU surveys show that urine levels in humans reflect daily intake levels that are much higher than the rats in the study.

In addition, the show interviews a Monsanto UK spokesperson, Mark Buckingham, who says if glyphosate is found to be dangerous to human health, it will withdraw it from the marketplace.

In the New York Times, Another Greenwashing Story About Wine: Why?

I always feel so sad when I see mainstream reporters (with no agriculture reporting background) write about the wine industry.

They have no idea how they are getting played in the industry's ongoing masterful greenwashing - but worse, the fundamental principles of reporting (i.e. using more than one source) always seem to go out the window. Why?

The latest piece in the New York Times about the wine industry - entitled "Falcons, Drones, Data: A Winery Battles Climate Change" by David Gelles, a business reporter for Dealbook - is not so much about climate change as it is a publicity puff piece for Jackson Family Wines. It's shockingly bad journalism.

Who created this story/opportunity? Was it pitched to the Times by a PR firm by Jackson Family? By the California Wines initiative of the Wine Institute? We don't know.

What we do know is that the piece violates many of the regular rules of the road for journalists, especially business journalists. I say this with a great amount of regret, as my first editor in the world of newspapers was a "Times man," (as they used to call them) - James P. Brown - who served on the paper's editorial board. A Quaker, he wrote all of the Times' editorials on the Middle East. He used to regularly have us over for summer evening cocktails when the Sulzbergers were in town. (He had by then moved from New York to coastal Maine, the site of his summer house, where he kept a boat in Georgetown, near Bath.) Together they instilled in our group of reporters (at the tiny, but vocal Brunswick Times Record) high standards on journalism.

The New York Times's pick of a winery to feature in a story about climate change:
Jackson Family Wines. It was founded by Jess Jackson, who was personally responsible
for cutting down thousands of oak trees (and bulldozing hilltops) in California to make hillside vineyards. 

As a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ), I also shudder at the poor job this story exemplifies. Attending the professional association's conference in Sacramento recently, I was buoyed up by the fantastic reporting that so many in attendance were doing. And the list of award winning pieces selected by SEJ was totally inspiring. So sad, then, to see the talent pool as big as it is - in the world at large - and the reporting on this story as poor as it is.

Any responsible news organization would ask itself, or should ask itself, what are the biggest aspects of climate change and the wine industry? And then find a story angle that dovetails with that.

Or should the news organization go on a winery PR tour and then just write that down? Apparently the Times chose the latter. Low standards, my friends - low, low, low.

Gelles writes:

"The Jacksons are going beyond the usual drought-mitigation measures. They are using owls and falcons to go after pests drawn by milder winters," the story tells us.

Is this - the pests - i.e. gophers and voles - really the most pressing issue? If so, I haven't heard it reported in the pages of Wines & Vines or from county ag farm advisors.

Water, heat and soil are really the most pressing climate change ag issues, at the moment, and yet there's no mention of new state regulations on water use or state sponsored initiatives that incentivize the agricultural sector to sequester carbon in soils. The article is a jumble, making it sound as if every detail amounts to the same amount of benefit or investment. It's a potpourri, not a reasonable article highlighting the top issues and priorities.

We do hear a bit about cover crops, but those have been used before most people were focused on climate change - because they provide the cheapest and best fertilizer (as well as increasing organic matter and water retention). Due to these factors, not climate change, they've become a mainstream practice for probably half of the state's vineyards today.

(Decades ago it was only the organic growers who used cover crops, while conventional growers scoffed at the practice at the time. Fortunately times have changed. If a change saves money, so much the better. Nonetheless, half of the vineyards in the state don't use cover crops, utilizing conventional fertilizers that are made with very fossil fuel intensive processes.)

There's also no mention of why growers use irrigation ponds - as a way to stop drawing down the river water at peak draw times for frost protection (which has led to fish die-offs in Sonoma County and elsewhere).

In this story, you never hear a single word about the federal or state laws or enforcement on salmon or water issues. While salmon are endangered species, they fall under the federal government's protection at the moment. Presumably this is why Mr. Hines, from the National Marine Fisheries Services, is here (in the story) to check on the coho.

"Ms. Jackson offered to release water [from Green Valley Creek] in a bid to help the fish," Gelles writes. Was it purely a generous gesture? Or did the law require it? Or was it an action prompted by the voluntary deal that state and federal agencies offer wineries in the form of media promotional opportunities - i.e. good PR ops - for wineries who voluntarily comply with department directives?

In many cases, environmental agencies or NGOs have set up water monitoring stations to see how much water wineries are using. Some wineries are then quietly approached with information about what their water use is doing and given an option to do better. (This happened to Roederer last year).  It would be nice if this Times story informed us about such facts. The story leaves the impression that it was simply a magnanimous move by the winery.

In fact, the salmon situation is so dire that in the summer, marine fisheries staff drive to pick up stranded coho in low flow areas and physically bring them to locations that have water. Would there have been some negative implication for Jackson if the fish had suffered? Again, no context, no details. Just a winery acting like a good neighbor.

The story then proceeds,

"And since fossil-fuel consumption is one of the biggest drivers of climate change, they [Jackson] are trying to become more energy efficient, in part through the use of old-school farming techniques."   

It's true - there are significant efforts to reduce fossil fuel consumption, but mostly these also have a cost saving and a government policy assist aspect - not primarily old school farming techniques. (It's hard to tell what old school farming techniques the article is referring to - cover crops? owls and falcons? We don't know.)

When wineries convert to solar energy, the state chips in handsomely with tax credits. Good public policy and good for business. In addition, many leading edge wineries - like Fetzer/Bonterra - have converted to nearly all electric vehicle use, saving even more fossil fuel by going solar and electric.

Not so, Jackson Family Wines, where the reporter goes for a ride in a helicopter, to travel a distance that is probably less than 50 miles away. It seems in poor taste in an article about climate change. (Did they buy some carbon offsets for the trip?)

Later we learn,

"Mice, voles and gophers love vineyards. 'We're seeing more pest pressures due to warmer winters,' Jackson said, walking through rows of cabernet grapes. Another emerging issue: Grapes ripen earlier, and swallows and crows are eating fruit before harvest. 'It's a big problem,' she said."

Presumably, this is what the earlier mention of "old school farming" techniques is referring to - the one where the owl box is "part of an effort to control pests without pesticides."

Is it fair to ask the reporter to tell us just how many rodenticides were used on California vineyards over time and how many are used today? And how much has rodenticide use decreased at Jackson Family since they started using owls and falcons? A few facts wouldn't hurt. Jackson Family, like every other farming organization in the state, has to report those statistics to the county ag commissioner and the California State Dept. of Pesticide Regulation. And presumably since they write up quite a big sustainability report each year, there would be ample opportunity for them to quote from it.

Jackson Family, though better than most by reducing the burden of toxicity on its own vines, uses thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals. It also buys from growers who use more toxic chemicals, thus using even more indirectly.

On its own estates in Sonoma (it also has vineyards over many other regions in California), it uses Pristine fungicide, a combination of pyraclostrobin and boscalid, a bee killer. It also uses Quintec. And Roundup Powermax herbicide. And even a little Lorsban, one of the old-school organophosphate baddies - whose real name is Chlorpyrifos -, a chemical that even the EPA is trying to get out of California soils. Jackson reports using 16 gallons of it last January at its 13 acre vineyard at 405 Browns Lane in Petaluma, just outside of town.



So it seems somewhat misleading to claim that Jackson's reduced their use of pesticides by using owls and falcons. Or at least off putting, in terms of journalistic standards, to omit mention of the total amount of pesticides, fungicides, insecticides and herbicides the winery uses. (Again, not mentioned in the winery's sustainability report.)

The story mentions that Jackson is putting in better sensors for sap and more advanced irrigation systems, like many. (Are these sensors primarily in their upscale wine vineyards?) These are cost saving, in the end. They also promote preserving and re-using water.

Of course the most effective way to change a winery's practices to mitigate climate change is to adopt organic farming practices, but this story never touches upon that fact.

Read this story about Prince Charles joining the healthy soils program called 4 per 1000 if you want to know more about truly leading edge approaches to getting ag involved in slowing or ending climate change.

Or look at this article about a promising pilot in Scotland in which robots are being used for weed control. For now, it's just been tried in cabbage fields, but there's definitely going to be more to come.

In the 4 per 1000 program, climate change scientists are aiming to mitigate climate change by keeping more carbon in the soils. It's possible that Jackson Family Wines is implementing similar practices - it would be nice to know - but it's not mentioned in this story.

PUTTING CLIMATE CHANGE AT THE CENTER

If this Times story was really about the pressing issues of climate change and wine in California, it would have - at the very least - included some mention of (if not a substantial section) - the work of the folks California Climate & Agriculture Network (CalCAN), the hub around which farmers - including the wine industry - have coalesced to get new legislation passed that's supportive of helping ag work to mitigate climate change, including giving growers financial incentives for better farming practices.

In fact, for most climate change reporters, paying attention to ag and soils is the most pressing topic. (In California, you can also add water use to the list of top concerns.)

CalCAN is the group, which is not controlled by the wine industry or the Wine Institute, that has succeeded in getting the Healthy Soils Initiative passed and funded in 2016. The CDFA, which will administer the program, has a web site and webinar describing the program's initial stages which you can read about here.

TREES - NARY A WORD

It's more than a little ironic to see the big photo of Jess Jackson, that accompanies the Times article, peering out from the page, as the patriarch he was. He was under siege for years by environmentalists, prompting lawsuits and skirmishes against him.

Jackson famously bought thousands of acres of mountainous land, cut down a lot of trees and bulldozed hilltops to flatten them out to be used as hillside vineyards. Deforesting hillside vineyards? I don't think anyone thinks that a good climate change move. And certainly not on the massive scale that Jackson did.

U. C. Berkeley Professor Adina Merelender has been studying the topic of vineyard development and its impacts on oak forests and biodiversity since the 1990s. Evaluating GIS data collected between 1990 and 1997, she found that 6,600 acres of dense oak woodland - in Sonoma County alone - was destroyed for vineyard development. This is during the time period when Jackson was very actively purchasing hillsides sites and developing them. And that's just in one county.

Jackson was also active all along the Central and North Coast regions. He got some very bad PR for cutting down 843 oaks in Santa Barbara County in 1998, which catalyzed a lawsuit against the county from the Sierra Club, as well as local citizens who launched a ballot initiative to prevent cutting down any more oaks for vineyards.

So is Jackson Family Wines really the best winery to pick to illustrate the impact of practices to combat or cope with climate change?

And, generously, assuming even that they were, don't we deserve to know the really impactful aspects of what they're doing and document those impacts?

I'm done carping now. I don't blame David Gelles for his ignorance, but I do blame the powers that be at the New York Times. Just what were you thinking?

It's clear you weren't thinking. And this is not the first time you've run a soft story that purported to be real news from the business journalism staff at the Times on the world of wine. Times people, please wake up. Get the facts, and get qualified reporters who know this turf.

Don't talk to us about owls and falcons, when California's wineries deplete our water and degrade our soil. Not to mention the way they pour hundreds of thousands of pounds of carcinogens, neurotoxins and more on soil, air and water - subjecting workers, residents and nature to them - in the pursuit of putting cheap plonk on shelves.

Jackson succeeded mostly by becoming the king of the $10-13 wine category and it got there by exploiting a lot of land, making wine grape monocultures across California (and now Washington and Oregon) and reducing biodiversity.

The industry overall is sealing its own doom, by growing grapes the way it does. We'll be remediating our soils for years to make up for the damage caused by 707,000 pounds of microbe-killing herbicides like Roundup in California alone.

So, editors, we need help to highlight the real problems and solutions that address those core issues in the wine industry. Not fluffy PR. As a Times subscriber, I'm ashamed of you. Grow up!

PS In all fairness, I see now that you did quote an "outside" source - the Napa Valley Vintners! A promotional wine group. More shame on you.

I can only imagine your next climate change and coal story focusing on the Koch Brothers' plant somewhere with an "outside" source comment from the American Coal Association. But you wouldn't do that, would you? When it comes to coal, you don't throw the rules of journalism aside. Well here in California, wine is a big crop - our biggest cash crop in fact. And it deserves to be treated like the real industry that it is when you write about it.

Get a grip on your wine reporting, New York Times! Or don't report on this subject at all. Owls and falcons and baby coho, oh my! It's just as bad as Donald Trump saying he kept all those jobs in the Midwest when in fact it was the unions who were actually the reason why jobs stayed. Here in wine country, it's our government, policies and tax dollars that are helping the wine industry cope with climate change - and getting no voice or credit whatsoever from our nation's most prestigious news organization.

NOTE: Jackson Family Wines has just put out a new Sustainability Report, touting their good works and none of their pesticide use, oak tree cutting, etc. etc. Just the facts, ma'am!

Note: Updated Jan. 11 - rereading the Pesticide Use Report, it appears Jackson applied Lorsban (chlorpyrifos) to 155 acres at Brown Road, not 13 acres as previously stated. 

Note: Updated Jan. 16, 2017 - When I attended the Sonoma Winegrowers annual meeting in June 2015, I reported: 
Speaking during the following Q and A, Katie Jackson, Family Representative of Government Relations and Community Outreach at Jackson Family Wines, said, "It's better for growers to cooperate and collaborate to get around the need for requirements. A voluntary agreement can exempt you from a conservation order. Everyone wants to keep curtailment on the back burner."

My New Op-Ed Piece In Wines and Vines Launches: "The Organic Opportunity: Will the U.S. Wine Industry Miss Out?"

Just in time for the Unified Grape Symposium issue, my viewpoint piece on how organic wines are growing - and what U.S. vintners should think about that - is in the current issue of Wines and Vines.

You can read it online here (no log in required).

2016 in Review: The Most Important Stories of the Year in Organically Grown Wine

2016 is a year that saw exciting new developments - and some bafflingly bad ones - in the world of organically grown wines. Here are some of the top stories, in no particular order.

1. SALES OF ORGANICALLY GROWN WINE ARE BOOMING

Little known fact: organic wine sales are booming. In fact, they're outpacing general wine growth by 300-1000%.

I discovered this while writing an op-ed piece that appears in the new Jan. issue of Wines and Vines, one of the leading wine industry publications in the U.S.

The op-ed piece, entitled The Organic Opportunity: Will the U.S. Wine Industry Miss Out? launched Jan. 1. (No log in required using this link).

According to Nielsen data from Nov. 2015-Nov. 2016, the average growth in revenue for all wine sales was 5%. That's due to the "premiumization" of wine (i.e. an increase in consumers' purchases of those $10-12 bottles versus cheaper wines). For bottles labeled with the word organic (the vast majority of which are made with sulfites) grew at a rate of 15.3%. That's 300% more.

By volume, organic outpaced the average growth in wine sales even more.  The average increase in wine volume increased 1.6% from Nov. 2015 to Nov. 2016. In comparison, the volume of organically grown wine increased 15.9%. That's basically ten times higher than the average.

While organic is a still a small percentage of the wine market - 1% by volume and 2% by dollars - it's a growing market, and one that's been more lucrative for foreign than domestic producers.

Read the whole story - with more details - on the WinesandVines.com web site.

2. AMERICA'S LARGEST ORGANICALLY FARMED WINE BRAND - BONTERRA - GREW 20%

The largest "made with organic grapes" wine brand in the U.S., Bonterra had a banner year from 2015-2016, growing 19.6%+, earning it a Hot Brand award from IMPACT magazine, an industry publication. That is ten times faster than the wine industry growth rate average. Fetzer, which owns Bonterra, produces 350,000 cases a year under the Bonterra name and roughly 150,000 additional cases of "made with organic grapes" wines under other brand names.

3. MAJOR CENTRAL VALLEY VINTNER DRAMATICALLY INCREASES ORGANIC ACREAGE

The biggest Central Valley story of the year, by far, was the news that Fred Franzia, famous for his Two Buck Chuck wines sold at Trader Joe's, would convert 5,000 of his 40,000 acres of his vines to organic certification to fuel growth of his Rare Earth brand of wines. (In case you were wondering, 40,000 acres is more than all the vineyards in Oregon, which has 28,000 acres of vines.) Franzia is the largest grower in the U.S. and buys even more grapes from other growers.

In his keynote at Unified Grape Symposium in 2016, Franzia quoted Nielsen stats that show that wine consumers are interested in trying new things, with 30% of them choosing organic as a new thing they'd like to try.

In the spring, Franzia announced that sales of his Two Buck Chuck (now $2.99), sold only at Trader Joe's, has surpassed 1 billion bottles (that's 83 million+ cases). But less well known is the fact that Franzia is already the number two producer of organically grown wines in the U.S. under its $4-5 Green Fin brand (also sold only at Trader Joe's) producing 140,000 cases a year.

The Rare Earth and Green Fin wines are produced under the "made with organic grapes" standard. This category - made with sulfites - has a far larger market share overall than the no added sulfite organic category. (In comparison, Frey's no added sulfite Frey Organic Vineyards wines sell about 100,000 cases a year.)

The required three year certification for the new Bronco organic acreage is expected to be completed in 2017. It would increase the percentage of organic vines in the U.S. from 2.4% to 3%, which is still 2% less than the international average of 5%, but a big step forward.

In the past few years, organic acreage has declined in the U.S. while growing rapidly in Europe. France, for example, is now 9 percent organic.

4. BIODYNAMIC ACREAGE INCREASES TO A NEW HIGH OF 3,404 ACRES IN 2016

Demeter Biodynamic certification is often seen by many as a sort of fringe movement, but by 2016, Demeter (and its organic branch, Stellar Organic Certification) has grown to the the second largest certifier of both organic and Biodynamic vines.

2016 saw the Demeter certification of several large estates - one in Oregon (King Estate, 465 acres) and one in the Sta. Rita Hills in Santa Barbara County (Sea Smoke Cellars, 170 acres).

In addition, areas that had only a tiny Biodynamic presence - Anderson Valley in Mendocino County and Paso Robles in San Luis Obispo County - nearly doubled when more (albeit small) amounts of acreage were certified this year at Domaine Anderson's Dach Vineyard and Villa Creek Cellars estate.

Overall, this shows growing strength for the Biodynamic sector.

In comparison, CCOF, the largest organic certifier by far, certified 10,405 acres of wine grapes, making Demeter the second largest certifier in eco-certified (organic or Biodynamic) vines and wines in the U.S.

In addition to its Biodynamic certification, its Stellar Organic Certification certifies more than 350+ acres on top of the 3,404 acres of Biodynamic vines.

The next largest U.S. wine grape certifiers are Organic Certifiers with 504 acres and Oregon Tilth with 413 acres.

5. KING ESTATE BECOMES THE LARGEST BIODYNAMIC ESTATE IN U.S.

King Estate was the largest organic grower in the U.S. (with 465 acres of planted vines). It was certified in 2002. Now it's the largest Biodynamic grower, too.

Proprietor Ed King says converting to Biodynamics was just the right thing to do.

"I really don't accept the thinking that the "conventional" industry farming standard is "standard," he told me (in as yet unpublished interview). "The reality is that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, their families, the colonists - they were all organic farmers and they were all integrated farms.

"What we are doing is not something that is sort of goofy and edgy on the fringes."

6. NOTED ORGANIC PIONEERS INCREASE ORGANIC VINEYARD ACREAGE

Organic producers in both Anderson Valley and Santa Barbara County increased their organic vineyard acreage.

While many Pinot Noir producers in Oregon have been organic or Biodynamic for decades, Anderson Valley has not. Now it is slowly growing.

The biggest impact in the growth of organic viticulture in the valley, acclaimed for Pinot, is from Long Meadow Ranch, which purchased a Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vineyard, converting 70 acres to organic certification. The winery has farmed all of its 72 acres of Napa Valley vines organically since 2004.

It joins Handley Cellars, the first estate in Anderson Valley to be certified organic, in a toehold of Anderson Valleyites embracing organic. (Drew Cellars, with 7 acres, is another). Handley, organic on its estate vineyards since 2005, has now converted its steep, hillside RSM vineyard, adding 7 acres to its original 29 acres. 

Roederer Estate also has 44 acres of organic vines (certified in 2014 and 2015), some of which go into Domaine Anderson wines, and is growing its organic program.

Down south in Santa Barbara County, the regional organic pioneer - Alma Rosa, certified organic since 2000 - has just planted 37 new acres of organic vines on its El Jabali estate, which will come into production in the 2019 vintage.

7. EU'S GLYPHOSATE BATTLES HEAT UP

2016 was a year of consequences in the story of glyphosate, the main ingredient in the popular weedkiller Roundup, an herbicide widely used in the wine industry both in the U.S. and abroad. (In fact, for many North Coast wineries, using the herbicide is the main reason why they are not organic).

Following IARC's 2015 classification of the commonly used herbicide as a probable carcinogen, consumer sentiment grew from mild dismay to passionate grassroots activism to real political clout with the announcement that the herbicide would not be granted a 15 year renewal in the EU, but instead would only be renewed for 18 months.

Since then, the Minister of the Environment in France has called for a complete ban of glyphosate and new French laws are pending on pesticides overall that call for a 25% reduction by 2020. Italy has also restricted its use.

8. GLYPHOSATE IN THE U.S.

After inadvertently leaking a document in the spring showing its (foregone) conclusion that glyphosate was not carcinogenic, the EPA held hearings about glyphosate in December with a scientific advisory panel of experts (who are not EPA staff).

The handpicked review panel was modified due to Monsanto's complaints about one prominent OSHA expert who has opposed a different Monsanto product in a court trial. The EPA bowed to industry pressure to remove epidemiologist Peter Infante from the review panel.

Despite that, during the four days of hearings with the remaining panel members in D.C., there was widespread dissent among the experts over the white paper the EPA staff presented at the review meeting. Science review panel health experts criticized the agency for disallowing what some experts said were well done studies and including others with what they said were dubious findings.

The panel members will weigh in on their assessments in the spring of 2017. At the December session, a number of the experts indicated they would challenge the EPA's white paper findings.

9. CITIZEN GLYPHOSATE TESTING TAKES OFF IN THE U.S.

In 2016 the FDA, under pressure from the GAO, announced it would begin testing common foods for glyphosate. However, its staff could not agree on standardized protocols, and has therefore suspended testing in the meantime.

Two anti GMO nonprofit groups in the U.S. - Food Democracy Now and Moms Across America - made news headlines and TV news for documenting the presence of low levels of glyphosate in food and wine.

The Moms group commissioned an initial study testing glyphosate levels in 10 bottles of wine and found glyphosate ranging from 1 ppb in an organically grown wine to 28 ppb in a chemically farmed wine.  With testing costs of only a $100 per bottle, vintners are now testing to find out the levels in their wines and more citizen testing is expected.

In addition, scientists at UCSF and elsewhere are helping consumers participating in the Detox Project, an initiative launched to monitor glyphosate levels in consumers who want to modify their diets to reduce their glyphosate levels.

Expect more citizen testing campaigns and activism in the new year.

10. IN MENDOCINO, ORGANIC GROWERS ARE BEING PAID LESS FOR ORGANIC GRAPES THAN CONVENTIONAL

In a turn of events that is hard to fathom, growers in Mendocino - a traditional stronghold for growers who sell organic wine grapes (25% of the county's vines are organic) to some of the country's largest producers (Bonterra and Frey) - have found they can get more money from growing conventional wine grapes than organic wine grapes.

Mendocino growers have been complaining in recent years over "opportunistic pricing" for organic grapes, and Bonterra, for one, has beefed up its recruitment efforts in regions like Lodi, hoping to get cheaper grapes from growers willing to covert to organic certification there. (Currently there are fewer than 160 acres of organic grapes in Lodi, for example, and those grapes are mainly spoken for by Lodi estate producers).

Back in Mendocino, Bonterra is offering growers new Chardonnay contracts at $1,075 a ton. Meanwhile, Kendall Jackson and others are offering $1,300 a ton.

To make matters worse, this comes on the heels of a difficult infestation of leafhoppers in Mendo, which led some longtime organic growers (Masut and others) to revert to farming with pesticides and dropping their organic certification. In 2016, a predator has now been released that effectively attacks the leafhopper, so organic growers are now using this method to contain the pest population. But damage was done in 2015, and no one knows how it will shake out.

11. RAW WINE'S "NATURAL WINE" FAIR LETS U.S. WINE BRANDS USING MOSTLY PESTICIDED WINES EXHIBIT

The RAW wine fair debuted this year in Brooklyn, featuring a wealth of European producers and a small number of U.S. "natural wine" makers. Among the U.S. contingent were several wineries that make almost all of their wines from pesticided vines, violating a major tenet of the natural wine movement. Say wha?

12. TRUMP GIVES KOCH BROTHERS THE EPA OF THEIR DREAMS - SCOTT PRUITT, A CLIMATE CHANGE DENIER AND FOSSIL FUEL ALLY

President-elect Donald Trump announced that Scott Pruitt would be his nominee to head the EPA.

Pruitt is the Oklahoma attorney general and an ally of the fossil fuel industry who has previously filed several lawsuits against the EPA.

Democrats say they will investigate the nominee's financial ties to the fossil fuel industry.

It is not known if Pruitt's appointment (if approved by Congress) will have implications for the EPA ruling on glyphosate and the agency's close relationship with Monsanto.

13. WINE INSTITUTE CONSIDERS BANNING SOME PESTICIDES FROM CERTIFIED SUSTAINABLE CERTIFICATION

Details aren't yet clear, but the Wine Institute, an industry group that features a "certified sustainable" certification program for California wineries, may actually be considering adding some prohibitions on the use of the worst, old school pesticides to its (very lax) certification standards. Currently there are no restrictions on the use of pesticides under the statewide program. 

While adoption of the sustainability program has resulted in many environmental gains (mostly reducing water and energy inputs), the program is often used (abused?) by vintners in marketing efforts - who tend to overstate their greeniness.

14. GOOD NEWS: CALIFORNIA PASSES NEW CLIMATE CHANGE LEGISLATION INCLUDING A HEALTHY SOILS INITIATIVE

Leading the way, California passed new climate change legislation this fall, creating and funding a CDFA led new, $7.5 million Healthy Soils Initiative.

This is an important step in the movement to fight climate change through improving agriculture and providing rewards for farmers and growers who contribute to reducing emissions through the way they farm and grow.

The details of just what the initiative will do and how it will be structured are currently under discussion.

The program is being overseen by the Environmental Farming Panel. For more news, see this coverage from the California Climate and Agriculture Network, a leading force in getting the legislation off the ground.

While the new initiative will involve farmers of all kinds, it may offer a chance for organic farmers and growers to be compensated for their soil-friendly farming practices.

Year's End Tasting: Nostalgia and the New - A Napa Road Trip to Volker Eisele Family Estate

From St. Helena, we headed east and turned onto the Silverado Trail, heading south. We took a left then, setting forth on Sage Canyon Road and leaving flatland behind. The route takes you up and above the valley, east on windy roads, passing the backside of Pritchard Hill.

Then, after driving down that long, curvy road, you round Lake Hennessey, which, on a sunny day - like Friday - had boaters. From there, it's left on the narrow Chiles-Pope Valley Road, as it perilously skirts the steep edge of a creek until you reach Lower Chiles Valley Road and take a right.

A half mile later you take the turn off on the left for the Volker Eisele Family Estate, which is marked only by a simple sign saying, in the plainest possible language, "Winery." Not, mind you, "Volker Family Estate Winery," but simply "Winery."

This is Chiles Valley, an area where miners once lived and where the first wineries made wine strictly for them. That is, in fact, the essence of early days winemaking in northern California. Wines were made close to the mines in regions where both activities co-existed. (You can still visit Nichelini Winery, not far away, filled with historic photos from that era).

Today there are just a handful of wineries in the Chiles Valley AVA, which lies in the Vaca Mountains, the range that forms the eastern edge of Napa Valley.

Drive up the lane. It's quiet here. You won't hear the roar of traffic - as you do at wineries on Highway 29. There's a sunny ridge here and hillsides covered in oaks. No one's planning to cut them down to make more vineyards.

With the winter rains, the hillside is bright green. On this Chiles Valley floor, 4,000 feet above sea level, the temperatures are cooler than Napa Valley. "Much closer in temperature to Bordeaux," Volker used to say, subtly promoting his wines as more authentic compared to those warmer vines on Napa's valley floor.

Chiles Valley is a part of Napa that few see. It's a place where mountain lions and bears roam. You won't find classical music being piped out to an elegant tasting deck inhabited by groups of Chinese speaking tourists (not that we don't love them - they are very welcome here, but it's not a spot to check off on their Napa "prestige winery" bucket list), and no one will pester you to join the wine club.

As you arrive at the site, on your left is an aging walnut grove, still bearing nuts. And as you drive up the small hill, an old barn, with fading white paint, beckons. You park your car and head inside, noticing the big green Christmas wreath with the big red bow, with its ancient sign overhead.

"Agriculture," it says in all caps. "California's Most Vital Industry."

It was six years ago when my old friend Elizabeth, a wine lover who lived in Napa for a time, and I first set foot on this property and came face to face with its charismatic, charming and occasionally cantankerous proprietor - Volker Eisele, a powerful force to be reckoned with and one who will not be forgotten for quite some time.

German born and bred, Volker was something of a Renaissance man - it's said he could quote Goethe and sing Wagner - and he took up the political challenge of protecting Napa from overdevelopment. Having lived in Germany, he knew how precious undeveloped land was and he fought for decades to help Napa preserve its treasures.

He appears in James Conaway's book, The Far Side of Eden, as a major character, a moving force behind the environmental activism that united growers and residents to fight overdevelopment in Napa's hills - development that was threatening watersheds and leading to landslides on steep sites. Some of the then new money folks settling on Napa's hillsides paid little attention to the planning rules, blasting out oaks and bulldozing new vineyards. Volker organized alliances to fight for better protection, forging many a coalition of strange bedfellows.

When he died in 2015, the entire Napa planning department turned out for the memorial service, along with hundreds of friends in the community, who celebrated him as "the lion of land planning" in Napa.

But knowing all that about him came later, much later. On my first visit here, in 2010, it was all about wine, and the land, and finding out what organic farming meant for a wine grape grower. Volker farmed organically for 40 years.

It was also about tasting some surprisingly superlative wines, which, frankly, I hadn't known I would encounter here. This was not - and is still not - a big "name" place. It was only later that I learned that Robert Parker said of Volker's wines that they had an "unmistakable elegance and impeccable balance." I was new to Napa, and here I was - out in the boonies by an old barn traipsing around with a guy with a German accent.

My friend and I decided it was time to revisit the family's wines, and get caught up on the "new" era at Volker Eisele, now that Volker's son Alexander and wife Catherine are now officially running the place. Volker's widow Liesel, whose aesthetics contribute to the simplicity and beauty of the site structures and landscape, is still very actively engaged as well.

Inside the old Sievers barn, home to the Volker Eisele Family Estate tasting room,
which was built in the late 1800s. The barn was a gravity fed winery way back when.

Catherine Eisele

Shortly before Volker's untimely and unexpected death from a stroke at age 77, the family had to hire a new winemaker because the old one, John McKay, was retiring. I had always admired McKay's wines for Volker, and the fact that McKay was also the first in Napa to make a White Bordeaux Blend (primarily Semillon coupled with Sauvignon Blanc) was just one more reason I admired him. I wanted to see just who this new winemaker was, and if she was up to the job.

I should have known not to worry.

The new winemaker is Molly Lyman. As Catherine Eisele told us on our tour and tasting, Volker knew Heidi Barrett from the St. Helena Catholic Church, where both were members. Heidi is famous for making the cult wine that sold at auction for $500,000 - Screaming Eagle - as well as for being married to Bo Barrett of Chateau Montelena fame - as well as being the daughter of Richard Peterson, an elder in the pantheon of Napa's winemaking royalty. (You can read his history in the fascinating book The Winemaker.)

Of course, Heidi was too busy to take on a new client, but she recommended that Volker speak to her assistant winemaker, Molly Lyman. It was a match. Lyman spent two vintages working with McKay before making the 2014's on her own.

During the tour, we took a quick gander at the main portion of the 60 acre estate site, which is planted mostly to Cabernet vines from the 1980's and 90's.

A small block of hillside vines on a gentle slope are older Cab vines that date back to the 1970s. These go into the estate's most expensive and limited production wine, Alexander.

The winery recently launched two, new single block Cabernets - Las Flores and Sievers Reserve.

The Las Flores is named for a section of the vineyard where the mustard flowers most brilliantly. It turns out to have a different soil type from the rest of the vineyard.

The Sievers Reserve comes from a canyon block, named for Francis Sievers, the original settler who first planted that section to vines in the late 1800s.

The elegant, seated tasting provides an introduction to the estate's three main wines.

• 2014 Gemini, a White Bordeaux Graves style blend ($28)

• 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon ($52)

• 2012 Terzetto ($75), a Bordeaux blend composed of equal parts Cabernet, Merlot and Cab Franc

2014 GEMINI

This is a white wine which - I have to confess - is easily my favorite white wine from Napa.

Pardonnez moi, but I don't think the region makes great Chardonnay. ( I say that after experiencing a best of Napa Chards tasting with Karen McNeil where a group of professional wine writers guessed the real Chablis in the lineup right away). I've given Napa Chard a lot of chances. I haven't given up (there's one I like), but I'm not expecting a lot these days.

And while I may like the occasional Sauvignon Blanc from Napa, it's the Semillon-Sauvignon Blanc blend that the Volker Eisele Estate makes - called Gemini - that I adore.

I don't know why more wineries in Napa don't make a White Bordeaux Blend like it. (Perhaps that's because it's so easy - and lucrative - to grow Sauvignon Blanc on the clay soils by the river).

The blend in the 2014 Gemini is 76% Semillon and 24% Sauvignon Blanc. The wine was whole cluster pressed and spent 5 months in French oak, 20% of which was new.

Gemini strikes the perfect balance between fruit and acidity. I'm looking forward to drinking it with some roast chicken this week and also trying it out with salad.

2012 ESTATE CABERNET SAUVIGNON

In the morning of our Napa road trip, before arriving in Chiles Valley, my friend and I tasted at Opus One, a spot long on our bucket lists, but one we'd just never gotten around to visiting (though, it should be said, we only get together once in awhile, and we only go to Napa together about once every other year).

While the 2013 Opus One ($280) is a very, very lovely wine, it's also extremely restrained - so restrained, in fact, that it has exceedingly quiet aromatics.

The Opus One building is Napa wine marketing at it Most Serious, which made it not our favorite sort of place, whatever we thought of the wine. (While I appreciated the wine, my friend was not a fan.)

Not so the Cabernet at Volker Eisele, which we both adored at first whiff. As Robert Parker is so fond of writing, the wine "leaps from the glass." This wine does just that - in a beguiling and come hither way. It's nice to enjoy the aromas before you take a sip. And this is a wine built for that experience. It's also, of course, delicious on the palate, with cherry, berry and cassis notes. A gorgeous wine.

The blend is 87% Cabernet and 13% Merlot, aged for 24 months. in French oak, of which 50% was new.

Also it should be noted, there's an unworthy habit in Napa of releasing wines when they are very young. Many wineries are on the 2014's in 2016. Here, at Volker Eisele Family's, they're on the 2012's.

2012 TERZETTO

If it's restraint you're looking for, the Terzetto offers a change of pace from its Cabernet sibling - it's all about elegance and finesse.

The three grapes - Cabernet, Merlot, and Cab Franc - are co-fermented, a potentially risky step - in equal parts.

The grower has to know what they are doing to get all three grapes to ripen at the same time.

Catherine lightheartedly calls it "German engineering" because the family grows the Cabernet in a slightly cooler area, to hold it back, so that the three varietals ripen together at the same time.

The finale of our tasting was a Terzetto truffle.

Laden with our newly purchased wines (after swearing before we visited that I wouldn't buy any more wine), we wandered off into the sunny afternoon, contemplating the beauty of the place and the wines. A fitting way to celebrate a day in Napa and to raise a glass to the end of a very bad year and the beginning of what we hope will be better times in 2017.

From my 2010 visit

I also left with a feeling of reassurance and renewal. Even though we've lost Volker, who played a big part in my organic education and who contributed - simply through his friendship - to me getting started on this path, life at the estate is going forward. Alexander and Catherine's kids are 2 and 5. Catherine is very capably conducting the tours and tastings now. And then there's Molly's fine work in the cellar. But it all began with Volker and Liesel's vision - and now Alexander's hard work in the vines with the very capable and committed Nevarez family, who live on the estate and have tended the vines there since 1974.

2017

Here's to drinking more lovely wines - including my newly replenished stash from Volker Eisele Family Estate (I'm looking forward to trying the two new single block Cabs that I purchased) - and to carrying on traditions that honor and support great farming, wonderful winemaking and deeply pleasurable drinking.

Reader's Choice: Most Popular Posts of the Year

Readers, thank you for reading! This year, this blog grew quite a bit - the most popular posts were up 200-300% over last year in terms of page views.

Here are the most read posts from 2016.

GOOD READS FOR YOUR BOOK CELLAR, ER, LIBRARY

Books were a super popular topic this year. Is it because publishers or authors promote blog posts? Could be. But that would be a good thing, as all of these books deserve attention.

Wine Books for Holiday Gift Giving: The New Crop and a Few Oldies But Goodies

This was the top post with 825 views (and counting) highlighting some of the year's best books, including French Wine: A History, Labor of Love: Wine Family Women of Piemonte, the much overlooked Terroir Champagne, The Winemaker  (a top pick) and, vitally, The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health.

A Tale Well Told: Peter Sichel's Autobiography - The Secrets of My Life: Vintner, Prisoner, Soldier, Spy

This personal and historic look at Europe during the pre-World War II years and in the Cold War by wine merchant and importer Peter Sichel (most famous for Blue Nun wine) follows a Jewish family's comfortable life dissolving under the rise of the Nazis and Sichel's subsequent career spying on the Germans and other Europeans for the U.S. A revealing read.

How Did We Ever Live Without This Book? French Wine: A History Including 10 Things To Know About French Wine

Easily one of my favorite books of the year, this U.C. Press book by a Canadian history professor and wine expert fills a gap and is a much needed piece of wine history.

NEW GROWTH FOR CENTRAL VALLEY ORGANIC VINES

The biggest story - and it was BIG - on organic expansion this year was, surprisingly, from the Central Valley.

Grow, Baby, Grow: Fred Franzia Is Converting 5,000 Acres to Organic Certification

When Fred Franzia of Bronco Wine announced that he was going to convert 5,000 acres of his 40,000 acres in the Central Valley, it was big news.

What had not been previously reported (you heard it here first) was that he was already the second largest producer (after #1, Bonterra) of wines labeled "Made with Organic Grapes,' mainly through his Green Fin brand (available at Trader Joe's). This post got 730 views (and counting).

The Central Valley is, of course, the biggest wine growing region in the state and therefore the country and until now has had almost no organic vines (unlike the cheaper wine regions of Europe in Spain and Languedoc-Roussillon).

GLYPHOSATE CHRONICLES CONTINUE

Resistance to Glyphosate Popping Up in Europe: Countries Oppose Renewing Glyphosate's License to Kill Weeds

The topic of glyphosate is one that continues to bubble on the front burner. Europe is coming to grips with the fallout of citizen sentiment in the wake of the UN's IARC ruling. Our March blog post was the most heavily viewed article on glyphosate news (730 views).

WINE AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Hall Wines Faces Local Protests Over Plan to Cut 14,000 Oaks to Raise More Napa Wine Grapes

A battle over the Halls' plans to convert oak covered hillsides in Napa to vineyards - in 30+ parcels (perfect for developing future ranchettes, when the political time is right) - created a environmental and political firestorm for local residents and environmentalists who don't think the best thing for Napa is to cut down 14,000 oak trees to grow more wine.

While the county board of supervisors, following planning dept. recommendations and the letter of the current law, approved the expansion, the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity have said they will file lawsuits against the development.

BIODYNAMICS IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Two very short posts (the second linking to an LA Times story) got a lot of attention on the topic of Biodynamics.

125 Cowhorns: That's What It Takes to Fuel Montinore's 200+ Acres of Biodynamic Vines

The Biodynamic Wine Tincture Made with Pot

Biodynamic wines also figured prominently in these stories.

Eric Asimov's Wine School on Oregon Pinot Noir: Two Out of Three Wines Selected Are Biodynamic

Biodynamic Vine Wine Tops Portland Monthly's Best 50 Oregon Wines List

Two wineries achieved Biodynamic certification this year. I'll be writing about two more that should be on this list - King Estate and Sea Smoke Cellars - soon. These two stories (below) were about tiny amounts of acreage, but marked hopeful trends in regions that have hardly any Biodynamic presence.

Villa Creek Receives Demeter Certification: Nearly Doubles Paso Robles Biodynamic Vineyard Acreage

Domaine Anderson's Dach Vineyard Demeter Certified: Doubles Biodynamic Acreage in Anderson Valley

"NATURAL" WINE: HOW NATURAL?

While I don't usually cover the "natural" wine movement, this post this year was an exception. Let's hope it led to some internal reflection at RAW Wine about setting some standards.

Who's Certified Organic at the RAW Natural Wine Fair in New York?

This post got 881 views, which shows you the strength of the natural wine community. This article is about the RAW wine fair's waffling? fuzziness? about organic vines.

Many of the U.S. producers exhibiting at the fair use both organic and pesticided grapes in their wines. While only the organically sourced (or allegedly organically sourced) wines are permitted to be tasted at the fair, it's odd to find a natural wine association knowingly promoting brands that market themselves as natural winemakers but who knowingly and openly use pesticided grapes in the majority of their wines. For years the movement has touted using organic grapes as a major reason to call a wine "natural."

ORGANICALLY GROWN FINE WINES MAKE TOP LISTS

Organically grown wines top a number of "best wine" lists.

Organic Estate Wineries Dominate The Daily Meal's Top 10 Wineries List for Second Year in a Row

Who's Certified Organic on James Suckling's Top 100 Napa Red Wines of the Year?

EUROPEAN WINE REGIONS 

This year two stories on wines from abroad were among the most read posts.

Alsace Features All Organic and Biodynamic Tasting at Wine Writers Conference

The wine bloggers' conference this year in Lodi featured a seminar and an outstanding tasting of Alsace's best, courtesy of Alsace's wine association. The region is 15% certified organic or Biodynamic. That's twice as much as Napa (7 percent) and 7 times more than Sonoma (2 percent).

Organic and Biodynamic in Champagne? Reason for Hope

Caroline Henry, a wine writer in Champagne, brings attention to the success of organic and Biodynamic growers in Champagne, one of the French wine regions that uses the most pesticides, herbicides and fungicides of any region in France.

IN MEMORIAM

Raising a Glass to Spottswoode Founder, Mary Novak, an Organic Pioneer in Napa, Who Died at 84

Commemorating the life story of a woman who was a pioneer on so many fronts and produced one of Napa's great wines. It just happened to be from organic vines.

Happy Holidays

My Christmas hat. (As photographed by Sedge Thomson.) Complete with blinking lights. Happy Holidays!

EPA's Hearings on "The Carcinogenic Potential of Glyphosate" Dec. 15-16 - Online

While the rest of the world eyes Trump and Putin - and the latest scary cabinet nominations-, Carey Gillam, a leading environmental journalist (and the best reporter in the nation tracking the glyphosate story) is in Washington DC this week, following the EPA's hearings on glyphosate and cancer.


The mainstream DC insider's political news site The Hill published her piece "Serious scrutiny needed as EPA seeks input on cancer ties to Monsanto herbicide" Monday. This piece provides good background on this week's hearings, which are very likely to be controversial as Monsanto, EPA and scientific experts face off on glyphosate and health and safety concerns.

The meeting was postponed from Oct. to Dec. during which time Monsanto lobbied the EPA to remove several eminently well qualified scientists from panel participation.

Gillam's been tweeting from the event, posting the following yesterday.

This week at the hearing, Gillam says there's quite a bit of concern from scientists who are on the panel about the EPA improperly discrediting evidence.



And then there's more:





You can follow Gillam's tweet stream here: https://twitter.com/careygillam?lang=en

The EPA will be webcasting the hearings live for the remaining two days of hearings this week. You can access the online stream here and tune in for live coverage at 9 am Eastern Time Thursday and Friday.

California's wine grape growers used 707,975 pounds of glyphosate in the state in 2014, according to the Dept. of Pesticide Regulation.

California is the only wine grape growing region in the world with mandated pesticide use reporting.

POSTSCRIPT: I'm just catching up on some Politico Europe stories. NGOs seeking data about glyphosate from pesticide companies have not had a legal right to see the data - until now. Read Politico's coverage of the latest ECJ ruling here.