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.

Where the Biodynamic Vines Are

It's interesting to observe that France has so many biodynamic operations. However, many of them are certified both by Demeter and Biodyvin so the 10,000+ number is dubious.

Still, I had not know there were so many Spanish biodynamic producers and I look forward to getting acquainted with more and more of them.

Italy has a low number (not shown here), due to its more stringent requirements. For example, using mechanical harvesting is forbidden under the Italian Demeter rules.

Acres in the US will increase dramatically when Heitz Cellars converts, which will add 550 acres to the US total. Heitz is on track to become the largest biodynamic vineyard owner in the U.S. 

Just in Time for Earth Day: The New Face of Slow Wine Guide USA 2021 Launches - Our First Standalone Book - Available for Pre-Sale Now!

Want to be the first on your block to have the insider info on the new Slow Wine Guide? 

Show your love of eco-friendlier wines by learning about 285 producers and 850+ wines in the brand new, inaugural, 170 page Slow Wine USA Guide 2021, available for pre-order now. This marks the first year that the guide is ALL US wines and is also available in print as well as ebook.

Slow Wine Guide is part of the Slow Food movement based in Italy, an international movement, spearheaded here in the US first by Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, to promote good, clean and fair food and wines. 

Hundreds of producers have been listed in the Italian language version of the Slow Wine Guide for 10 years. In Italy it is the best selling wine guide, with annual sales of more than 40,000 copies. California wines started being added roughly five years ago followed by Oregon wines two years ago. This year the guide's expanded to include Washington and New York State. 

Each producer entry provides three sections including a paragraph about the people, one about about the vineyard, and then wine notes on three wines. 

The special obstacles presented by the pandemic meant wine writers, called field contributors in Slow Wine world, had to zoom with winemakers and receive samples sent to their homes, which was not business as usual for Slow Wine. One of the brand's hallmarks is that each wine writer must visit the individual winery on a site visit and taste on site as well. So a little improvisation was needed. 

Last year the guide was only distributed only as an ebook, and the print edition was sorely missed. Thanks to the heroic efforts of National Editor Deborah Parker Wong, the guide is now something you can soon hold in your hands.

I have worked as a Senior Editor on Slow Wine Guide for two years and have enjoyed the opportunity to be part of the publication and expand my tasting and writing horizons, becoming familiar with new producers and others that were both inside and outside of the certified organic or biodynamic realm I typically cover. 

"Tasting room"

This year I wrote about 63 different wineries and reviewed 180+ wines in the comfort of my own home, an ideal setting for deeper thinking and reflection on each wine, as I could see them each evolve over time. It also challenged my Coravin skills and I had to order new needles at the height of my tasting marathons.

If you're looking for a wine that costs less than $30, the guide offers a big selection of that it calls Everyday Wines - there are dozens of affordably priced wines. Some of my new favorites in this category include the Lily Rosé from Folded Hills in Santa Barbara County (a new to me winery that just got certified) and Solminer's Skin Fermented (White) Field Blend (from organic and biodynamic grapes). 

Others that are perennial favorites in this price range are the Eyrie Vineyards Pinot Gris and the Dashe Riesling from McFadden Vineyard. 

Feeling like a bit of a splurge or seeking collectible bottles? Check out the guide's Top Wines. Some of the new to me wines here are the Hyde de Villaine Chardonnay from the Napa winery founded by the Hyde family and Aubert de Villaine (who married a Hyde). This is this producer's first year in the guide. 

In addition to these two categories, the guide also includes a unique category - Slow Wine. This is for wines that preserve a heritage or tradition, whether it's old vines, a unique heritage clone, or a traditional grape - Mission, for example. Among my favorites here are Gallica's Grenache from old vines at Rossi Ranch in Sonoma and Sokol Blosser's Old Vineyard Block Pinot Noir, which comes from an old clone that is being preserved in new plantings.

While wine writers were not able to able to visit the wineries this year, as they usually do, connections were made on Zoom. Though Slow Wine typically does not ask producers to send samples, preferring to have field contributors visit each and every winery, the pandemic changed the rules of the game. Many of these Zoom winemaker visits are posted on the YouTube website.

HOW TO ORDER

You can order direct from Slow Wine to support the organization more directly. Volume discounts are available. Buy now! Give as gifts! Stock up!

A Message from Greta

 

 For more watch the three hour PBS special starting tonight: 

Video: Vineyard Manager at America's Largest Biodynamic Vineyard Tells American Vineyard Magazine Going Biodynamic "A Pretty Easy Process" and "Not as Hard as You Might Think"

 

While many wine writers and much media makes biodynamics sound like it is a complicated way to farm, King Estate's Ray Nuclo, in a farmer to farmer video on CaliforniaAgNet, says it's really pretty simple.

King Estate was certified organic in the early 2000's, but when Nuclo, an experienced organic viticulturist, joined the company in 2015, he was charged with converting its 465 acre organic vineyard in the southernmost part of the Willamette Valley, with going biodynamic. 

In one year. 

He told American Vineyard Magazine's reporter, Matthew Malcolm, that going biodynamic was straightforward - minimizing offsite inputs, using sheep for weed control before bud break, composting grape must to use as fertilizer, and using what are called the preps - adding herbal and mineral sprays and teas to compost and vines.

The preps were new to Nuclo, he said, but are now part of the routine, supercharging and promoting the natural life in the soils and plants, he said.

While others believe that biodynamic farming is a marketing tool, Nuclo credits the owners' commitment to treating the land well as the primary motivation for being biodynamic.

While the company makes 150,000 cases of wine each year, it blends its grapes with purchased grapes for 95 percent of its production, holding back five percent for its small lot, estate wines, which are certified under Demeter's "Made with Biodynamic Grapes" standard. (That standard is identical to the "Made with Organic Grapes" standard, substituting biodynamic grapes for organic ones.)

Asked for advice to others who may be contemplating a transition to biodynamic farming, Nuclo said, "It can be a little intimidating at first, but it's not as hard as you might think." 

"You just have to have the right inputs and know what to do at the right time," he said. 

Scheid's Supersized Organic Plans: On Track to Becoming the Second Largest Organic Vineyard Owner in the U.S.

Heidi Scheid of Scheid Family Wines

This year, Scheid Family Wines in Monterey County made one of the biggest announcements in Central Coast wine history.

It is converting all 2,800 acres of its Monterey vines to organic certification. And it will be launching its own new organically grown estate wines in 2021, and Whole Foods will be selling them. This major leap forward gives consumers more than just Bonterra organic options on supermarket shelves.

The first wine released this year, and it's a Made with Organic Grapes rosé of Petite Sirah. The bee and flowers motifs on the label are in keeping with other organic brands who are offering more and more natural imagery to signal to consumers that the wines are organically grown. It's also a very feminine label, and that's who's buying rosé, rosé, rosé.

While Castoro Cellars has been the organic leader in the Central Coast with 1,422 acres (more organic acreage than Bonterra owns), Scheid is on track to become the biggest organic vineyard owner in the Central Coast by 2025.

At 2,807 acres, Scheid would also become the second largest organic vineyard owner in the country. 

Here is a map of its 12 vineyards spread across a 70 mile swath of the Salinas Valley. (Scheid announced it sold three of these on April 2, 2021, reducing its acreage from 4,000 to 2807 acres.)

For those who want to know who the biggest organic vineyard owner is, it is Fred Franzia (Mr. Two Buck Chuck) who converted 8,000 of his 40,000 acres of Central Valley vineyards to organic. His brand is Shaw Organic, which is sold exclusively at Trader Joe's. But there is lots more room in the market, as Bonterra's continued growth shows. That brand, which has been buying grapes more and more from locations outside of Mendocino County, reports growth between 10 and 20 percent (reports vary) in the last year.

As Fetzer Vineyards CEO Giancarlo said in August of 2020, the brand is seeing double digit growth in Sauvignon Blanc and Rosé, along with ongoing sales of Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Scheid has already tapped into the no sugar wines category with its modern looking brand Sunny with a Chance of Flowers, which is competing as a lo-cal option, but the leap to organic is a far bigger step into the more health and eco-friendly category.

----------

I asked Scheid's PR representative for a chance to interview Heidi. Here is what they sent me in answer to my questions.

What Scheid brand will you be making the organically grown wines for?

Grandeur is our first brand that is made with organic grapes. The first vintage – 2020 – is a rosé from our organically certified White Flower Vineyard. It will be available at Whole Foods in June 2021. What is the price point for your organically grown wines?

Grandeur Rosé in Whole Foods will be available at an SRP of $16.99. Will you be selling grapes or using all of the organic grapes in your own brand/s?

It is our plan to use all of our organic grapes in our own brands.

How will your winemaking change in response to making certified wines (Made with Organic Grapes)?

The grapes were hand-picked and whole-cluster pressed hours after harvesting and fermented on select yeast at cool temperatures in stainless steel to retain the bright fruit esters and floral aromas.

After a month-long fermentation, the wine was aged in stainless steel for 2 months. In keeping with the rules for using the ‘made with organic grapes’ designation, the wine is produced from 100% organic grapes which are certified by Monterey County Certified Organic and sulfites are below 100 ppm.

See tasting note here.

Note that the back label provides a calorie count, 
as does Scheid's Sunny with a Chance of Flowers brand
(but the Sunny label - a non-organic, no sugar brand -
puts the 85 calories labeling on the front)

Do you have any strategic distribution partners who are committed to supporting your national rollout?

Whole Foods is committed to our national roll-out. We will be launching our inaugural 2020 vintage of Grandeur in their stores.

What other steps will you take to support eco-friendlier practices - i.e. lighter bottle, etc.?

One of our core values is continuous improvement and supporting eco-friendlier practices, as well as equitable treatment of our employees and giving back to our community, is a big part of that.

A reflection of this mindset over the past decade are the third party certifications we have earned for our vineyards and winery, the installation of a wind turbine that powers 100% of our winery operations with renewable wind energy and also generates enough energy for 125 homes in the local community.

We are also adopting eco-friendly packaging for many of our brands, from using 100% recycled paper labels, to using glass that is made here in the USA, and lightweight bottle options when possible.

We will continue to take meaningful steps and embrace a culture of continuous improvement.