I don’t care about organic certification, much
I write about wine, but I’m not a wine critic. When someone introduces me as a wine critic, or maybe a wine reviewer, I choose to correct the misconception. I have it down to two quick sentences.
“I write about wine, but I don’t review wines. I mostly write about where wine and sustainability intersect.”
Once the word “sustainability” is thrown out there, there’s often an assumption I write about only organic wines. Sure, some wines I’ve covered for my food + drinks blog on Mother Nature Network are organic, but organic certification isn’t the holy grail of sustainability when it comes to wine. It’s more like the cup that Jesus drank from at the wedding in Cana — a start of things.
In wine, sustainability has to do with growing grapes as organically as possible, for sure, but organic farming is just the start of sustainable wine making. It also encompasses biodiversity, water conservation, soil management, composting, energy efficiency and much more.
There are many wineries that employ these sustainable practices but don’t have organic certification, and that’s why I don’t care — much — about organic certification. It’s a good start, but there’s so much more.
In the sustainable food movement, there’s a saying: “Know your farmer, know your food.” The sentiment rings true for sustainable wine: “Know your winery, know your wine.”
So I talk to winemakers, tasting room employees, winery ambassadors, wine reps and anyone else who can tell me the sustainable story of a wine. There’s almost always a story because perhaps more than any other food or drink, wine depends on the health of the soil its grapes are grown in. And, if winemakers want future generations of their families to make great wine, they must sustain the land.
At it’s very core, that’s what sustainability is — ensuring future generations have the same resources, or better resources, than we have at this moment.
