Organic Practices Turn Out Green Wine

Changes in canopy management, the way vines are trained to grow, have reduced the need for fungicides by improving sun exposure and air circulation.

Meanwhile, nature's predators have become vineyard VIPs, with growers putting up nesting boxes and perches to attract rodent-hunting birds, such as the 30 owl boxes hammered into trees at Clos du Bois.

(Price, a detail kind of guy, once put a tarp under a nesting box where a pair of owls and eight fledglings roosted. He counted 500 gopher skulls in the accumulated debris.)

The Benziger Family Winery in Sonoma County has gone beyond organic to "biodynamic" farming, which not only avoids synthetic chemicals, but also keeps the vineyard environment diverse with surrounding woodlands and gardens.

"We think of it as the grapes are the lead character on stage, and think of these other aspects of the environment as the supporting cast," Mike Benziger said.

Gentler farming is particularly important in an industry that has had some bitter battles with environmentalists over issues including soil erosion and wastewater discharge.

"They want to be able to live in harmony with their neighbors and growing organically makes that easier," said Broome.

In Napa, where about 10 percent of the county's agricultural land is devoted to wine grapes, fights over vineyard growth have been particularly tense, especially over the trend by high-end wineries to plant vines on steep hillsides, which is believed to produce a superior product.

Chris Malan, spokeswoman for the vineyard committee of the Sierra Club Redwood Chapter, said the farming changes have not gone unnoticed. However, using fewer artificial pesticides doesn't mitigate critics' main objection - the bulldozing of forested hillsides for vineyards.

"You can cut down redwoods and put organic (vineyards) in there and the Sierra Club wouldn't necessarily consider that sustainable," Malan said. Still, he said, "we do see that there are some farmers who are trying to do things better."

The trend has gone mainstream in the past two years with The Wine Institute, a lobbying group, and the California Association of Winegrape Growers issuing a Code of Sustainable Winegrowing Practices. More than 500 growers and 50 winery operations have participated in workshops centered on sustainable grape growing.

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On the Net:

http://www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/

http://www.closdubois.com

http://www.fetzer.com

http://www.benziger.com