Organic Wines - The Semantic Mire
It is surprising that a positive philosophy that should connect people divides on so many levels. We believe - as do many of the growers on our list - in the relationship between terroir and organic viticulture, in agricultural sustainability, in sensible and sympathetic farming practices, in nurturing the soil and protecting the environment. Sounds fine and dandy, but there are a group of certified growers and journalists who strongly believe that the use of the word “organic” (now sanctified in legislation) is heretical unless appropriate certification is produced. Given that the growers have submitted to a regime of inspection one can understand that they might feel aggrieved if people started bandying around the term willy-nilly, but I think they are being over-defensive for a variety of reasons and damaging the reputation of organic wines.
We do not actually claim official organic status for non-certified wines, but explain in detail in our list the viticultural practices, which would entitle them to that status should they wish to apply for it and be inspected. The fact that most of the estates don’t, despite more than fulfilling the criteria of “organic status”, is largely irrelevant. Or should be irrelevant. The growers are not trading on it, nor are we as the wine merchant who distributes their wines, but, when we know how a grower works, we tell it as it is. Despite legislation regarding labelling no one body owns the notion of “organic” farming - if you farm organically then you farm organically. (Monty Waldin in his book “Biodynamic Wines” cites Felton Road Winery as a good example of an essentially organic estate that works the vines according to biodynamic principles but is unwilling to go for organic certification because of perceived weakness of the Bio-Gro dictates). This semantic lockout of the word “organic” is ridiculous; if we’re forced to use a synonymous term we will, but that won’t alter the fact that the grapes can be grown organically anywhere. Nor, incidentally, are we advertising any special properties for the wines by their being organic although we implicitly believe that all vine growers and farmers should move towards sustainable and organic viticulture.
The question that should be posed is: are organic wines better than non-organic wines? Given the extremely variable quality of food and drink that is passed off as organic, is the term worth a candle anyway? Real quality depends on good provenance which depends on the relationship between the consumer and the supplier and not between the consumer and a label, no matter how worthy the body that confers it. As a wine merchant we are in the position to give more information to our customers than a mere blanket certification - including our own caveats. It makes commercial sense for us to educate our customers, which entails giving them as much information about the product as possible. Just because an estate describes its produce as organic tells us nothing about the quality of farming (when the grapes are picked, the yields) nor does it give any indication of competence in the winery.
We live in a culture in thrall to the certificate; where information is packaged like fruit in a supermarket. We’d rather read a label than touch or smell something. Wine labels contain much information that is crass, pointless, patronising or just plain bogus. We want to celebrate great organic wines, not wines with labels where “organic” is the unique selling point.
In any case the certification system is flawed. We have heard from several of our growers of examples of accredited “organic” estates spraying crops with proscribed chemicals; presumably they falsify their records. Who to believe? In other words, just because a bureaucratic body ratifies something doesn’t make it true. We would presume, if this anecdotal evidence was correct, that these were rare examples, but the wine world is not, and never has been, purer than pure - especially with regard to labelling. Speaking of purity - what is the position of the farmer who does not spray at all, but whose neighbour uses pesticides, herbicides and other aggressive chemicals that militate into the soil and water table or are blown onto the organic vines of the first farmer? And are we just talking about certificates here or something more profound? As I have mentioned we deal with many growers whose philosophy is stricter than the minimal guidelines laid down by the bodies that grant organic status. Organic farming derives from a philosophical choice: a desire to grow things naturally without recourse to damaging chemical solutions; to respect and protect the environment; to ensure that the soil is full of living organisms; in short, allowing nature to express the quality of the product. Whereas many of our growers in France and Italy understand and accept this as a matter of course, they do not see the necessity for some officious body to pronounce on a farming methodology let alone a lifestyle that they have been privately pursuing for years and possibly for generations. Others have made a considered choice to eschew certification. Why? Because they strongly believe that the current EEC laws are weak and poorly administered and that the need to fill out more paperwork has little or nothing to do with the choices that they make as artisanal growers. As Jean-Gerard Guillot observes in Patrick Matthew’s The Wild Bunch, “C’est une question de liberte. I have the necessary paperwork to go organic. But in some cases it’s a racket, anyway. Let’s face it, either people like the wine or they don’t. The whole philosophy is in the wine, not on the label”.
Calling a wine organic has not sold a single bottle for us. The quality of what is in the bottle always matters most. Should a customer ask us about organic wines then we are totally transparent, highlighting those that are genuinely certified, but also mentioning growers and estates that abide by the selfsame principles laid down by Ecocert and other similar bodies. We don’t confer any legitimacy on those wines other than our profound knowledge of the growers and the way they work in their vineyards. Knowledge may not constitute proof in a verifiable legal sense, but knowledge, in an evaluative sense, is more meaningful than a certificate qua certificate.
In summary, we support growers who make quality wine. We have seen an enormous growth towards the eradication of chemicals in the vineyard and a movement towards sustainable agriculture with respect for biodiversity. This is not so they (the growers) can achieve a certificate, but that they can have a vital, healthy vineyard with healthy grapes, the raw material to make great wines.