Seeing green and being green
Eric Asimov fires off a “green wine” column for his first post-Earth Day (NYT).
One thing that struck me from the column–and that I have often encountered among many “green” producers–is their reluctance to put their method front-and-center, hoping to let the wines be appreciated on their own merits first, then as “green” wines second.
That happened last night in my NYU class when I poured the Porter Creek, Fiona’s Vineyard, 2004, a certified organic, transitioning-to-biodynamic pinot noir from Sonoma’s Russian River Valley. The wine was almost unanimously loved (find this wine). After I said that it was made organically and almost biodynamically, one participant said “why don’t they put that on the label?”
It seems there are two poles of along an axis of motivations for making green wine. On the one extreme, some producers are doing it because it’s makes good wine (and is good for the Earth). On the other, some may be doing it doing it because the sales and marketing department told them to. Or there might be a bit of both for all involved. It seems Porter Creek is on the good wine/Earth side since they don’t advertise it on their labels.
How about Fetzer with their huge Bonterra brand? I was intrigued to note on Monday here that they will be spending $1 million on marketing their wine, which states “made with organically grown grapes” on the label. Hmm, seems to have a whiff of marketing, not the terroir.
(Incidentally, “made with organically grown grapes” need only have a minimum of 70 percent organic grapes. Truthiness?)
Related: “Red, White and Green: can you taste the difference?” [University of Chicago, May 12]
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On April 26th, 2007 at 9:19 am ,East Village Wine Geek wrote:
I myself get a little marketing on the nose.
Ooh! Ooh! Look at me! Yeah me over here! I’m …I’m organic…well…at least most of me is….ahh c’mon just buy me!
A little Bonterra and a pair of cooperational, tubey wine glasses and then we are talkn’
EVWG
On April 26th, 2007 at 11:16 pm ,The Ethicurean: Chew the right thing. » Blog Archive » Digest: The almond band, pork scandal widens, Michigan fed up with shit wrote:
[...] methods make better wine. (New York Times) But our e-mail pal Dr. Vino sent out a truthiness alert, educating us that Asimov failed to mention another difference between “organic” and “made from [...]