COLUMN: Toast to organic wines

Let's toast organic wines in recyclable containers
By Louie Gilot/El Paso Times
04/07/10

EL PASO -- Not all my green experiments have been enjoyable. Some were even painful.
But this week's subject, I could get used to. I decided to explore organic wines, for the good of the planet, of course.

You don't find organic wines everywhere in El Paso. But a visit to Sun Harvest or World Market will yield a small selection. None of the organic wines I found were produced locally, which makes them less green because they had to be transported by planes and trucks, both big sources of greenhouse gas emissions and pollution.

There are basically two types of organic wines: wine made from organic grapes, and wine that contains no added sulfites. Sulfites are naturally occurring in wine, but many winemakers add extra. A small percentage of people, often asthmatics, have a low tolerance for sulfites, which can cause heartburn, headaches and flushing of the skin. For them, no-sulfite-added wines are a good choice. But these wines are meant to be drunk right away, not aged for years. No problem here, since prompt ingestion was my plan.
 

In general, you can't really predict whether a wine will be good or bad; you just have to try it. But I have a trick that usually works. Look for a sober label, white, matte, with words but no pictures. No cute animal, no vintage family pictures, no pun in the wine's name -- unless you like your wine tasting like Kool-Aid.

I bought two Californian Chardonnays, a California Sauvignon Blanc, an Argentinian Malbec and a Chilean Merlot, all made from organic grapes, and a sulfites-free South African Cabernet Sauvignon. They were all around $11 or $12, a little more than the $8 I usually prefer to pay for my wine, but they were all very good (except for the Sauvignon Blanc, which tasted crazy, like drinking a Carmen Miranda hat). But one of the Californian Chardonnays, from the Bonterra Vineyards of Mendocino, Calif., was one of the best Chardonnays I've ever tasted. 

So these wines are good and supposedly better for your health than regular wines. But are they good for the environment?

Vineyards are completely artificial environments. In a traditional vineyard, nothing is allowed to grow but the grapes. That, and the use of pesticides, lead to soil depletion and erosion, water pollution, resistance to pests, chemical dependence and product standardization. Organic growers and their extreme version, the so-called biodynamic growers, encourage biodiversity. They say that having a variety of plants provides shelter to beneficial bugs that replace pesticides.

Or, as they say on the Web site of one of the oldest and most expensive French organic vineyards, the Romanée-Conti estate, "The true-winegrower is he who devoted himself to this understanding of life, and is careful that each of his agriculture gestures does not disturb the vast system of creation." It sounds better in French.

Less wholesome, however, is the fact that wine comes in glass bottles, and we don't recycle glass in El Paso. It's a shame because recycling glass consumes a lot less water and energy than making new glass. But my organic wine bottles are headed for the landfill. The alternative is boxed wines, which are lighter to transport but contain a plastic bag that is not recyclable, as far as I know.

At least one company I found online at www.ybwines.com puts its wine in a recyclable milk carton type of box. The wine, of course, is organic.

Send questions and comments on green matters to Louie Gilot on her blog, www.lagreenga.com.