Beyond Organic Wine

I had such a great time on my first trip and was so impressed by the wines that I went back to Quebec for a second trip and discovered another fantastic producer who has been certified organic since 2021, growing a few select vinifera and several hybrids, and making some outstanding wines. They are Vignoble Sugar Hill and please do yourself a favor and try their wines. This is a second career for...

The vast majority of champagnes we buy and drink in the US are over-priced luxury brands made of cheap materials, harmful farming practices, and at times exploitive labor. We get told constantly that Champagne, the region, is “moving toward” more sustainable practices, and that it is continually “doing better” with regard to ecological viticulture, but that’s because it has so far to go. As a regi...

Reflections on some of the big questions of 2025, and recommendations of some of my favorite books from 2025. An end of year wish for you and your wine, and a big thank you to everyone who makes Beyond Organic Wine possible. I hope to see you at Embracing Hybrid Grapes on January 26, 2026. Embracing Hybrid Grapes in California. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other sub...

What if I told you that you could take a piece of degraded, marginal land with 3.5 pH soils and turn it into an agricultural production system with five times the productivity of neighboring conventional farms without using any fertilizer or pesticides or outside inputs besides sunlight, seeds, and plants? What if I told you that there are decades of data to support this and that it can be done an...

My guest for this episode is Nika Carlson of Greenpoint Cidery in Hudson, New York. There are some unique and wonderful aspects of what Nika does that make this conversation fun and enlightening in ways that I find thrilling and inspiring…. She planted her estate orchard entirely from wild seedling apple trees that she selected from her region. She ferments a landscape of flavors, including herbal...

My guest for this episode is Joseph Brinkley. Joseph is the Senior Director of Regenerative Organic Farming at Bonterra . He oversees farming of Bonterra’s 800+ acres of estate vineyards in Mendocino County, all of which are farmed with organically. Bonterra is one of the largest organic B-corporation wineries in the US, and they are now the largest winery to achieve Regenerative Organic certifica...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com My guests for this episode are Julia and Alex Alvarez-Perez of Usonia Wine in the Finger Lakes region of New York… and they will be sponsoring Embracing Hybrid Grapes in California with two of their wines… and I’m very much looking forward to sharing them with those of you who attend… you are in for a surp...

My guest for this episode is Franz Weninger of organic and biodynamic certified Weingut Weninger in Horitschon, Austria… and you, dear listener, are in for a treat. Franz is a second generation winegrower who thinks deeply about the soil, the plants, the systems and ideas that go into the ecology of wine. He offers practical and surprising insights into how to grow vinifera with less sprays, how t...

My guest for this episode is George Gale. George has led a double life. On the surface, George presented a public façade as a philosopher of science, American historian, professor, and author. He was a PhD student at UC Davis, and wrote his dissertation at Oxford. He has a Wikipedia page, spent 43 years as a professor of science and philosophy at University of Missouri Kansas City, and published m...

My guest is Rueben Lange of Amiti in Oregon FromAmiti.com . Rueben first worked a harvest in 2016, but he has packed in something like 12 harvests since then by bouncing between Northern and Southern Hemispheres, and three continents, including some notable vintages at Idiot’s Grace in the Columbia River Gorge, Maison Maenad in the Jura, and Forlorn Hope in California. Rueben says of Amiti: “The g...

My guest for this episode is Michael Völker, one of the Zwei Natur Kinder in Germany. Michael and Melanie Drese spent many years working in other fields, traveling the world and. In 2013 they returned to begin taking over Michael’s father’s winery in Kitzingen in Franconia, Bavarian Germany. They began to make natural wines under the 2naturkinder label as a side project for the winery, and since t...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com My guest for this episode is Harold Langlais, who works as Marketing Director for and part owner with the Amoreau family at Chateau Le Puy . Chateau Le Puy’s land – the Hill of Wonders - has been chemical free since it began in the 1600’s. After WW1 they refused to begin using the novel chemistry that came...

My guest for this episode is Alder Yarrow. Alder writes and does everything for the blog Vinography, and I’ve been receiving Alder’s weekly email for several years. He gives a list of links of articles he’s been reading, and I always enjoy scanning this list to see what’s going on in the wine zeitgeist. Alder’s Vinography.com blog has been published daily since 2004, and was nominated for a James...

Yesterday I spent the afternoon editing Wikipedia entries about hybrid grapes because they were either factually wrong, omitted important and relevant information, or pushed prejudiced perspectives… and sometimes did all of this. Sometimes the edits were small but important. In the entry on Hybrid Grape, a contributor thought it important to mention that they “exhibit a mix of traits” from their v...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com “The earth is alive. The earth is intelligent. The earth is having a crisis because of us. The good news is: we are the earth ourselves, and we can be much stronger in our activism if we remember that we are acting on behalf of, we are living agents of, we are part of, this living being called the Earth. E...

My guest for this episode is ​Lore McSpadden-Walker. Lore (they/them) is an embodiment navigator and neuro-spicy hedge witch who has dedicated their work towards helping people who have experienced systemic denial of access, disability, and/or traumatic experiences learn about their physical selves through education, facilitated conversations, movement coaching and somatic awareness, Reiki, herbal...

The last episode featured a 110 acre biodynamic chateau in one of Washington state’s famed AVAs. This episode features a 1 acre organic and regenerative vineyard of hybrids and vinifera with a straw bale winery and an underground house in a part of Washington that isn’t known for wine. I point out this contrast not to say that one is better than the other, but because in our dominant culture I’ve...

Let’s take a trip to the state of Washington in the US. You know Washington… it’s that place where it rains so much on the coast that vampires can live there year round. It’s a land for volcano connoisseurs. Its largest city was named for a man commonly known as Chief Seattle, a leader of the Duwamish and Suquamish peoples, who is thought to have said: “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com My guest for this episode is Pascal Baudar. For many of you he needs no formal introduction, so I’ll introduce him informally. I think he’s the Monet of wine. He has given me the inspiration of thinking of wines as impressionist paintings, capable of expressing more than just a landscape or regional distin...

What seeds are you sending out into the world with your wine? What systems, or economies, are you building with the energy you exchange with the plants? Absent the physical seeds, are you helping disperse the vine’s metaphysical seeds, the stories and ideas the plants embody, or something else? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus ep...

"What do you think, you higher men? Am I a prophet? A dreamer? A drunkard? An interpreter of dreams? A midnight bell? A drop of dew? An odour and scent of eternity? Do you not hear it? Do you not smell it? My world has just become perfect, midnight is also noonday, pain is also joy, a curse is also a blessing, the night is also a sun..." That’s Friedrich Nietzsche as quoted on the label of a bottl...

My guest for this episode is the matriarch of a Mendocino winery that has been organic since before there was organic certification. Martha Barra runs Barra of Mendocino which includes the Girasole brand, one of the few wineries with both vineyards and winery certified organic. Barra is a family business that her late husband Charlie started by purchasing Redwood Valley Vineyards in 1954. They wer...

Sunny Hodge is the owner of wine bars Diogenes the Dog in Elephant & Castle and Battersea-based aspen & meursault. Known for challenging the status quo, Sunny has built a reputation as a disruptor in the wine industry. The Cynic’s Guide to Wine is his first book - a bold, unapologetic guide to a subject that’s far too often shrouded in mystery. With a degree in Mechanical Engineering f...

This episode is the last of the Quebec series, and it’s such a great one to end with… because it makes me miss Quebec and want to go back for a visit again as soon as possible. This one is special for several reasons: first, I got to interview a family… or part of the family who farms and makes wine as Vignoble Pigeon Hill. Kevin, Matthew and Trisha Shufelt treated Maxime and me to a beautiful tou...

My guest for this episode is Simon Naud of Vignoble La Bauge. La Bauge is the first Canadian vineyard to be Regenerative Organic Certified by the Regenerative Organic Alliance. Knowing what I now know about Quebec it doesn’t surprise me that the first certified Regenerative Organic vineyard is here. Simon is also a past recipient of the best winemaker or vigneron for Quebec. When you see the trell...