Beyond Organic Wine

Beyond Organic Wine podcast is listener supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. My guest for this episode is Morgan Twain-Peterson, MW. Morgan is the owner and winemaker of Bedrock Wine Co . in Sonoma, CA, a winery dedicated to preserving California’s historic vineyards. The wines have been featured four times in Wine Spectator’s Top 100 Li...

For those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, Happy Harvest, Merry Samhain, and a Celebratory Equinox to you all wherever you are. This episode is about Magic, the cunning arts that have been practiced for millennia in most cultures. Even if you have clear and strongly held thoughts about Magic, I think it’s important to consider for a moment the space between those thoughts. You don’t have to let...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com In 2020, Spain experienced one of the worst downy mildew outbreaks in modern history. The conditions were perfect, or perfectly horrible, for downy mildew to spread rapidly. Some producers lost 100% of their crop, even after spraying 15 or more times with fungicides. Albet i Noya already had been growing a...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com What if the multi-year contraction in wine sales is a good thing? So much press and media attention has been given to the causes for the ongoing decline in wine sales, and are we at the bottom, and why aren’t millennials or gen Z drinking, or why they are but we mis-read the data (as if these designations...

A prejudice-free re-telling of the evolutionary history, as well as the redacted wine history, of the world’s most popular grape. This is a free episode, but Beyond Organic Wine can’t exist without your support. Please subscribe to support. Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com...

Katya, Domaine de Cassagnas - Vivan! Co-op founding member I’m incredibly inspired by this episode for multiple reasons. First, this is about a positive action, a proactive solution, to some of the wine’s biggest issues right now. Secondly, this solution embodies the values I want to promote, increase, and spread in wine, while de-funding the parts of wine that don’t need to continue. This episode...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com This episode is first interview with a New Zealand winemaker, and I’m glad to finally be taking us all on a journey to one of the most beautiful and special wine areas on earth, Aotearoa New Zealand, and the sub region of Central Otago, and the sub-sub region of Gibbston. This is Pinot Noir country, and on...

My guests for this episode are Marta and Cristina of the the Porto Protocol , which is both a resource hub and community promoting climate action for the global wine ecosystem. Because of the emphasis on community that Marta highlights in this conversation, I recorded a special introduction for it. Here’s the text of it: Glyphosate, the main active component in RoundUp, has been considered to be s...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com My guest for this incredible episode is Michael Cook. Michael is the Viticulture Program Specialist for the 55 counties of North Texas with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. His primary function is to provide educational support for the nearly 120 commercial regional vineyards, which grow vinifera,...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com My guest for this episode is Eric Mayer of Napachar , and this episode is all about biochar. After Eric earned a PhD in Environmental Engineering from Stanford University he went looking for a more immediate way to alleviate the climate crisis. When he learned about biochar’s potential for rapidly scalable...

My guest for this episode is Pierre Muller. Pierre is an agroforestry consultant and owner of AGECO in Catalonia with a wide range of experience and projects in multiple contexts, and this episode digs into some of my favorite topics and the subjects that I’m personally exploring on the WineForest Farm in New York. Vitiforestry, Agroforestry with Vines, polycultures, married vines and why we don’t...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com I want to say a very special thank you to everyone who subscribes and supports Beyond Organic Wine. There has been a surge of support since I called for a boycott of wines grown with herbicide, and that was honestly the last thing I expected and it means a lot to me. “Venenum in Auro Bibitur” My guest for...

On July 22, 2026, Adam L. Huss of the Beyond Organic Wine podcast and Substack, with the support and cooperation of dozens of other wineries, wine sales professionals, and wine educators around the world, has announced a global boycott of all wines produced from vineyards that use herbicides, including glyphosate (RoundUp). # boycottherbicidewine #boycottglyphosatewine Huss states: “Herbicides are...

Matt Johnson Ph. D. is a wildlife ecologist, ornithologist, agroecologist, and a professor in the Department of Wildlife at Cal Poly Humboldt in Northern California. This episode looks at the amazing solutions and incredible benefits that winegrowers can incentivize by actively welcoming songbirds and owls onto wine landscapes… as well as the beautifully rich and wonderful world that can result fr...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com I’ve been trying to make some strong arguments on Beyond Organic Wine for why California needs hybrid grapes, really why everyone needs them, and this episode has given me another one. California wine is becoming anachronistic. It’s becoming a relic of a past era, outdated, falling behind. Part of why this...

The objective of this episode is to get vital information out to winegrowers everywhere about Pierce’s Disease, or Xylella fastidiosa (and you’ll get a whole lot more as well). Pierce’s Disease/ Xylella fastidiosa isn’t a new concern for many winegrowers, but it has recently hit the news in a way that has whipped up a frenzy of new attention in California… and much of that attention is misguided,...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com My guest for this episode it Autumn Stoscheck of Eve’s Cidery in beautiful Van Etten, New York. I drove over to the cidery to sit outside as evening descended and have a conversation with Autumn about this culture of wine and cider as we practice it here in the US in our unique context. If you don’t know A...

“To care for what we know requires care for what we don’t, the world’s lives dark in the soil, dark in the dark…” “…Forbearance is the first care we give to what we do not know. We live by lives we don’t intend, lives that exceed our thoughts and needs, outlast our designs, staying by passing through, surviving again and again the risky passages from ice to warmth, dark to light.” - “A Small Porch...

What I want to say in this piece is urgent. It’s urgent because of the recent discovery of sharpshooters on grapevines at several Costco locations in Northern California, where most of California wine is grow. It’s also urgent because Pierce’s Disease is a very serious plant disease that affects grapevines, perhaps as serious as Phylloxera, and I’ll get more into that. And it’s also urgent because...

My guest for this episode is Shannon Mayhew, Estate Sustainability Director for Brooks Winery in Oregon. Brooks is a B-corp, Demeter certified biodynamic, and regenerative winery with some of Oregon’s oldest own-rooted vinifera vines. This conversation focuses on how we might think about our wine farms as opportunities to grow something more than grapes, and how we can grow and farm the contexts,...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com Since there is very little knowledge about growing hybrid grapes in places where a majority of the wine on earth is grown, like California where I live, I want to provide really practical and useful information when I think I have it to share. I have grown and made wine from dozens of varieties of vinifera...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com I’m thrilled to announce that my first book is officially available for pre-order! The book is called Wine Liberated: The Ecological Revolution and the Vintners Inspiring Change . The heroes of Wine Liberated are people who I met through this podcast, who took the time to share their knowledge and inspire...

A big thanks to our special sponsor for this episode: Shifting Gears Travel My guest for this episode is Tim Jordan, who is a co-founder of and winemaker and consultant for Common Wealth Crush . From overseeing winegrowing brands Star Party and Midland in Augusta County, to his winemaking and vineyard responsibilities at Common Wealth Crush, Tim has his finger on the dynamic pulse of Virginia wine...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com My guest for this episode is Daniele Delaini who owns and farms and makes wine for his family winery Villa Calicantus near Lake Garda in northeast Italy. He grows most of his grapes on cement pergola, what they locally call “pergola veronese,” and farms local indigenous varieties of grapes biodynamically a...

As a younger man, Patrick Pierquet found the wild grape that became the Frontenac grapes (noir, gris, and blanc). He tells about his experiences discovering the wild parents of several of the North America’s most popular, commercially used wine grapes, as well as the practical aspects of what it takes to breed new varieties of grapes. He also tells stories of Elmer Swenson, with whom he got to wor...