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Organic Wine Makes a Great Hostess and Holiday Gift

by Angela December 12th, 2011 - No Comments »

Photo by Freshtopia: Flickr

Booze is the perennial gift of adults to other adults. Maybe it has something to do with blowing crazy amounts of cash on items you would never think of buying during the year, maybe it has to do with putting together toys that come with the “some assembly required” fine print that see you staying up until 1AM Christmas Eve fiddling with small plastic pegs and screws, but alcohol makes all the pleasant trials of the holidays just a little smoother. If you are buying for an environmentally-minded person, picking out an organic vino product will make them think you just put a little extra effort into your hostess or holiday gift, even if you didn’t.

Organic Wine Find
To find organic wine, check out organicwinefind.com. They also have an app you can download for your mobile phone. While their database is impressive, it is by no means exhaustive and they may be missing out on a few of the smaller wineries.

EcoVine Wine Club
A great gift for the greenie who has everything, or yourself, you can get a new organic wine every month from this wine club. They ship exclusively organic wines; no eco-friendly namby-pamby stuff here. Sorry Canadians: US only.

Frogpond Farm Winery
I keep on mentioning this place here about once every six months for a reason: it’s awesome. Really, really awesome. There is no artisanal tasting experience when you visit the winery, in fact everything about it is decidedly down-home. Sipping your wine of choice while sitting at a rickety picnic table and watching a turkey trying to climb a fence is way, way more interesting than experiencing an ice wine flight in a sanitized, touristy winery. If you are anywhere near Niagara-on-the-Lake, ever, make it a plan to stop here. It happens to be Ontario’s only certified organic winery and their wine tastes awesome.

To find out more about organic wine, check out this informative article written by a sommelier.

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French Organic Winemaker Facing Jail for Defying AOC Standards

by Angela October 13th, 2011 - No Comments »


French winemaker Olivier Cousin makes his organic Loire Valley wine just “like the peasants” used to make it, with no chemicals or added sugar. Cousin has run into trouble with one of the tonier French wine standard bodies, the AOC, over his refusal to be certified to their standards and his opposition to their standards, which include adding sulfites to wine.

The AOC is actually threatening Cousin with jail time after one of his distributors put “AOC” on his boxes, initials that stand for “Anjou Olivier Cousin”. If you want to help out Cousin, you can sign the petition here.

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Elite French Bordeaux Vineyards Going Organic

by Angela January 31st, 2011 - 1 Comment »

Some of the elite producers of Bordeaux in France’s historic wine country still don’t think Bordeaux can be produced organically. Two of the largest and most historical producers of the storied French vintage are proving them wrong by converting the entire operation of their estates to organic production.

The two estates in question are the 200 acre Chateau Pontet Canet in Pauillac, and Chateau Guiraud, a 247 acre estate. A traditional method for reducing mildew on grapes, copper, is not used by either estate as copper is a heavy metal and can taint the soil. Use of lower amounts of the copper than traditional methods call for allow estates growing organically to eliminate pesticides.

The move also improves the quality of the wines and reduces tannins, according to producers. At the moment, organic producers must sell Bordeaux for less as consumer impressions are that an organically produced Bordeaux will produce an inferior quality product. The manager of one of the estates says that “”It seems to be clear that the wines of the estate have gained in aromatic complexity, finesse and nobility in the quality of tannins”, so hopefully consumers will change their attitudes after tasting the product.

343 estates in the Gironde, France’s traditional Bordeaux region, are currently producing an organic product, and more are coming soon.

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Winter, When Your Thoughts Turn to Organic Wine

by Angela March 1st, 2010 - No Comments »

OK, I’ll admit; my thoughts turn to wine no matter what season it is. Being cold and frosty makes me hearken back to one of the nicest, warmest days in the summer of 2009, when myself and an old friend from school sat outside on a picnic table and enjoyed a few glasses of organic wine at Frogpond Winery.

While I can’t say whether or not it was obviously better than a non-organic wine, the organic Riesling was stupendously nummy. We also had the pleasure of watching a turkey try to climb a fence and escape, which you just don’t get at those other snooty wineries in Niagara. The only things trying to climb over a fence and escape are trapped husbands who would rather be at a sports bar.

If you are in the Niagara-On-The-Lake region at any point, I highly recommend stopping by Frogpond to pick up a bottle or two of their organic wines and to try their range. They are right around the corner from one of the more “popular” tourist wineries, Inniskillin, so it isn’t too far out of your way. Just be careful to spit out the wine if you are driving or get a friend – like me – to drive.

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Organic Wine for a Greener Drunk

by Angela December 10th, 2008 - No Comments »

OK, maybe not a drunk.  Maybe just a glass or two with dinner.   It is possible to get your grape on and lose the chemicals and fertilizers that usually get pressed with the grapes in the process.

Organic wine has been around for a while.  There are established vinyards in California’s wine country that have been growing grapes organically for a number of years.  Organic wine also has no sulfites added.  Some winemakers get tricky with this, saying that their wine is made from organically grown grapes, but they still add sulfites.  Almost all wine produced has sulfites added after fermentation to kill off any bacteria and to keep the wine “stable”.

Without further adieu and lots of hiccups, here is the list of where to get your organic drunk on:

Organic Wines of Canada:  http://www.winesofcanada.com/organic_wines.html
Online Ordering of Organic Wine, US:  http://www.theorganicwinecompany.com/

Ask to see a selection of organic wines at your local wine store – the more that customers request them, the more likely it is that the store will get them in if they don’t carry them.

The following video features the proprietor of an organic California winery talking about his wines and how he goes about making them.

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