Organic? Sustainable? Biodynamic? What Does it all Mean?

Hi and welcome, I’m very excited to bring you the first real Wino.Blog post.  Today I want to talk a little about organic, sustainable, and biodynamic wines.  I live in New England where wines of these types have gotten a really bad reputation with early producers of these types of wine.  I must admit that I have had some that were not so great and some that were just downright bad.   The good news is over the past couple of years, the industry has done a much better job of producing them and I have now had many that are outstanding.  As the wine industry sees more demand, they have responded by doing an increasingly good job in meeting that demand with high quality product.

Let’s work on defining the difference between organic, sustainable and biodynamic wines.  The FDA regulates the term organic, but the others, at least in the US, lack legal distinction.  In the EU, they are clearly defined, but since I am in the US, I will try to keep the definitions applicable.

Organic:  The thing to watch for here is that there is wine made from organic grapes and wine that is organically produced.  Those made from organically grown grapes are grown without synthetically produced pesticides.  Wines that say they are made organically use organic grapes and are also made without adding sulfites.  Even though they do not add sulfites, there can still be some naturally occurring sulfites in the wine.  We will also talk a lot more about sulfites in more detail in later posts.

Sustainable: This is more of a practice of farming than it is of winemaking.  Sustainability in farming infers a focus on choosing practices that work best for the farm including conservation of energy and water.  It also implies that their choices in farming are economically and socially responsible.  Since this is not a legally defined term, it is always good to check not only the label, but also the website which may offer more information on what the grower/producer does that they consider sustainable.

Biodynamic: This is my favorite to define.  Although in the EU this has a clearer definition, in the US it does not.  This is similar to the definition of sustainable, but in addition there are other things that come into consideration.  A vineyard is treated like an ecosystem unto itself.  Grapes are grown in places on the property that best take advantage of the proper topology for each varietal.  It also can mean that the grapes are grown and harvested taking into account astrological and lunar cycles.  In winemaking, it also means that they have only used the natural yeast on the grapes, and that they do not manipulate the wine to adjust the PH using chemicals or add sulfites.  The wine may be aged in steel, wood, or even large concrete eggs (or any combination) of these.  In the US, again you should check the label, which may even tell you the phase of the moon at harvest, and the website to see how the grower/producer defines biodynamic.

As you can see there are some distinct characteristics, but the good news is that no matter what they call it, the wine is getting better.  If you’re drinking wine from the EU you can expect that it meets the exacting standards of the European wine market.  If you’re drinking wine from the US, especially the west coast, it’s no longer necessary to be afraid of organic, sustainable or biodynamic wines.  As the demand for it grows, the quality of the wine seems to grow along with it. 

World wide the market for these types of wine is still small, around 3% of the market, nearly 700 million bottles, the demand is growing.  In 2012 the consumption was around 349 million bottles and in 2017 was about 676 million bottles. 

It will be interesting to watch the market develop here in the US and see how long it takes us to build concrete measurable standards.  If and when that happens, I’ll let you know.  Thanks for reading and I’ll be back in a few days with another post!