Organic Wine Find

5 Organic Wine Producers You Ought to Know About

Branden — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:14:56 +0000

Organic wines differ from conventionally produced wines in a number of ways. Therefore, when buying organic wines, there are several factors that you need to take into consideration. Firstly, organic wines are usually weaker than non-organic wines as no artificial additives are used to produce the alcohol. Rather, the fermentation process uses only the grapes’ natural yeasts and sugars. The lack of alcohol is compensated for by the richness of the flavors of the organically grown grapes. Therefore, it is very important when choosing organic wine to select a winemaker with a reputation for producing the finest grapes.

Below, we list five of the best organic winemakers.

1. Coturri Winery
Coturri winery in the U.S. is one of the leading producers of American organic wine. Their top rated wines include the Zinfandel. Red Zinfandel grapes have long been a favorite among California winemakers, and Tony and Phil Coturri use their 45 years of winemaking experience to bring out the best of their flavor.

2. Stellar Organics
Stellar Organics is the top organic wine brand in the UK in terms of sales figures. Their range of South African wines includes red, white, rose and sparkling varieties. The company is fairtrade and committed to sustainable production.

3. Fleury
Fleury is the first organic wine producer to operate in the Champagne region. Their wines have everything you would expect from good Champagne. The founder, Brian Fleury, says “we allow the grapes to take center stage in every barrel, bottle and glass of our wines.”

4. The Organic Wine Works
The Organic Wine Works use grapes grown in the Santa Cruz mountains, where the harsh weather gives rise to grapes that are rich in deep and complex flavors.

5. Frey Vineyards
Frey Vineyards have been making organic wine for 30 years. Their wide range of wines is 100% free from sulfites, allowing the natural complexity of the grapes to shine through.

Gilles Louvet

Branden — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 08:07:13 +0000

Gilles Louvet works with 50 producers and 10 cooperative wineries on 700 hectares of vines to offer an extensive range of organic wines from Languedoc Roussillon, the Rhone Valley, the Gers and Bordeaux regions. By working in cooperation with a group of producers using a shared quality charter, and with combined sales efforts, the company is having a significant impact on the environment by encouraging more and more producers to convert to organic farming.

Vignobles Gilles Louvet has its own vinification centre in the Gard region, exclusively designed for organic wines. It contains a large-capacity vat house with stainless steel and epoxy-coated cement vats.
This facility is set in the heart of a valley where organic produce is part and parcel of the inhabitants’ daily lives. Many companies work on organic produce here and a large number of winegrowers have already adopted the approach. Encouraged by the set-up of a winery which is 100% dedicated to organic wine, and by the sales opportunities created by Vignobles Gilles Louvet, a growing number of local winegrowers are in the process of converting to organic farming.

Organic Wines of Millesime Bio 2011

Branden — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 13:17:20 +0000

For the wine enthusiast, passionate about organic and biodynamic wines, Millesime Bio is a Mecca. Its like having Christmas, birthday, a visit to Disneyland, and an all-access pass to (fill in your favorite blank) all at once! Five hundred top organic and biodynamic producers showing off their wines – and three days to taste, taste, taste.

This year, 2011, was the 18th Millesime Bio and the biggest yet. Held in Montpellier, France and organized by the association of organic producers in Languedoc-Roussillon AIVB-LR, and Sud de France, it attracted more than 3500 wine proffessionals – buyers, importers, journalists, and conventional producers, come to sample and check out what the ‘organic’ fuss is all about.

As a blogger it was a fantastic opportunity to catch up with many of the producers featured on Organic Wine Find, taste their latest wines, and also meet and dicover new producers. With so many organic wines in one place, at one time, it presents a unique opportunity to compare quality. For a wine to stand out in the company of so many excellent peers, it has to be something really special.

So who were the ‘standout’ producers this year?

Domaine Pierre Frick This was one of my favorites from the show, and without doubt the best sulfur free wine that I tasted in Montpellier. Jean-Pierre has really taken sulfur-free winemaking to a new level. The same quality you’d expect from a sulfited wine, but with the added benefits of even more expressive nose and vitality of flavor. The wines that stood out for me (and they were were all excellent) were the 2009 Blanc de Noir Sans Soufre and the 2008 Muscat. I could have stood sniffing that muscat for hours, it was so tantalizing!

Terre Des Chardons won “Best In Show” as far as I was concerned. Truly mind blowing wines on so many levels. The two cuvees from their range that stood out were the Costieres de Nimes Rouge “Marginal”, a blend of 80% Syrah and 20% Grenache, and the Rosé a 50/50 Syrah Grenache blend. Delicate and refined, they are both farmed biodynamically and both made with indigenous yeasts and without added sulfites. Extraordinary ‘living’ wines that leave you flying. Can’t recommend them highly enough.

Guillot-Broux An outstanding range of well-made organic wines from the Macon region – Chardonnay, Gamay and Pinot Noir. The whites stood out for me with their gentle attack, and then whoosh, a wonderful bracing surge of minerality on the mid palate coming together for a nice long finish. Will be great with food, but also enjoyable just as a tasting experience on their own.

Dominique Cornin Delicious, clean, well-made chardonnay. Not too oaky, not too acidic, nicely balanced.

Philippe Delesvaux I must admit that I went into this tasting wondering if I was going to find a Chenin Blanc that I could enjoy, having found lots of examples earlier in the day that were either too hard or too blah for my palate. Philippe Delesvaux’s wines were a nice surprise and a pleasure. Slightly sweeter versions of Chenin. I particularly enjoyed the 2009 Les Clos which had an awesome fragrant nose, and delicious sweetness without being too sweet. Lovely well-made wines.

Closel Chateau des Vaults At the other end of the Chenin Blanc spectrum is the Savennieres, dry, with biting acidity, that really shows off Chenin to its best. These Loire wines are sometimes called austere but I found the Closel to be quite delicious, with an inviting bouquet, and a palate that’s both complex and refreshing.

Chateau Le Puy Compared to some of the more fashionable varietal blends I was beginning to feel like my home region, and my regular staple, the ‘bordeaux blend’ was a just bit on the boring side. But no list of outstanding wines would be complete without Chateau Le Puy. A superbly crafted blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Carmenere – smooth, balanced with a bright, acidic finish.

And the list goes on..

Domaine Duseigneur – fantastic Rhone blends

Didier Montchovet – Great Pommard

Chateau La Canorgue – Gold Medal Winner from the Cotes de Luberon

Shopping For Organic and Biodynamic Wines Just Got Easier With Our Free Web App

Branden — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 20:58:58 +0000

Want to know which stores have organic wines in stock at the best prices? In a store, and wondering which wines are organic?

With organicwinefind.com‘s new web app – also formatted for mobile users — shopping organic and biodynamic wine has never been so simple. Use your current location, or enter a zipcode, and see the organic wines available in your area. Sort by store, by price, varietal, or wine type. Its as easy as that – and even better, its free!

The app is simple for users, yes, but under the hood there’s some pretty fancy footwork to bring you the information you need. The app searches through 30,000 organic wines from the world’s top producers to tell you which ones are available in your chosen location. It takes into account when the producer started farming organically to ensure you only see wines that are made with organic grapes.

And why is all this a big deal? If you’ve ever tried searching for organic wine on a regular wine site or app, you’ll know that its not as easy as popping ‘organic’ in the search box. You get only a tiny fraction of the possible results that way, because many organic wines, particularly imported ones, aren’t identified as organic. Often when a wine is entered in a store’s database, ‘organic’ isn’t added to the title, so it can’t be searched.

Months of painstaking research with more than 700 producers, from 20 countries, has gone into the creation of the app, powered by wine-searcher.com’s massive network of retailers.

In addition to working on mobile devices like the iPhone, it also works in regular web browsers – best in webkit browsers like Google Chrome and Safari.

No download is necessary – as a web app you simply visit http://organicwinefind.com.s1680.gridserver.com/app in your web browser, and off you go! Mobile users can bookmark the page so that it functions like a native app, with launch icon and loading page.

Hawk and Horse Vineyards

Branden — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 11:38:09 +0000

Hawk and Horse Vineyards is settled in the prestigious new Red Hills AVA – in beautiful Lake County, California. Our family owned ranch and vineyard estate is both Demeter Biodynamic and CCOF Organic Certified. With our high elevation vineyards, red volcanic soil and natural spring water, we are producing wines of world-class distinction – these are hand-crafted, limited-release Bordeaux varietals. Hawk and Horse Vineyards wines have won International Gold Medals on each release to date. Please contact us for current releases. We take all calls personally and are happy to talk with you.

Organic Wines On SF Chronicle’s List of Top 100 Wines 2010

Branden — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 16:19:24 +0000

The cream of the West Coast organic wine crop make it onto the San Francisco Chronicle’s Top 100 Wines 2010 list:

White

2007 Bjornstad Porter-Bass Vineyard Sonoma Coast Chardonnay ($40) find

2009 Hall Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc ($22) find

2008 Araujo Estate Eisele Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc ($48) find

2009 Grgich Hills Estate Fumé Blanc Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc ($30) find

2009 Arnot-Roberts Campagni-Portis Vineyard Old Vine Sonoma Valley White Wine ($30) find

2009 Rubicon Estate Blancaneaux Rutherford White Wine ($45) find

Red

2008 Alma Rosa La Encantada Vineyard Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir ($43) find

2008 Bergstrom Bergstrom Vineyard Dundee Hills Pinot Noir ($78) find

2007 Porter Creek Fiona Hill Vineyard Russian River Valley Pinot Noir ($36) find

2008 Rhys Skyline Vineyard Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir ($59) hard to find

2008 Littorai The Pivot Vineyard Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir ($60) find

2008 Donkey & Goat Four Thirteen El Dorado Red Wine ($32) unavailable

2008 Tablas Creek Esprit de Beaucastel Paso Robles Red Wine ($50) find

2007 Qupé Bien Nacido Vineyard Santa Maria Valley Syrah ($30) find

2007 Chappellet Signature Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon ($47) find

2007 Ridge Monte Bello California ($145) find

2009 Bonny Doon Vineyard Contra Central Coast Red Wine ($14) find

Vinos Ambiz Airen “Young White” 2009

Branden — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 12:53:46 +0000

Made from Airén grapes, crisp and aromatic with notes of apples and pears.

Vinos Ambiz

Branden — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 12:31:00 +0000

Vinos Ambiz is based near Madrid (Spain). It was created in 2003 by Juan and Fabio who still have their day jobs at the moment but are working on going full-time in 2011. This year (2010) we produced a total of about 6000 bottles, mainly Tempranillo and Airén, but also some somaller lots of Graciano, Garncha (Grenache), Shiraz and Petit Verdot; we produce young wines best drunk during the year, and also some Crianzas with 4, 6 or more months in oak casks.
We farm our grapes organically and make natural, organic wines with as little intervention as possible in the winery. We don’t use any pesticides, etc in our vineyards; instead we let the grass, flowers, plants, thistles etc grow and only cut them back when they get to high or too near the vines. This biodiversity ensures that lots and lots of different species of insects (and larger animals like birds and lizards) can live in the vineyard and each population is controled ‘natually’ as they predate on each other. If you plough up the soil between vines, you destroy many species’ habitat and the only insects that can live are the ones that attack the vines, and the only way you can control them is by spraying chemicals.
Similarly, in the winery, we don’t add anything or take anything out: no acid, no sugar, no water, no yeast, no tannins, no nothing! Every year our wines are slightly different, depending on the climate. We don’t filter our wines. We used to clarify them, but we’ve stopped doing that as we realized that clarifying takes out to many flavours and aromas. The only time we add sulphites is at bottling, if (and only if) the buyer expressly requests it, otherwise no sulphites at all. We don’t have anything against the reasonable use of sulphites, but for us the same principle applies as for other products, ie if it’s not necessary, don’t use it! Over the years we’ve found that it’s not really necessary, probably because of the high quality grapes and strict cleanliness and hygiene we insist on in the winery.

Domaine Bassac Premieur 2009

Branden — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 19:41:41 +0000

Well balanced soft tannins, fine spices, clear aromas of dark fruits, a lot of fruit in the mouth, very good drinking wine

Domaine Bassac Armonia Blanc 2009

Branden — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 19:41:41 +0000

Well balanced with spicy and full taste, ideal food wine.