Category Archives: biodynamic/organic/sustainable

(WBC Post 5) Biodynamic & mostly organic Quivera

Biodynamic & mostly organic: Quivira

Saturday morning I packed up and left my sweet zin suite at the Flamingo Hotel to jump on a shuttle with other attendees of the First Wine Bloggers Conference for a hike through the wine country…except I watched the shuttles head off into the morning without me.

Fortunately, I could jump on my cell and talk with organizer Allan Wright who sent me to Quivira, and since I had both a car and Quivira marketing director Nancy’s card, I was set with a quick call from her for directions. Off I went down the chill autumn, chasing after the van, and dodging bicycles on the back roads of Sonoma County’s Dry Valley Creek Road until I found myself pulling into the idyllic, picturesque barnyard setting of Quivira, chickens, solar panels, and all.

Farmer and winemaker Steve Canter was at work with the dozen or so bloggers, explaining biodynamics and homeopathy and everything else under the sun including cleansing and purification rituals he uses (go for the power of the earth, Steve!!).

And then we went for a lovely walk, visiting goats, and Ruby the pig, and picking grapes off the vines (my favs were the old zins of course), looping along unusually dry Wine Creek to Dry Valley Creek, both which eventually feed into the Russian River, then under a fig tree, and up a ridge planted in zin and down along the olive trees to the barn.

Steve and Nancy tag teamed a bit, telling stories about the vines, the wines, and the processes both of biodynamics and organics in practice here. Of particular interest to me was how they are healing Wine Creek by building weirs to slow down the water to create better habitat for steelhead and other native species practically wiped out by the previous channelization and control of the creek.

Approved Biodynamic wineries like Quivera can use this seal

Approved Biodynamic wineries like Quivera can use this seal

The idea behind biodynamics seems an obvious one: in order for a wine to reflect the land where it came from, it needs to be fed as much as possible by an integrated series of local, native, natural influences. That means Continue reading →

Red, White, Green?

organic vs commercial produce: pay the price?

I buy organic as often as possible because produce grown organically is much easier on the earth. However, I often wonder whether it’s worth the extra money to get organic with regards to pesticide residue and for my family’s health, not just the Earth’s health.

One source for this kind of evaluative information is the Environmental Working Group. Its Web site lists 44 fruits and vegetables ranked by the amount of pesticide residue each contains and they offer a small wallet guide with the rankings. Knowing which fruits and vegetables have the most pesticides and which are cleanest can help you decide when to buy organic.

The EWG’s “dirty dozen” are peaches, apples, sweet bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, lettuce, grapes (imported), pears, spinach, and potatoes. The “cleanest 12″ are onions, avocados, sweet corn (frozen), pineapples, mangos, sweet peas (frozen), asparagus, kiwis, bananas, cabbage, broccoli, and eggplants.

Food for thought: The best choice for the health of your family and the planet may not be between organic and commercial, but local and exotic. The best choice is to purchase food produced locally by frequenting local farmers markets; even better to choose locally produced organic goods. Where I  live the soil is some of the best in the world–the flood plain here is several miles deep–plus we have generous weather with lots of sun, temperate days and the rare night of freezing weather. (Of course the region is essentially a desert with under 15″ of annual rainfall a year!)

And a few questions for me to find more about: how green is wine? which wines, red or white, are greener? does organic make that much of a difference–either for my health or the planet’s? which winery businesses and agricultural practices should I support with my purchases? how much does it really cost the planet to drink wines produced on another continent? what does it mean that imported grapes on the the dirty dozen list?