Green labels – coming soon to a wine label near you? Images courtesy CCOF |
This morning, I climbed into my VW and headed north, to Sonoma’s wine country, where tender green buds were just beginning to unfold from the trellised vines. I pulled into the driveway of Sonoma-Cutrer, where a flock of sleek geese were pecking at shoots, and sat down in a conference room facing nineteen – yes, nineteen – glass stems, each filled with a few ounces of wine.
I love wine, but I don’t like it much at ten in the morning. Still, these were “green” wines, produced through sustainable vineyard and winery practices and on offer for tasting as part of an event jointly hosted by the California Association of Winegrape Growers and the Wine Institute, which represents vintners.
It was such a lovely spring morning that the French doors of the conference room were wide open, allowing birdsong to float through. Past the lawns and into the distance, I could see the Kunde family’s bluebird boxes – the homes they’d erected to encourage birds to nest near the vineyards — and feed on pests.
I sat next to Michael Honig, the president of Honig Vineyard & Winery in Napa, who helped write his industry’s “code of sustainable winegrowing practice.” My friend and colleague at the Wall Street Journal, Jim Carlton, wrote a memorable piece a while back about Honig Vineyard’s use of golden retrievers to sniff out pests called grape vine mealybugs that were having sex.
My interest ran to owls and Michael was happy to tell me about the “hotels for owls” he’s placed around his 70-acre vineyard in Rutherford. He’s now got about seven owl boxes, six of which are currently occupied. He likes owls because they hunt voles and gophers, which love to nibble on grapes.
While they do tend to screech at night, which is when they hunt, Michael also thinks they’re adorable, particularly the young ones with their little white faces and downy tufts. “The babies are gorgeous,” he says.
The discussion ranged from cover crops (the brilliant yellow flowers that bloom in February in many Napa Valley vineyards are from the cover crop rapeseed, more commonly known as mustard) to green architecture (such as the winery at Long Meadow Ranch in Napa, one of the country’s largest rammed-earth structures.)
A bit intimidated by the prospect of tasting all those wines so early in the day, I asked the wine critic Dan Berger for his favorites. I spent some time with Dan last year at the Symposium of Professional Wine Writers, where he was a panelist, and have been through several tastings with him. He’s got a very fine palate and has a knack for correctly guessing varietals and even vineyard designations while tasting wines blind (in other words, with no distinguishing labels or other identifiers).
So which were his favorites? He liked what he called “the pink” – a delicate organic rosé, the Bonterra Dry Rosé from Mendocino County. He also favored Honig’s 2006 Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc. So those were the two I tried, and they were delicious. So good, in fact, that I decided to buy a bottle of the rosé for my birthday celebration. Just please don’t ask me which birthday I’m celebrating!
Anna Marie says
January 10, 2012 at 11:50 amGoing green is healthy. I do love green tea and aside from the anti oxidant factors that I can get, I also enjoy drinking it. specially when cold.
Anna Marie
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