Organic Wine and Food Matching

Meinklang grower/winemaker Angela Michlits The first time I read about Austria’s Grüner Veltliner, it meant nothing to me as a white wine grape.   I did, however, think it might make a good name for German punk rock group; banging out something like I Will Survive in German, two beats behind a messed-up ska, but in half the time it might take Robert Plant to clear his throat. Of course, that was around 1980.  It would be another ten years before I tasted my first Grüner Veltliner, and I think another ten before I could successfully convince my restaurant staffs that it was worth suggesting. Ah, but time the avenger , to quote Chrissie Hynde, and today a restaurant ain’t got that swing unless it’s serving at least one good Grüner by the glass. Why? Because as we wine lovers get that thang called sophistication we realize that wines with a real edge (and few wines are as crazy tart and expressive as Austrian Grüner) are a lot more interesting than soft, fluffy, predictable w...

  By most accounts, certified organic foods now make up about 5% of supermarket sales, and are an $18 billion industry. But why drink organic wines? Like consumers, wine growers have been moving towards organic farming for over a decade for health and environmental concerns, and because it makes sense to farm sustainably for the benefit of future generations and vineyard productivity.  Notwithstanding the somewhat misguided, prevalent consumer view that organic as well as biodynamic wines represent “fringe” elements of the wine production industry, the number of organic producers around the world continues to grow.  Why? For the same reasons why all-time classics like Domaine Tempier in Bandol, Zind-Humbrecht in Alsace, Beaucastel in the Rhône, Mas de Daumas Gassac in the Languedoc, and Domaine del la Romanée-Conti in Burgundy have long followed these practices: because it produces better wine in both the short term and the long.  So if anything, producers such ...