Organic Wine and Food Matching

Pierre Morey in Meursault. For Pierre Morey, the former (and legendary) winemaker of Domaine Leflaive, and proprietor of his own Domaine Pierre Morey in Burgundy, France, farming his vineyards is a matter of stewardship; turning over property from generation to another at a peak of health and productivity. Hence, since 1997, Domaine Pierre Morey has been certified by Biodyvin, the biodynamic syndicate presiding over farms in France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland and Spain. Morey is particularly known for his white wines, with family holdings in Meursault and Puligny-Montrachet in Burgundy's  C ô te de Beaune.  You may pay, for instance, about $94 (suggested retail) for a bottle of 2006 Pierre Morey Meursault, but what you get is not a wham-bam wine stuffed with "gobs" of sweet Chardonnay sensations, but rather a wine of uncommonly delicate, refined balance and texture; everything according to a moderately weighted scale to express fresh, honeyed apples, n...

  Gemtree owner/growers Melissa Buttery and Mike Brown. While organic or biodynamic wines coming out of Australia have been far and between, the movement does exist Down Under; and certification agencies such as Australian Certified Organic (ACO ), Demeter in Australia’s Bio-Dynamic Research Institute (BDRI), and National Association for Sustainable Agriculture, Australia (NASAA) have recently stepped up activities, with a number of leading producers (such as Henschke, Burge Family, Elderton, Noon, Wirra Wirra and M. Chapoutier Australia) making the transition to chemical-free, sustainable grape growing as we speak. In the meantime, a perfectly delicious, biodynamically grown Australian red – the 2007 Gemtree Tadpole Shiraz (about $16) – has been popping up in markets across the U.S., and it has all the deep, black, bouncy, lush fruitiness Shiraz lovers look for in their reds; including an intense nose, suggesting raspberry liqueur, boysenberry jam and a veneer of vanillin...

Biodynamically cultivated soil at the estate of Jean-Baptiste Adam Is Riesling the single best wine for food? Not if you’re a carnivore, I suppose. But who eats red meat morning, noon and night? For many of the foods we do love to eat – be it variations of salads in vinaigrettes, wraps, sushi, fish or chicken in salsas, and Asian dishes of all cultures with pronounced sweet, sour, salty and spicy sensations – you have to admit that a typically light, buoyant, refreshingly fruity Riesling does a better job of mixing and matching than, say, most heavy whites like Chardonnay, or heavy reds like Merlot. If you’re thinking that “fruity” also means sweet – stop, stop, stop. There are plenty of Rieslings from around the world that are just as dry, or dryer, than most Chardonnays or Sauvignon Blancs. Yet still with that light, crisp, zesty taste that freshens, rather than bludgeons, the palate. And if, to you, Riesling is just not hip, I have this to say: grow up. Sophisticated p...

  Argentine  Torrontés So let me get this straight... You put de lime in de coconut, you drank ‘em bot’ up... At least that’s what goes on in my mind when I pop a bottle of Argentina’s 2008 Pircas Negras Torrontés (about $10); a luscious white wine made from a grape originally indigenous to Galicia in Spain, but which has evolved as Argentina’s signature, and most popular, white. ¿ Por qué no para ti ? The nice thing about the Pircas Negras is that it starts off amazingly tropical – suggestions of exotic flowers, ripe papaya and, for all the world, avocado and cream – in the nose, and off-dry (just whispers of sweetness) on the palate.   Once past the first sip, slightly lemony, zesty qualities balance out the fruitiness, and the wine finishes pretty much dry, the crisp acidity lightening the easy, tropical sensations. If this weren’t a wine, I’d be tempted to top it with a wedge of pin ea pple, plastic monkey or umbrella. B e s ides being certified or...

Today’s highlighted producer – Burgundy’s venerable Domaine Faiveley, founded in 1825 – is not a certified organic or biodynamic grower; but rather, a follower of sustainable la lutte raisonnée (“ the reasoned struggle”).   As with sustainable growers in the U.S., followers of la lutte raisonée may not be bound by systematic checks, but many of them farm just as organically as certified growers, each maintaining this status for their own purposes. In the case of Domaine Faively, according to director (and seventh generation vigneron ), Erwan Faiveley, it is because “when you are born in such a family you realize that you are here for a short period of time, and you realize that you don’t own your own vineyard… actually it is the vineyard that owns you.”   Domaine Faively is also highly unusual in France’s Burgundy region in that they own and farm 80% of their own vineyards (the vast majority of Burgundian producers work primarily, if not exclusively, with contracts with inde...

In Alsace, a part of France full of famous rebels – like André Ostertag, Charles Schléret, and Zind-Humbrecht’s Olivier Humbrecht – Jean-Michel Deiss (right) has played the role of absolute pariah. It’s not so much that he took the organically cultivated vineyards inherited from his grandfather, Marcel Deiss, and turned them into biodynamic farms by 1997. The domaines of Marc Kreydenweiss, Zind-Humbrecht, Ostertag and other top Alsatian vignerons are also farmed biodynamically.  More than anything, what has rubbed colleagues and local authorities the wrong way has been Deiss’ total disregard of the sanctity of singular varietal bottling; for in Alsace, the finest wines have always been bottled by the names of the great grapes of Alsace – namely, Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and Muscat d’Alsace. Instead, Deiss’ finest wines are bottled simply by the name of Marcel Deiss along with the names of their vineyard sources: such as the grand crus Schoenenbourg ...

Vernaccia di San Gimignano grapes It’s a shame that most visitors to Tuscany, venturing from Florence to the town of Siena, usually miss the pristinely preserved, medieval hilltop town of San Gimignano, a scant 22 miles away. Then again, San Gimignano doesn’t have Brother Moon and Sister Sun as its main attractions; and in fact, its twelfth century church, towers and piazzas hold even more sway than the wine with which the town is associated: Vernaccia di San Gimagnano. Although Vernaccia di San Gimignano is considered one of Italy’s greatest white wines (given Italy’s highest official classification as a DOCG ) – and most certainly, the greatest white wine of Tuscany – it has been all but swept away from the lexicon of American wine drinkers.  Partly because it isn’t called “Chardonnay,” and partly because it is, as a matter of fact, very un-Chard-like: lean as opposed to fat, tart as opposed to soft, unfruity as opposed to having “gobs of fruit,” and certainly neve...