Organic certification can be very expensive and standards are uneven across different countries across the world. There is an amount of wine on the market that is organic, but in no other way is better than any other similar wine on the market.
What is far more interesting is biodynamic wine, although I’m a materialist and can’t believe the homeopathic hookum, the results of this extreme attention to detail are some of the worlds best wines. Again quite a lot of producers take quite a lot of biodynamic practice without taking the whole esoteric philosophy on board.
Unlike supermarkets, the WS stocks plenty of low intervention, organic, natural and biodynamic wines.
There are a couple of organic specialist suppliers, but I’m afraid I found some of their wines a little dull.
I could say the exact same !! I also second what @Inbar has to say ;
By all means have a moan, but please let your first post be positive, constructive rather than representing oneself in the first instance as yet another “dissatisfied” member !
What I said is relevant and accurate to majority of the wines stocked by TWS. If you don’t like it read something else ! @MarkC and @SteveSlatcher are also correct in their description of monoculture wines. Wines which tws don’t make a habit of stocking .
Surely it is natural that people should look for a way of communicating, such as this Community, when they have a problem? So it is not surprising that many first comments will be questions/complaints/negative. Criticise the substance (I only failed to do so because other people got in first on the lack of definition, cost, etc., of claiming ‘organic’), but don’t complain that people criticise on their first post. That is why they are here, so welcome them.
I think that it should maybe have been made clearer when inviting people to come on here that it isn’t really the place to raise their specific complaints, as has been said. Often. Then it gets off on the wrong foot…
Hang on, the vast majority of commercial viticulture is monoculture. Stand on a hill in Beaujolais (for example) and all you can see from horizon to horizon is solid vineyards. Stand in some places by the Mosel river and it is the same. The Duoro, the Côte d’Or - the same again.
It’s only the smallest of producers that mix vines with fruit trees, vegetables and animals. And there are also some with very small vineyards alongside other fields.
Sustainable wine making is not just about planting fruit trees or cover crops in the vineyard , it’s the non use of agrochemicals and everything I spoke about . You can be the biggest commercial winery and still implement the practices to protect the environment, the people and improve biodiversity.
My sense of the original poster’s thoughts seem pretty cool to me. He is expressing a concern about how wine is made. Anyone with the smallest inking of how wine is made in Bordeaux and Champagne would probably have to acknowledge that there have been a lot of poisonous crap put on the ground. I think that often these concerns are dismissed as some sort of flaky hokum, which plainly it is not.
I do not need to bore anyone with the reality of the world agriculture has made. I would certainly prefer my choices to have a minimal environmental impact. And please do not start on the nonsense that it is only thanks to good old monsanto and round up that we are all not living in mud huts and eating berrys prior to dying at 27yo. Business is always very keen to say that it cannot possibly change until it is told it has to, when it does.
Sustainable wine making is not just about planting fruit trees or cover crops in the vineyard , it’s the non use of agrochemicals and everything I spoke about . You can be the biggest commercial winery and still implement the practices to protect the environment, the people and improve biodiversity.
You can lessen the impact maybe, but the moment you plant a commercial vineyard (i.e. any vineyard intended to make money) you destroy the natural habitat. In many cases trees would have been removed, allowing soil erosion. In the Douro many terraces were created by dynamiting.
Enjoy drinking wine if you wish - I certainly do - but let’s not delude ourselves.
(Oh, and I was not talking about planting cover crops or trees in vineyards. I meant growing vines as peasants do/did in their small gardens amongst everything else they needed for life. And even that is aritifical of course.)
Thanks Inbar - just to correct your false assumption I have been a member for a couple of years now, and formed this view over time. Relatively new but not really 5 minutes. All the best
music to my ears. Yes this is my point - TWS has much greater buying power it seems to me, but comes across as somewhat outmoded in relation to organic issues. And it wouldnt take much …
all the best
I think the problem is that a large proportion of TWS members are pretty old-fashioned and conservative in their tastes (those who post on here are probably far from typical). This is something that i find a bit frustrating too, as I’m pretty adventurous and so TWS often don’t stock what i want. But in the end any business has to look after its core customers, i guess. I agree with you that more could perhaps be done regarding searchability - but the problem is how to define “low-impact” wine!
Thanks Mark -I think this is a sensible view and quite widespread amongst agronomists working on global food security more widely -organic type production is essential to minimise the harm from modern farming and farming in general, but it would struggle to fulfil necessary yeilds. However that view has been replaced in the mainstream in recent years by the ‘sustainable intensification’ approach - that if we are to produce more for growing populations/consumers without even more irreversible damage to biodiversity, environment and human health we must cut out synthetic Nitrogen, and toxic chemicals altogether. I am gratified to see that in many supermarkets now there are much better ‘cheap’ organic reds than the equivalent non organic reds at similar prices. So I think it is merchants and consumers responsibiity to move in this direction. all the best
Sorry, Oliver - I didn’t mean to say you only just joint TWS - but this community/forum.
I think the questions you raise are fair and interesting, and are worth a discussion. I guess the time of the thread perhaps was a bit unlucky, coming on the back of a lot of new members of the community whose first post was a complaint.
Not to say that complaints are not welcome! Only that as an introduction, they leave an odd taste.
01438 741177
