With ”green” I do not mean that wines have to be officially certified – this is not always the case no matter the way the wine is made or the grapes are grown. I am however convinced that a wine that is made in a way that is as good as possible for our nature is also the best for our bodies. Some are made in an organic way, some are biodynamic and some are natural wines.  Some wines are made in a similar way, without having a specific certificate – then it can be more difficult to know how the wine is made. I will write about this when I try the wines in this blog!

Briefly:

• Organic wines are wines made from grapes grown without the use of artificial chemical fertilisers, pesticides, fungicides and herbicides. However, not only the way the grapes are grown is important – also what happens in the winery (fermentation of the grapes, bottling etc.). The baseline definition of organic wine as ”wine made with grapes farmed organically”, deals only with the first phase (grape growing). In the winemaking process things are being done in order to ferment and preserve the wine. The most universal wine preservative is sulphur dioxide. In Europe to legally be labelled as ’Organic Wine’, the maximum sulphite content is set at 100 mg per litre for red wine (150 mg/l for conventional) and 150mg/l for white/rosé (200 mg/l for conventional), with a 30mg/l differential where the residual sugar content is more than 2g per litre. Wines that have more added sulfites, but are otherwise organic, are labeled ”wine made from organic grapes.”.  In the United States, wines certified ”organic” under the National Organic Program cannot contain added sulfites.
• Biodynamic wines are made in a way that stems from the ideas of Rudolf Steiner called anthroposophy. It includes both ecological, energetic and spiritual parts. Is also includes using the nine biodynamic preparations made from cow manure etc, and artificial chemicals on soils and plants are excluded. An astrological sowing and planting calendar is also used. There are certification agencies for biodynamic products, most are members of the Demeter International.
• Natural winemaking generally means using native ambient yeasts in the fermentation process and minimal or no sulphur dioxide in the winemaking process. It can also mean that the wine is unfixed and unfiltered.
• New EU rules for “organic wine” apply from the 2012 harvest, meaning that organic wine growers will be allowed to use the term “organic wine” on their labels. The labels must also show the EU-organic-logo and the code number of their certifier, and must respect other wine labelling rules. Although there were already before rules for “wine made from organic grapes”, these did not cover winemaking practices, i.e. the whole process from grape to wine.