By: Becky Garrison
Since grapes were first planted in 1825 at Fort Vancouver, Washington by the Hudson Bay Company, Washington State has emerged as the second-largest wine region in the United States with over 19 American Viticultural Areas. Despite its size, 90% of Washington State wineries produce less than 5,000 cases a year. As part of this commitment to producing wines using organic and sustainable means, the Washington State Wine Commission will launch its first statewide certified sustainable winegrowing certification in early 2022.
Moving south to Oregon, even though their 22 AVAs may produce only 1% of the wines made in the U.S., the state accounts for 52% of total vineyard acres in the U.S. with biodynamic certification from Demeter USA. To put this number into perspective, only 83 vineyards have received this certification as of 2020.
For those unfamiliar with biodynamic practices, certified farms, including wineries, adopt the practices outlined by Rudolph Steiner in 1927 and Demeter International formalized in 1985. These practices prohibit the use of synthetic chemical fertilizers, fungicides and herbicides. In addition, farmers can utilize specific treatments, called preparations, which comprise of medicinal plants, composted animal manure and minerals. Also, 10% of the farm’s total acreage must be devoted to biodiversity.
While these biodynamic vineyards produce wines pleasing to the planet and palette, what impact, if any, do biodynamic practices have when it comes to helping mitigate the impacts of wildfires on the West Coast and global climate change? Following are reflections from five Pacific Northwest Detmer Certified Biodynamic focusing on addressing these 21st-century challenges in their vineyards and wineries.
Brooks Wines, Amity, Oregon
Since the late Jimmy Brooks founded this medium-sized family winery in 1998, Associate Winemaker Claire Jarreau noted how Brooks Wines has remained passionate about its environmental impact. In addition to being Detmer Certified Biodynamic, they are members of 1% of the Planet, a nonprofit that certifies businesses and individuals that meet their high-bar commitment by donating 1% of their annual sales or salary to environmental causes.
While managing an old vineyard can be challenging at times, Jarreau attributes the overall health of their vineyard to their application of biodynamic principles. For example, they dry farm and source from dry-farmed vineyards, a practice that allows them to conserve resources by not irrigating the vineyards.
Over the past decade, this region has seen increased temperature fluctuations. According to Jarreau, as the winery is in the Eola-Amity Hills region, one of the cooler regions in the Willamette Valley, they can still produce fresh, acid-driven grapes despite ongoing temperature shifts.
Following the 2020 wildfires, Brooks Wines only made about 20% of its annual production due to the level of impact the smoke had on grape quality. “Once you’re under a blanket of smoke, there doesn’t seem to be much you can do about that,” Jarreau said.
As a biodynamic winemaker, Jarreau has a limited number of tools in her toolkit from an organic standpoint to alter their wines. “We did a number of experiments. Some wines were really nice and drinkable, but others were obviously smoke impacted.” Ultimately they chose to sell their wine in bulk, and it was bottled and used elsewhere. Also, they launched a fundraiser to compensate their growers for their losses.
Moving forward, they are exploring how animals can be part of the solution on site. Also, they seek to be even more selective in the cover crop usage and will try to leave a permanent ground cover in place, which will help lower tillage and soil destruction.
Cooper Mountain Vineyards, Beaverton, Oregon
Family-run Cooper Mountain Vineyards was founded 40 years ago and has been Detmer Certified Biodynamic and certified organic since 1998. Currently, they own and manage seven vineyards located within twenty miles of their winery.
According to winemaker Gilles de Domingo, climate change has influenced their vineyard, soil and lands. “We have seen more drought, different insects and a slow change of the ecosystem.” In biodynamic farming, they consistently adapt to nature. Because they spend their time observing the evolution of nature, they tune their method of farming in accordance with climate change.
As a result of the more frequent temperature fluctuations, de Domingo said they have more insects issues in their vineyards. “Therefore, we are focusing on the implementation of insect and predator habitats in order to create a more balanced biodiversity.”
While there are always challenges in farming, de Domingo believes that biodynamic principles work to prevent long-term challenges. “Because we are biodynamic farmers, our mind is focused on long term ecosystem establishment and not a ‘quick-fix-spray-toxic-product.’ We don’t fight nature, we embrace nature,” he said.
King Estate Winery, Eugene, Oregon
Situated on 1,033 acres in southwest Eugene near Lorane, Oregon, this family-run winery founded in 1991 has been certified organic since 2002 by Oregon Tilth and Salmon Safe. They became Detmer Certified Biodynamic in 2016. According to Raymond Nuclo, Director of Viticulture, they’ve seen a reduction in water stress and disease pressure since instituting these practices. “I think that’s primarily due to improvement in organic matter in the soil for water holding capacity. Also, healthier vines have a greater ability to withstand some of those stresses.”
Following the devastating 2020 wildfire season, Nuclo said they did a fair amount of due diligence in testing and micro fermenting to determine what areas could still be harvested and what areas were too heavily impacted to make quality wine. “You could not determine the impact the smoke had on the grapes simply by visual observation of smoke intensity in the vineyard. Vineyards that did not show noticeable visual differences in smoke intensity showed differences in both lab and sensory evaluations.”
Hence, they could not harvest their grapes until they conducted these evaluations. Nor did they feel comfortable sending workers into the vineyard until the Air Quality Index went down to a yellow moderate rating.
As 2020 was the first year the Willamette Valley experienced an issue with wildfire smoke that impacted the grapes, Nuclo believes they are relatively early in evaluating the long-term impact of wildfires on the region. In the event of another wildfire, Nuclo said there’s little known yet on how to protect crops from smoke.
In 2021, their harvest was earlier due to summer temperatures that reached over 115 degrees. This early harvest produced wines with a higher alcohol level because the sugar development got ahead of the flavor development. Should this trend continue in the ensuing decades, they may need to look at other varietals better suited to warmer climates.
Another impact of warming temperatures is the potential for the vineyard to become infested with those insect pests found in the warmer regions of Oregon and California. In Nuclo’s estimation, they can treat these pests using organically approved biodynamic practices such as releasing beneficial insects or utilizing organically approved sprays.
Maysara Winery and Momtazi Vineyards, McMinneville, Oregon
In April 1997, Moe and Flora Momtazi purchased 496 acres of an abandoned wheat farm and began planting in 1998. Their vineyard and winery became Demeter Certified Biodynamic in 2005 and 2007, respectively. Moe Momtazi chose this approach as it follows his ancestors’ 8,000-year-old Persian wine culture while allowing him to refine their practices as they gain additional knowledge. He estimates that in the past hundred years, conventional farming practices have contributed to a range of problems for the environment and the health and well-being of people and animals.
Situated in the Van Duzer Corridor, where the wind blows from the west towards the east, the vineyard did not suffer from the smoke damage that neighboring wineries endured in the 2020 wildfires. To help mitigate the hot days, Momtazi makes a tea from either mulberry leaves or stinging nettle. “This tea really calms down the plants, so you don’t have as much of an issue with heat.”
Conversely, Momtazi noted that too much water could also present an issue. He cited the early fall of 2013 as one example. They were expecting a big storm. To prevent the plants from absorbing all this water, he watered the vines a little before the rain, thus preventing any split berries in the grapes after the rains passed. He also made tea from valerian and rose hips to get rid of any excess water in the vines. Since the rose hips contained lots of vitamin C, it boosted the sugar contents quite a bit.
While his grapes cost more than other vineyards, he feels the customer gets rewarded due to the quality of their wines. “My hope is that we all wake up and realize what we have done to our environment and our own health. We shouldn’t have a bottom line that is only about making money; sometimes you make money by doing a bit of extra work.”
Wildridge Winery, Seattle, Washington
Founded in 1988, Wilridge, a small family vineyard, orchard, winery and distillery, has the distinction of being the oldest winery in Seattle. In 2007, they established their organic and Detmer Certified Biodynamic vineyard in the Naches Heights AVA near Yakima, Washington. In addition to applying biodynamic principles, their other green practices include using solar power and refillable bottles. Then in 2017, they launched their Detmer Certified Biodynamic distillery to utilize the product from their grape skins to make grappa.
Paul Beveridge, Wilridge Vintner and Distiller, chose Naches Heights and its high elevation with climate change in mind. “We get long hot summers with no rain at harvest. Also, we don’t get a lot of disease pressure,” he said.
According to Beveridge, from the vineyard standpoint, it’s amazing how resilient the vineyard is regarding weather fluctuations and fires. “We’re on a natural plateau. So we only feel the effect of a fire once it gets very close to us as there’s nowhere for the smoke to accumulate.”
His biggest problems stem from weeds. “The same biodynamic principles that make the grapes happy also make the weeds really happy.”
In his estimation, the reason there aren’t more organic vineyards in Washington is that the farmers rely on Roundup due to its ease and cost-efficiency.”You can spend $200 on Roundup and do your whole place and be done for the year. And I’m spending a couple of thousand dollars every two weeks having the vineyard hand weeded,” Beveridge said.
As these wineries prepare for the 2022 harvest, they will continue to monitor for signs of both wildfires and temperature fluctuations. In particular, Jarreau points to ongoing research on the impacts of smoke on grapes in the U.S. and Australia that she believes could be beneficial for growers on the West Coast.
