Mar

Organic Wine (More)

Jacob Gaffney in Organic Organico, Planet of the Grapes

Gave a talk many months ago at the opening of Britain’s first (and, for now, only) dedicated Organic wine shop, called Organico. It was a real honour for me and…since then, the owner of the shop and one of the hardest “working” men in the wine business, Peter, has been following the InterWined blogs.

Reading all this trash talking of organic wines, and now he’s had enough. There is a point to clarify, best to let Peter do it in our email conversation.

From Peter to InterWined.com:

Hi Jacob,

Trust all well with you and yours.

I have been reading your recent blogs on organic wine. It comes over as if you are disillusioned somewhat. I thought you were a great champion of our cause. You never said when you were here with us that you thought organic red wines were ‘thin’ etc — at least those at the lower end of the price range. You tasted several here in the £6/7.50 band and thought they were fine.

Are you happy for me to protract the debate by putting these comments on your blog or shall we talk about it?

I would be interested to hear what possible technical reason there can be for a naturally produced red wine to lack the taste descriptors you mention. Our experience is the opposite and we have gathered a lot of anecdotal evidence from our drinkers in the last 18 months which would bear this out. Also our wines certainly do come from vineyards where yield is lower. If you are trying to differentiate large scale Bonterra type producers from the majority of much smaller growers then maybe some of your comments might apply but your blog doesn’t make this clear. Of course I’m not trying to say that because it’s organic a wine must taste better – we reject more than we buy. But the latter is not always out of the Interwined ‘value for money’ range.

Best wishes,
Peter

The response, in uncharacteristic first person:

Peter, how’s it going? Great to hear from you and I totally agree, my point is that the more mainstream organics, available to the greater public, are a bit thin…yours are great and I am totally with you…
I would like to even put your comments on my blog, as you raise some thought-provoking points.

I can always use a good counterpoint to bring me back to earth when I shoot off my mouth too much. All of my problems would be solved if there was an Organico in my neighbourhood. Although, this Planet of the Grapes shop is also getting there. I just love that you are reading my blog!

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