Is there a site or blog or thread anywhere showing which places are organic, or bio-dynamic, versus which are more conventional in pesticide use? I’ve seen discussion pop up of individual houses but not more general discussion. And I would guess that in an individual vineyard, if you’re trying to do a clean harvest and the guy one row over is making a Cuvée Round Up, it might not be ideal.
It’s so complicated because “conventional” can mean so many different things. I am sure many producers take more of a lutte raisonnée approach. It sounds like what you really want is a list of growers who use lots of chemicals, which would be impossible to know.
Glen, there is such a site for Champagne and given that a # of Champagne producer took biodynamic/clean farming inspiration from Burgundy, I have to think there is something for Burgundy.
To Doug’s point, recently on Instagram, I believe Chartogne-Taillet (if I am wrong, then my apologies now) posted a photo where the row next to their adjacent row, the other producer was farming conventionally and the contrast was stark. There are indeed instances where the two philosophies collide, manifesting right in a photo such as that one.
Yes, difficult to know all details. Same applies to vinification (reverse osmisis, etc). Someone dear to me who is just finishing the “lycee viticole” winemaking degree in Beaune in the adult education section told me you definitely don’t look at burgundy the same way once you have done such a course and get a better idea of what is going on.
Bill Nanson occasionally posts photos on his site showing side by side contrast of ground cover rows and “naked soil” rows. Yes, stark!
I was partially motivated by cracking a bourgogne rouge from a well-regarded producer, and getting a chemical aftertaste. I wondered if it might be, well, chemicals, but I looked at their website and they’ve been organic for 20 years, so it was probably just my tastebuds. But I wondered if there was a certifying society, or organization that kept track of such stuff. Also this article about Bordeaux freaked me out, to the extent I could read it: https://www.domaines-rollandeby.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/2018-01-11-QUE-CHOISIR-JAN-18-10000000053224937.pdf It made me look at my Gravette de Certan and Gloria with anxiety. I wasn’t sure if anyone had done similar analysis of Burgundy propereties.
Agreed. I remember one producer telling me that he did everything to be organic except one thing. He did not like using copper in the vineyard so used something else that made him not organic.
I saw the contrast first hand during my visit to Champagne in 2018. In one instance, I was talking with Aurelien Gerbais at the top of the slope outside of Cellers-sur-Ource and the nearby vineyard owner was treating his rows. He said in basic terms let’s get the hell out of here, as he did not want to be around the treatment. Same when I visited Bertrand Gautherot @ Vouette et Sorbee in Buxieres-sur-Arce. We looked at his soils and then that of his other family member’s rows, that were directly across the dirt road from his. The soil was dead, his was alive…it was evident both visually and within the energy that the images created for me.
We laud producers who make wonderful cuvees, and yet how many of them continue to support and pay for farming that is killing the environment? Whether it be Burgundy or Champagne, or other regions…it matters how you treat people, how you treat the earth and how you treat your customers.
Probably the wonderful cuvees we are all are having come more from producers that use at least sustainable practices anyway. How good are the Champagnes from vines when the soil is dead?
I’m pretty sure all of France is ‘beyond organic’ now. Lots of copper sulfate though.
Frank, well said!