More Vintners Going Green as Consumers Press for Organic Wine : Viticulture: The trend toward pesticide-free farming and winemaking is growing in California and spreading to Oregon and Washington.

Increasing concern for worker safety and an eye toward a growing niche in the marketplace are quietly pushing several major California vintners into organic grape growing and wine production, once the sole domain of the state’s tiny “hippie” wineries.

Within the past two years, large wineries such as the Hess Collection of Napa Valley, Robert Mondavi Winery of Oakville, Wente Bros. of Livermore and Mendocino County’s Fetzer Vineyards have increased their emphasis on organic farming techniques and winemaking. And many growers from whom these wineries purchase grapes are following suit.

Smaller “boutique” wineries, including Husch, Hidden Cellars and Olson, all of Mendocino County, have also made recent commitments to organics.

“We saw a marketing opportunity; we don’t deny that,” Jim Fetzer, president of Fetzer Vineyards, said. “But it’s more a concern for the environment--the whole, not just parts.”

More than 600 acres of grapes statewide were converted to organic last year alone; exact figures on the total acreage in organic wine grapes statewide are unavailable, but the Organic Grapes Into Wine Alliance, or OGWA, which was started in early 1989, already has 25 vintners, grape growers and retailers as members.

OGWA sponsors seminars for growers who are interested in organics and gauges the growing interest in farming organically by the response to its classes. “We’ve had four groups for growers (who want to convert) this year, and there’s enough interest for several more. We had none last year,” said Brian Fitzpatrick, a grape grower and chairman of OGWA.

Organically grown crops are produced without synthetic chemicals or fertilizers. The emphasis is on building an environment that encourages beneficial organisms and that results in healthy plant growth and natural pest control.

Fetzer, which sold 1.8 million cases of wine in 1989, is farming 400 of its 1,200 acres of vineyards organically. About 130 of those acres are certified as organic, and several hundred more are on the way to becoming certified.

In addition, the winery is practicing “integrated pest management” on the acres that aren’t strictly organic. Aspects of conventional agriculture are blended with organic techniques, and chemical pesticides and fertilizers are used only when absolutely necessary to obtain economically viable crop levels.

“Using pesticides is going to become more expensive because of Proposition 65’s labeling requirements and because of Big Green (which, if passed, would ban a long list of pesticides and herbicides),” said Ron Bartolucci, general manager of vineyard operations for Fetzer. “But the bottom line is that we really believe we can make a better bottle of wine with organic grapes.”

The organics trend is also spreading to wineries in Oregon and Washington.

Typical is Bill Powers, owner of Badger Mountain Vineyard in Kennewick, Wash., who started farming in the mid-1940s. “Chemicals only really starting getting widespread use after World War II,” he said. “I was right in the middle of the chemical revolution. I remember spraying all sorts of things in my orchards in the ‘60s, then I’d go right in and keep working. Now they say don’t go near where you’ve sprayed for 14 days. It makes me mad as hell.”

Powers, who now grows wine grapes almost exclusively and who has been using herbicides and pesticides lightly since 1970, said he converted his vineyards to strictly organic two years ago; his 1990 vintage will be certified. “I’m on the edge of a residential area where people are jogging,” he said. “Health and safety for my workers and neighbors were the main reasons I switched.”

He said he has been amazed at the market response. “I’ve found a lot of (buyers for my wine) this year, but I just stumbled into them by luck,” he said. He said he just sold two big orders to Japanese distributors, and he sees “a great deal of potential” in the Pacific Rim marketplace.

The organic farmer avoids conventional single-crop planting. Growing just one type of plant in a large field tends to intensify insect and disease problems because the soil is stripped of its nutrients, and only a few kinds of insects, mostly harmful, are attracted.

“When you farm organically, the majority of your effort is spent on soil fertility, not pest problems,” Bartolucci said. “If plants are healthy, they’re not susceptible to pests.”

So a delicate ecological balance is encouraged. In grape growing, a variety of cover crops, such as clover and vetch, are grown between rows of grapes. The cover crops are selected for the depth of their roots--some have long, deep root systems that help keep the soil from compacting, and others have shallow, widespread roots that can act as mulch to retain moisture. The crops also provide much-needed nitrogen and other elements. Compost is used extensively to enrich and aerate the soil.

“Then when a problem happens, we look at the whole and see what’s out of balance,” Bartolucci said. He compared conventional farming, which uses synthetic fertilizers heavily, to an athlete on steroids. “You get a quick burst of growth, but it’s not healthy for the system in the long run.” he said. “With organics, the growth is slow and steady.”

“A lot of the old Italian guys around here (Mendocino County) have been growing organically for years, though they don’t know the word. They’ve never sprayed anything,” said Paul Frey Jr. of Frey Vineyards in the Redwood Valley area. Frey’s family was one of the earliest proponents of a move back to organics.

Frey finds more people visiting his family’s small (18,000 cases last year) winery every year to learn what they can about organics.

A minor controversy over whether makers of organic wines should be allowed to add sulfites seems to have been quelled. Sulfites are preserving agents added during the vinification process; they cause allergic reactions in some people.

Most wineries using organically grown grapes have followed French standards, which allow sulfites in concentrations up to 100 parts per million in wine labeled “organic.” New standards for organic wine adopted by OGWA in April mirror the French guidelines.

Despite vintners’ general optimism about the trend, grape growers and wineries converting to organics face at least one daunting challenge: how to handle an ugly old enemy called phylloxera, which almost wiped out the French wine industry at the turn of the century and now threatens many areas of California’s North Coast.

Lake County now requires that all vineyards be fumigated chemically for the disease--which attacks the roots and leaves of the grapevines--before planting. “So Lake County vineyards can’t be certified organic,” said Rusty Eddy, director of public relations for Fetzer.

Fetzer’s Bartolucci said the disease can be combatted by developing better root stock. The winery has a 5 1/2-acre experimental vineyard in which it is trying a number of different clones and trellising techniques. “We want to isolate as many variables as possible,” Bartolucci said. “Then we’ll know what makes a healthy vine.”

Most farmers find that they spend a bit more in the first years after converting to organics than they would have if they’d continued conventional techniques. But most also feel that their expenses will drop below what they were paying for fertilizers and pesticides in the long run. “Plus, research and development is more expensive with organics,” Bartolucci said. “There are no books, no reference materials to speak of, no classes at the university.”

But converts to organics feel that they’ve made a sound decision. “You can pick up the dirt and smell the life in it,” Jim Fetzer said. “Organics force us to be more patient. It’s much more rewarding.”