A natural progression

THE stocky man in baggy shorts, T-shirt and sandals crouches down next to a grapevine and peers at the leaves and purple grapes from under his straw hat. “This vineyard is not a complete disaster,” he tells the anxious grower hovering nearby. “But there’s a lot of work to do.” The grower looks relieved as he opens a notebook and poises his pen.

Bob Cantisano, 51, better known as Amigo Bob, is not a grape grower, winemaker or winery owner. Yet he’s one of the more influential figures in California wine today. Officially, he’s an organic viticultural consultant, but in practice he’s almost a missionary for organic growing. His followers include some of the state’s most prominent wine producers, both large companies such as Fetzer and Sutter Home and small, respected wineries such as Araujo, Spottswoode, Frog’s Leap, Corison, Calera, Staglin and Shafer. His mission is to steer the industry away from chemicals toward what he believes is a brighter, cleaner future -- and possibly, better wine.

Organic viticulture is similar in theory to preventive medicine, he explains. It’s aimed at growing healthy vines that are able to resist pests and diseases naturally. Pesticides and herbicides create a kind of desert above and below the ground. They disrupt the intricate natural balance of a healthy ecosystem and generate a vicious cycle of chemical dependency: Plants become vulnerable to problems that can only be controlled by more chemicals. Artificial fertilizers are just as bad, he says. “It’s like steroids in people. They build up parts of the physiology and weaken others.”

In the organic paradigm, cover crops provide habitat for predators that keep pests in check. A healthy soil is alive with its own ecology of organisms that help nourish the vine and promote its ability to resist pests and diseases.

“And, as it turns out, the fruit tastes better,” Cantisano says. “The plant’s picking up nutrients and trace elements called phytochemicals, which is a catch phrase for minerals and compounds created by microorganisms, and sometimes by the healthy plant itself. Some of them have an impact on flavor. Winemakers tell me they’re able to make fuller-bodied, more flavorful and intense wines from organic grapes.”

That’s difficult to prove. But many producers believe it, including Shafer Vineyards president Doug Shafer, who has worked with Cantisano since 1989. “My gut feel is that if you have a healthier, happier vine that can withstand pests, you get a better balanced grape,” Shafer says, “and to me that would translate into a better balanced wine.”

Bart Araujo, who hired Cantisano in 1998, isn’t as sure about a direct relationship with wine quality, “because so many variables are involved,” he says. “But the health of the vines is extraordinary. They respond to stress in ways that are almost ridiculous. Prior to ’98 we’d have scorched leaves during a heat spell. Now it doesn’t matter. It can be 110 degrees and our plants look like it’s 85. And if the vines aren’t stressed, the grapes are maturing in a much more orderly fashion.”

The movement toward organic farming appears to be escalating. Agricultural pesticide use statewide has declined by 60 million pounds since 1998, according to a California Department of Pesticide Regulation report issued last week. Last year application of pesticides by California wine grape growers was down 4.8 million pounds from 2000, to 22.8 million pounds, the lowest level since record keeping began a decade ago.

California Certified Organic Farmers, which claims 75% of the state’s organic farmers as members, has 110 wine-growing members.

Still, not every grower is rushing into organic farming. Sonoma Cutrer Vineyards is trying organic farming on 200 of its 1,000 acres, but vineyard manager Kirk Lokka says there’s no big rush to embrace organics completely.

“We’re getting away from a lot of the nasty stuff we were using 10 years ago,” he says, “but it works both ways. Sulfur and copper and the new biological sprays aren’t as good as the synthetics. You have to be twice as vigilant about what’s going on in the field, and you have to spray a lot more. The nasties work well, they’re easy to apply, and they’re not very expensive. That’s tough to beat.”

Amigo Bob -- a girlfriend called him that when he was 18 and it stuck -- calls himself a “back-to-the-land hippie.” He cites the first Earth Day, in 1970 at San Francisco State, as a red-letter day in his life. “The light bulb went on real strong,” he recalls. “The speakers were powerful and inspirational. They spoke about how fragile the environment was and how important it was to protect it.”

He eventually settled in the San Juan Ridge area northeast of Sacramento, one of the seminal back-to-the-land communities in California. He still lives there with his family, growing olives and producing organic olive oil. He began advising fruit and vegetable growers in the Sierra foothills during the 1970s. In 1977 a Nevada City doctor with six acres of Chardonnay asked him to manage the vineyard. “I didn’t know all the challenges,” he recalls. “I was naive.”

That year he started an organic farming supply business. A key client was Fetzer Vineyards in Mendocino County, the first big producer to go completely organic. Cantisano organized Fetzer’s transition in 1987. Then Carneros grower Leigh Hudson called for advice. So did Frog’s Leap Vineyards founder John Williams.

When post-phylloxera replanting accelerated the organic movement in the early ‘90s, Amigo Bob was the guy to call. Now he consults full time and has dozens of clients throughout the state.

He’s aware that critics say his approach is not an adequate response to such menaces as phylloxera and Pierce’s disease, an incurable grapevine disease spread by a voracious leafhopper called the glassy-winged sharpshooter. But Cantisano says organic techniques can win even those battles, and besides, the immediate goal is not revolution -- it’s keeping his clients in business.

“I tell every grower up front that we’ll try all the alternatives first,” he said, “but if I really have a failure he should use a pesticide.”