Green Wines

Sustainable, organic, biodynamic? It’s all very confusing when you are looking to purchase a bottle of wine and it’s labelled with one of the above. What is the difference?

The terms all show you that effort has been made by the winery to maintain healthy soils to allow future generations to continue to produce good wines.

Sustainable wines aim to have a winemaking process that protects the environment, supports social responsibility, maintains economic feasibility, and produces high quality wines. As grapes are grown, harvested, and made into wine, a multitude of environmental factors are prioritised. This includes everything from maintaining biodiversity on vineyards to ensure soil health, to implementing recycling measures that conserve water as grapes are growing, to utilising renewable energy technology like solar, as wine is being produced.

When you purchase a bottle of wine marked with a sustainability certification, you know that your wine was made with the environment, social responsibility, economic viability, and high quality in mind. Unless otherwise stated, your sustainable wine is likely not to be made with 100% organically grown ingredients.

Many vineyards that are use sustainable methods are not labelled as organic even if they farm organically.

If your direct neighbouring vineyards are not certified as organic, a winery cannot go through the transition to become certified as organic or biodynamic. Synthetic pesticides or fungicides could spread to the ‘organic’ vineyard. A winery that farms organically but has close neighbours that don’t is likely to declare on the label that the wines are produced sustainably. This will tell you that good practice is used, despite not being labelled as organic.

Organic means that your wine does not at any point during the winemaking process contain synthetic fertilisers, pesticides or other chemicals.

Other wineries are happy to use organic practices but do not feel the need to spend money on conversion. They would rather use the money it would take to make improvements to their existing operation. Like organic wines, biodynamic wines contain no chemicals and additives throughout the winemaking process. As grapes grow, they are free of any synthetic fertilisers, pesticides and chemicals. Biodynamic wines differ from organic wines in that they take the entire ecosystem into consideration as grapes are grown. To be certified under Demeter, vineyards must maintain exceptional soil health and vintners time their planting schedules with lunar cycles to ensure the best agricultural health. Everything that is grown on the estate remains there. Food for the cattle that do the work in the vineyard is grown on the property, the cattle produce the fertiliser that is used in the vineyards and so the property is self sufficient and giving everything it produces back to the earth.

If you buy a wine bearing a biodynamic certification, you know that your wine has been made with 100% organically grown fruit and that the entire ecosystem, from the soil to the moon, was factored into the winemaking process.

Tikves winery in the Republic of North Macedonia has been making wine since 1885 and use sustainable practices throughout its vineyards. The conditions are perfect for winemaking with a continental climate and lakes and rivers providing sufficient water. All grapes are harvested by hand and great effort is made to produce fruit forward, great value wines. There is a winemaking team of twelve who travel the world every year to visit other countries to add to their winemaking skills.

Pinord was the first winery in Spain to be certified biodynamic by Demeter in 2007. From the beginning, one of the goals of the winery was to leave the land in a better condition that they got it, and this was the reason behind working towards becoming certified biodynamic.

They protect and preserve bats along with the World Nature Foundation. These mammals are great allies in controlling pests in the vineyards and help to enable biodynamic and organic practices.

The Pinord 7 Priorat red is an unusual blend of Cabernet, Syrah and Garnacha. All the grapes are harvested by hand with careful selection to ensure only very healthy grapes are used. Each variety is harvested at optimum ripeness and vinified separately before being blended and spending a year in French oak allowing the flavours to harmonise and the tannins to soften. It is a wine with immense structure and balance and is a true reflection of the terroir of this stunning region in northern Spain.