Beyond Organic Wine

• Dan Rinke - Art + Science, Cider + Wine

  This episode is part 1 of a two part episode with Dan Rinke of Art + Science Cidery and Winery in Oregon. The conversation was interrupted by technical difficulties after about 45 minutes, which was plenty of time to get to hear about Dan’s ecological journey with wine, and how his love of winemaking turned him into a crazy beyond organic wine and cider grower and maker. Dan has had a pretty serious career in organic and biodynamic vineyards and cellars in California and Oregon, and he and Kim Hamblin started Art + Science together in 2011. Kim is a fabulous artist, and you’ll see her artwork on their website and labels. The first wine of Dan’s that I tasted was a slightly fizzy, zero-zero, carbonically feremented in amphora field blend of hybrid and vinifera grapes… at a tasting that was otherwise almost entirely Oregon Pinot Noir… so it kinda stood out to me.  Talking to him has been the same kind of experience. https://www.artandsciencenw.com/ If you like this podcast, please subscribe & leave a great review.  You Can Support this podcast by subscribing via patreon. Or by donating or taking action at: Beyond Organic Wine or just spread the word... thanks!

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• Fritz Westover - The Vineyard Underground, Virtual Viticulture Academy, Hybrid Grapes & Establishing A Vineyard

  My guest for this episode is Fritz Westover. Fritz, like me, is originally a fellow Pennsylvanian, and he’s going on 3 decades of learning about, working with, and teaching about viticulture. He runs a viticulture consulting business, focused primarily in Texas, Georgia and the US South, and he reaches an international audience through his Virtual Viticulture Academy. And he’s also a fellow podcaster with The Vineyard Underground – a fantastic resource for technical viticulture knowledge presented in an accessible and even entertaining way. And I’ll be a guest on his podcast soon too! The emphasis in this conversation is what to consider when planting a vineyard. Fritz has seen many many vineyard implementations and speaks to the most common mistakes, and the questions you should ask to avoid them. Choosing to grow what’s right for your land as opposed to growing your favorite thing turns out to be really helpful, and of course this leads us to discuss hybrid grapes… which in many places allow for much easier winegrowing with fewer inputs. We discuss several varieties of hybrids common to the southern US because of their tolerance of the fungal and other pressures there, including Pierces Disease. Pierce’s Disease, or Xylella fastidiosa, is in California too, and heading north, so getting to know these varieties of grapes is becoming vitally important for most of the US wine industry.And there’s so much more to this conversation. Fritz is a wealth of knowledge and shares a ton of insights and practical tips for winegrowing.  https://www.vineyardundergroundpodcast.com/ https://www.virtualviticultureacademy.com/ If you like this podcast, please subscribe & leave a great review.  You Can Support this podcast by subscribing via patreon. Or by donating or taking action at: Beyond Organic Wine or just spread the word... thanks!

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  1:44:30
• Organic Vineyard Management - Rob Schultz, Lemelson Vineyards, Oregon

  My guest for this episode is Rob Schultz. Rob is the vineyard manager for Lemelson Vineyards in Oregon, and farms 130 acres of organic vineyards in the Willamette Valley. Lemelson Vineyards has been certified organic for over 25 years, and has been one of my favorites since I started in wine over 2 decades ago. Rob also happens to be one of the main people responsible for the Organic Winegrowers Network there in Oregon, which led to the historic Organic Winegrowers Conference this spring of 2025. Rob has a droll, straightforward manner that I think belies a passionately thoughtful approach to his relationship with the vineyard ecosystem. Throughout this conversation we’ll be bantering along and then he’ll drop an insight bomb out of the blue that I’m still thinking about now having re-listened to this several times. Some topics that come up include: Spanish language skills should be a requirement for work in wine in the US at least, vine sentience and the domestication of humans, breeding a better baby doll sheep, why Oregon makes the best pinot noir in the world, and much more. https://www.lemelsonvineyards.com/ If you like this podcast, please leave a great review.  You Can Support this podcast by subscribing via patreon. Or by donating or taking action at: Beyond Organic Wine or just spread the word... thanks!

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  1:17:19
• Elaine Chukan Brown - The Wines of California

  My guest for this episode is Elaine Chukan Brown. Elaine is a writer, speaker, wine educator, and now author of the book The Wines of California. Elaine has been a contributor, columnist, editor, and/or wine reviewer for nearly every wine publication out there, and they co-founded the Diversity in Wine Leadership Forum, and have advised diversity initiatives in multiple countries. In 2019, the Wine Industry Network named Elaine one of the Most Inspiring People in Wine. In 2020, they were awarded Wine Communicator of the Year in the world by IWSC and VinItaly, and they were named a Wine Industry Leader in the North American wine industry by Wine Business Monthly. In 2021, The Hue Society created the Elaine Chukan Brown Award in Wine Education, awarded annually and named for Elaine in recognition of their work in education and their effort to help open the way for others’ success. In 2022, Elaine was nominated for a James Beard Award in Journalism. And this is just a short list of Elaine’s work, honors, and awards. So it should be no surprise that their new book, The Wines of California, is a worthwhile read. But more than that, it presents an overlooked history of wine in the US, and makes it clear how deeply indebted those of us working in wine today are to innumerable unsung people… both past and present. In some structural ways Elaine’s book gives you what you might expect from a book titled The Wines of California – a history of the wine industry here, regions and producers and grape varieties, and the current challenges we’re facing – but Elaine presents the substance that fills in that structure in such a holistic way, contextualizing each event within global and national currents, and telling this story from a perspective that includes all the participants in all of their complexities…so that I found fresh insights, deeper understanding of my own participation in this history, inspiration for action, and even, believe it or not, hope. Don’t be fooled by the title. This is not a ponderous exercise in academic wine writing… this reads like a hot take, as well as helpful reference with up to the minute relevance. You might think of it as a People’s History of the Wines of California crossed with a progressive California wine travel guide. In our conversation we talk about the book of course, but it leads to some really important questions that transcend not only the book, but also wine. Elaine talks about how we are in the midst of a revolution, and I’m finding it really exciting to take this perspective into everything I’m doing with wine. I hope you do too. A big thanks to Napa Green for sponsoring this episode. Don't miss their RISE Climate & Wine Symposium.  Get Elaine's book: The Wine's of California Learn about Hildegard of Bingen Your support is greatly needed and appreciated: You Can Support this podcast by subscribing via patreon. Or by donating or taking action at: Beyond Organic Wine or just spread the word... thanks!

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  1:10:27
• Carolina Heritage Vineyards & Winery - Organic Wine From Hybrid Grapes & Muscadines with Paper Bottles

  In this episode I interview Wendy McNabb, the current owner with her husband, of Carolina Heritage Vineyards, one of only four certified organic wineries on the entire East Coast of the United States. They use paper bottles, so we talk about the pros and cons of this alternative packaging. And we talk about some of the really interesting wines they make at Carolina Heritage, including dry Muscadines. Now, Muscadines have come up on Beyond Organic Wine before, including last week’s episode, but Wendy and I really dig into them. The oldest vine in north America is a Muscadine, growing in North Carolina (over 400 years old). Muscadines aren’t hybrids. They are a species of grape native to North Carolina and the South-eastern and southern US. Some even argue that they should be classified as a different genus of Vitis, as they are unlike every other Vitis species in that they have 40 chromosomes instead of 38. There are over 150 individual improved cultivars of Muscadines with a variety of colors and flavors much too diverse to generalize about.  Muscadines are resistant to pierce’s disease, downy and powdery mildew, phylloxera, and more.  They are highly prized for these resistances in grape breeding programs despite the difficulty of crossing them with other vitis species due to that chromosomal uniqueness. What I’m trying to say here is that Muscadines are pretty special grapes, not just in the US, but globally. If we Americans were smart, we stop trying to imitate someone else’s culture and start building a viticultural legacy from this truly American native grape that is unlike any other grape on earth, and that can be grown virtually no-spray under some of the most intense fungal pressures and weather extremes on the planet. That is a foundation on which to build a legacy, and I’m really happy to introduce you to Caroline Heritage because they are building their legacy on that foundation. Enjoy! https://www.carolinaheritagevineyards.com/ Your support is greatly needed and appreciated: You Can Support this podcast by subscribing via patreon. Or by donating or taking action at: Beyond Organic Wine or just spread the word... thanks!

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