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GRAPE GRO WING common winemaking problems? The decision was made to find out. W&V: What practices did you adopt, and how quickly did you see results? Williams: In North Coast vineyards, the primary tool of the organic grower is the use of cover crops as green manure. Com- post, which we now produce ourselves, has an important but secondary role. At first we used a standard mix of legumes and grass (peas, oats, vetch, clovers), but in time, we learned to adjust our cover crops to meet the specific long-term nu- tritional needs of individual blocks based on soil and petiole analysis. Take our Gal- leron block 4 Merlot, for instance. Green flavors were responsible for substandard wine two years out of three. Green flavors and poor color are closely associated with excess vigor. Excess vigor is closely associ- ated with too much nitrogen and water. By adjusting soil nitrogen by eliminating legumes (nitrogen-fixers) and increasing grasses that need a lot of nitrogen, we were able to decrease the vigor in this block and make a very nice wine two years out of three. That, of course, was still unacceptable—so the Galleron block 4 Merlot is now the Galleron block 4 Sauvignon Blanc—but you get the idea. In many of our vineyards, we have had to transition from a conventionally farmed system where soil fertility has been ignored in favor of drip fertigation and herbicides. These transitions are fraught with hard work and tough love, but they are often the source of our greatest pride. Upon loosening the soil, returning organic matter and stimulating the soil organisms, we almost immediately see health return- ing to the vines, and within three years we are usually able to disconnect them from their water and fertilizer dependen- cies. In recent years, a number of highly useful tools—soil amendments, nutritional supplements, foliar sprays, etc.—have been approved for organic use: Humega liquid compost and the micro-nutrient foliar sprays from BioLink, for example, can be of great help to the grower until soil fertil- ity is brought back into balance. W&V: Have you had problems with pests or disease? Williams: It is a common misconcep- tion that the organic grower is either 1. exempt from disease and pests, or 2. powerless to treat for pests or disease should they encounter them. Just because a person lives a healthy lifestyle with a nutritious, balanced diet and plenty of ex- ercise doesn't mean they won't occasion- ally get sick. But when sickness is around, Thinking organic reverberates across entire business owner-winemaker John Williams. "Fine that we had healthy living soils and vineyards, but how much diesel fuel were we using in our tractors, where did our power in the winery come from, what was the state of the watershed, how much waste was involved when we built new buildings, where did our trash go, what about packaging materials—and perhaps most of all, did our farmworkers have a full-time job with a livable wage and health benefits?" A t Frog's Leap Winery, the green practices don't end with the vineyard. "It was our experience that once we became more connected to the ecological balance of our vi- ticultural operations, our thoughts soon turned to other aspects of our business," says The transition to organic growing changed every aspect of operations at Frog's Leap. Frog's Leap became involved with the Rutherford Dust Restoration Team to restore the Napa River, installed solar panels that provide about 85% of the winery's electricity needs, built a barrel chai out of recycled materials and built a LEED-certified building housing the hospitality center and offices. The winery has also switched to lighter weight packaging and is aiming for zero waste. "I am personally very proud of the diversification we have brought to our farming enterprise (Frog's Leap farms more than 50 crops), which has been instrumental in our being able to offer full-time employment to our 25 farmworkers," Williams says. "Over time, it has devel- oped that every decision at Frog's Leap is weighed at least in some measure by its social and ecological costs and benefits. We believe that these are the kinds of questions all businesses will have to ask and answer if we wish a sustainable future." L.D. Wines & Vines nOVeMBeR 2011 41