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48 WINES&VINES January 2017 VIEWPOINT zine and a Hot Brand award from Impact newsletter. The brand, which makes only "Made with Organic Grapes" wines, grew 20% in volume. Millennials are embracing organics, and Americans across the board worry about harmful ingredients: Millennials, who grew up with organic food, are the group most interested in organic products, but consumer research shows that most Americans are concerned about potentially harmful ingredients. According to a new study about food from Mintel, an interna- tional market-research company, 60% of mil- lennials, 55% of Gen-Xers, and 46% of baby boomers worry about potentially harmful ingredients in the food they buy. Organically grown fine wines are bet- ter than ever: Each year the Daily Meal, one of the country's top foodie websites, picks the Top 100 Wineries in the United States. In 2015 and in 2016, half of the top 10 wineries (Ridge, Tablas Creek, Calera, Heitz and Robert Sinskey) all had organic estate vineyards. A UCLA study released in 2016 in the Jour- nal of Wine Economics underscores the point more broadly. Studying wine reviews for 74,000 wines to compare eco-certified wines made with sulfites to conventionally grown wines, researchers found that organically grown wines, on average, rated four points higher in critics' reviews. Organic viticulture has a bigger tool- kit than it used to and more data to back up its cost-effectiveness: Long-time or- ganic growers say that the the field of organic viticulture has grown enormously during the past few decades. Though it's never a risk-free endeavor, there are far more products avail- able (organic fungicides and insecticides, bet- ter compost, new biopesticides), more and better research (though much more is needed) and growing support from farm advisors. More producers have switched from fossil fuel to biodiesel, and some are even employing no-till approaches. Though farming costs are still a point of contention, at the Organic Winegrowing Conference sponsored by the Napa Valley Grapegrowers this past summer Ivo Jeramaz of Grgich Hills Estate presented figures showing that his annual costs for 365 acres of certified organic vines in Napa were no more than for comparable, chemically farmed vineyards. A 2016 study from the University of California looked at Biody- namic vineyard costs in the North Coast and confirmed that Demeter-certified farming practices were economically profitable for Mendocino growers, a region with grape prices far below those commanded in Napa. Climate change is going to mean more droughts and hot spells: Water and heat are big issues facing the wine industry. Organic vines tend to need less water applied, because soils are built up with compost and contain more organic matter, which holds water far better. According to Fruition Sciences, a vineyard-monitoring company with A-list winery clients around the world, organic vines are far more resilient in the face of increasing drought and heat waves. Troubling trends for the status quo U.S. wineries may be blindsided by a num- ber of trends that could play out. Just as The FDA announced that it would start regularly testing foods for glypho- sate, which bioaccumu- lates in humans. The EPA announced it would once again review glyphosate.