Sustainable White

I don't know enough about wine to talk in depth about subtle notes, aging, types of grapes, and regions, but I do know enough (and try enough of them) to know when I like something-or don't.

After I bought my first bottle of sustainable wine, I did a little poking around on the internet about organic wine. My conclusion is this: to meet the rigorous standards of a "certified organic" label there are many factors to adhere to. While a winery may be in accordance with most of these, the nature/process of making wine may break a few strict organic laws. While some wines may indeed be certified organic the missing process that has been excluded results in a less favorable wine. However, there are wineries that are sustainable and green and not organic. They produce their own energy, do not use pesticides, rotate their crops, etc. just like an organic farm would. In fact you can find some wines that will say they are made with organic grapes-only then they are processed into wine which is an inorganic process by nature (by the addition of sulfites or some such thing-I'm not a vintner but that's the gist of it). My conclusion is, that wines that are made from organic grapes, or produced from sustainable farms are in my mind green. And so, I will do my best to seek these wines out and do the hard work of tasting them for you! You can thank me later.

Back to Sustainable White. First of all, what a bargain at $9.99 a bottle! This was the first sustainable thing I bought that was less expensive than the item I would normally buy (which would be a bottle of wine usually $15-$20 on sale for $10-$14). It is produced in California and the label describes as the winery as "Locally owned and operated, grapes from family farms, sustainable farming practices, 100% green power, earth-friendly packaging, and 1st carbon neutral winery." After searching the shelves for about 10min-and I'm usually finished in 2min-I was sold. It doesn't say organic, but I'm OK with that. They're doing something right. Alright! I can hear you screaming, "Is it any good?" The truth? It is crisp, clean, light, fruity (dare I say notes of green apple and peach) with just the right tinge of acidity but yet enough sweet twinklings to keep you interested without really realizing it's there. Yes it's good! I'll buy it again! Maybe tomorrow night with some sushi! I really wanted to like this affordable, sustainable wine but thought there would be some catch. But you know what? I genuinely do like it. So far, so good.

Daily Green 3/31/10

Today I was green because I:

1) avoided receiving 4 plastic bags with my reusable bags.
2) walked home from work (including a Bonus 20 minutes of beautiful day-ness).
3) chose organic apples, instead of the other kind, even though they cost $.40 more/lb-AND did NOT put them in their own little plastic produce bag (which I usually always do).
4) chose organic milk, which is normally $2/ga more, but Superfresh had one brand on sale for only $1/ga more-Score!
5) did NOT buy eggs because they were out of the organic kind and only had some "vegetarian-feed" brands that I wasn't too sure about.
6) found a sustainable white wine (called "Sustainable White") at the liquor store and it was only $9.99! I'll let you know how it is.

While it doesn't seem like I changed the world today, it took a lot of thought on my part to choose the organic items because I never thought it necessary before. I also never saw the point in spending more money for what seemed like the same product. To elaborate on point 3, I had actually picked out an apple and a pear (that smelled really good) until I found the tiny organic section, which I wasn't even sure they had at Superfresh. I was about to ignore it since I had already picked out my fruit, but instead I picked out two organic apples and then walked back around and put the other ones back. It may not seem like a big deal, but normally I would just be lazy and figure that I would get the organic ones next time. It also took me awhile to distinguish between the organic and non-organic eggs. A lot of them claim "cage-free" or "locally produced"-still two states over- or "vegetarian" which are steps in the right direction, but I figured I'd wait for the real deal. It was also difficult to find anything remotely green in the liquor store. I was about to just get any-old-thing when I spotted the sustainable wine. This is going to be a lot of work, and patience, in my normally hurried routine. Sigh.