I enjoy being greener. Call it "Gore's example" orclean living, or just plain old smart, but I like it. I like looking foreveryday ways to trim a little here and there from the ol' carbon footprint. Ido what I can. I try to keep the house energy-efficient. I drive less. Irecycle more. I try to buy local when I can. I've got a composter (code name:"The Muffin Machine") humming silently, happily away in the backyard.
But what about my other habits? Am I as green as I can bewhen it comes to this little literary enterprise of mine? Thankfully, wine andwinemaking contribute nicely to the "green experience." Winemaking isan exacting process. Vinifera grapes (WineSpeak for "the major grapevarietals in wine") tend to be finicky critters, so companies that usehuge, soulless mass-production methods, lots of pesticides, automatedharvesting, and the like -- the grapes don't respond well and what ends up inthe bottle is generally an inferior product.
"Organic" is nothing new in the wine world, norare environmentally friendly agricultural practice. Regardless of the price ofa wine, the care taken as the grapes move from bud to bottle almost alwaysshows through in what winds up in the glass. There's much more to conservationthan just being organic, so here are a few bottles I've tried (and recycled)lately that contain a "green tint"
I discovered X Winery2006 "X3" Cabernet one day at the wine store when I was lookingfor a cabernet with a Stelvin screwtop, largely because, honestly, I wanted awine I wouldn't have to fool with all that much when I was ready to drink it.Yes, there are some days I'm too lazy to pick up a corkscrew. This winery isfocused on using new technologies, environmentally friendly productiontechniques, and the growers that they work with are committed to sustainableagriculture -- meaning that they try to do as little harm as possible to theecosystem while farming. What I didn't realize was that I found a very, verygood wine to boot. This wine is their second-line cabernet at around $15. Thiscab has a big nose of vanilla and blackberries. The body is well-balanced withsome smoke and chocolate flavors. Paired with chocolate, this wine was abig winner.
Seeing a display for the Yellow Jersey 2007 Pinot Noir surprised me. At first, I thought itwas simply a bunch of half-liter bottles with bright yellow labels. I waswrong. The bottles were a full 750 ml, and they were made entirely of plastic.It makes sense that a plastic bottle would be smaller -- they're not going tobe as thick as a glass one. The wine itself? Well, it wasn't bad for a $10pinot. I certainly didn't taste anything significantly different from aglass-container wine. This was honestly a relatively nondescript pinot, meaningthat it wouldn't get in the way of most foods, and it wasn't a bad quaff if youjust wanted a glass of something without thinking too much. Now. where thiswine would come in very handy is anypicnic, hike, or somewhere that you'd have to pack it in and out. The bottleitself is 90% lighter than glass, shatterproof, and, of course, recyclable.When the weather's nice, a bottle of this with a cheese and meat boardsomewhere outside would be delightful. Just make sure that you clean up whenyou're done.
One of my favorite couplings of environmental improvementand wine quality is box wine. As I've written before, the days of Vella andFranzia are thankfully coming to a close. Companies are starting to packagemore and better qualities of wine in boxes. Although, as I think about it -- Idon't know how much of the box itself can be recycled. The cardboard of the boxis obviously recyclable -- but the spigot and the Tetra Pak plastic inside thebox...I'm not sure. I did some research and couldn't find anything definitive.
Regardless of the specific container, a single box of wineis a more efficient transport than the four glass (or plastic) bottles of thesame amount. The Chateau de Pena 2005Cuvee de Pena is one of the more interesting wines in a box I've had. Thisblend of Syrah, Grenache, Carignan and Mourvedre from a cooperative in
