1 Biodiversity

As plant diversity on a farm advocates for a thriving ecosystem, rich in life, so must our commitment in the supply chain be with the range of products we carry. In another words, if by voice, Viticole does not support monoculture, then by deed, we cannot be one either…

2 Reduced Impact

What’s true in a field, is often true in a glass (and vice versa). Fruit-bearing trees such as apples and pears are sturdier than grapevines. They require less spraying, can yield an impressive crop, and are more resistant to grape-specific ravages such as smoke taint. The proposition of working hands off in the cellar - ambient yeasts, no additives, no filtration, no sulfur - is a much more complicated path to stability with wine grapes alone. In cider/multi-fruit ferments, there is an uncommon resiliency to the elements that continues in bottle on its journey to your doorstep.

3 Nature-Led

To use the phrase ‘naturel-led’ with respect to an agricultural endeavor, much like using the word ‘natural’ in front of wine, requires that a metamorphosis be allowed to unfurl in how we relate to an ecosystem. The demand for (and regulation of) single variety wine incentivizes farmers to specialize and perhaps overlook the potential for a more befitting abundance of life to flourish on their property. Ironically, the genesis of wine in antiquity arose out of pharmacological intention, utilizing all aspects of indigenous flora in the winemaking process.

It is our belief that in order to bring polyculture back to the land, we must once again bring it back to the glass, so that crops like elderberries and blackberries and rose hips and wild herbs—native wilderness that would normally be eradicated from a cultivated space in favor of the ‘cash crop’—become assets utilized in fermentation. Welcoming medicinal flora to the landscape, in lieu of mistakenly dismissing such plants as ‘weeds’, creates opportunities for farmers to approach raw land more sensitively and, simultaneously, wine to transcend the spectrum of flavors and textures we narrowly cling to.

4 Enhancing the Food Chain

I can’t count how many orchards I’ve walked past in the Pacific Northwest; either abandoned or unharvested, as fruit just lays on the ground decaying. It is one of the least talked about pandemics that afflict our world. Supporting the cider & multi-fruit movement provides produce farmers another potential revenue stream (via collaboration with wineries/cideries) to supplement what would otherwise have been a flailing business.

It also incentivizes industrial farmers to make the transition away from chemical sprays. Our culture’s obsession with blemish-free fruit has led to highly extractive practices on land, but in fermentation, no consumer ever sees a scarred apple or misshapen plum. It is exactly this ‘waste fruit’ (much like an heirloom tomato) that is prized for its flavor and probiotic potential in wine and cider production.

5 True Terroir

I look forward to a day when the lines between that which is cultivated and that which belongs to the wild are blurred. There, multiple species of fruit-bearing perennials and edible plants co-habitate shoulder to shoulder, symbiotically, to enhance a broader ecosystem. Modern concepts of vineyard and orchard give way to a food forest, a place devoid of trellis wire and irrigation lines and plastic ties, and all the right angles that define the baseline commerical farm. A place where tenders of such landscapes become foragers in the palm of nature’s provision.

We hear the echoes of paradise lost in famous French vineyards: Genevrieres (juniper), Clos des Chênes (enclosure of oaks), Poissonets (land of fish). Griotte-Chambertin (sour cherries in Bertin’s field). Chatenieres (chestnut trees). Chenevery (hemp fields). Les Forêts (the forest). When this abundance returns, only then we can have a more complete conversation about terroir.