Earth-Friendly Wines

You can't open up a wine magazine or speak with a winemaker these days without hearing all about the countless ways that the environment is being taken into careful consideration in this industry. From sustainably farming grapes to producing wines in as organic a manner as possible, the earth, it seems, has become just as much of a consideration as the fruit and ultimately the juice it produces.

Of course, growing grapes with the environment in mind often results in better, more expressive wine. It just makes good sense: The fewer chemicals that are added to a vineyard, the more clearly the land can express itself without anything getting in the way.

I was asked to explore this concept, with a focus on the new release of the Shafer Red Shoulder Ranch Chardonnay (the 2008), for an excellent new online publication, GoodLifeReport.com. Click here for the full article and the tasting note: The wine, as expected, was magnificent even this early in its evolution, and a fantastic example of just how important it is to consider not just the juice in the bottle, but the environment in which the grapes grew up in.