Embracing the Organic Movement: A Winemaker’s Journey
The story of an organic winegrower who, in the 1980s, ventured into the less explored Sierra Foothills to establish a winery is a tale of passion and resilience. Brian’s book delves into the unique challenges and triumphs of pioneering organic winemaking far from California’s famed wine regions. Learn about the transformation of Fair Play from a single small winery to an area boasting over 30 wineries and how a commitment to organic practices and a love for the land led to a dreamy lifestyle many covet.
Like many movements in their early years, pain sometimes masked any signs of progress. My heart, my mind was already committed to farming whatever I was going to grow organically, that was a given. Winegrapes were without a doubt the most appropriate sustainable crop to grow in this remote and long-abandoned Gold Rush area know as Fair Play. No irrigation district to deliver water and scant ground water resources to be found in the underlying rock-hard granite made even the water-thrifty winegrape a challenge to farm in Fair Play. Conventional victiculturalists had an arsenal of chemicals at their ready to tackle weed control, fertilization and disease management. Those perfectly barren strips under each row of grapes throughout the vineyard took applications of the controversial chemical RoundUp as well as pre-emergent weed control chemicals like Princep to maintain. Easy to apply too. Transforming Forest to vineyard was hard enough but to farm organically too – what was I thinking?
I knew well the ways of conventional winegrape growing being I was working as an assistant to our farm advisor Dick Bethel here in El Dorado County. But my commitment to Organic farming persisted and included the unwelcomed barrage of negative comments from most other local farmers. Not a problem, time would change some attitudes albeit very slowly.
My book shares bits and pieces of my journey over four decades of organic farming and interfacing with the organic community at large. It wasn’t pretty. Imagine back in the 1980s alcohol was not yet on the menu at most health food stores. And I was growing ‘alcohol’; I was the bad boy of the Organic movement. It didn’t take long before the overly zealous prohibitionists were overwhelmed by foodies’ love of wine.
Like I said in my book’s beginning:
“Uncork a good bottle of wine, settle into a comfy chair, and I will share with you a true story: the pioneering life of an organic winegrower, far afield from California’s other, more famous wine regions, who put down roots in the remote upper reaches of the Sierra Foothills. It all began in 1980 with one small winery; now, Fair Play boasts 30+ wineries. This is that one small winery’s story told firsthand, complete with both its guts and glory unpolished. A story that will take you on a journey into the day-to-day and through the years of a dreamy lifestyle coveted by many, leaving you with an appreciation of winegrowing and the Organic movement in its unforgettable raw honesty. Welcome to our story…”
