Should We Be Talking About Pesticides Instead of Sulfites?
Why not both? In light of the French government's recent retreat on pesticide reduction, a look at how additive-free vinification can advance the cause of pesticide elimination.
On February 1st, bowing to weeks of intense protest from farmers’ associations and agricultural syndicates, the French government announced a “pause” on the implementation of its Ecophyto plan to reduce pesticide use, punting once again on the issue of pesticide reduction and prompting groans of deja vu from the natural wine community, who have witnessed this happen several times before.1
Unlike the divisive issue of sulfite addition, the non-use of synthetic chemical pesticides actually unites the wider natural wine community, along with producers of “just” organic and biodynamic wines. It is a situation that results in perennial calls from wine commentators to stop talking about reduction or elimination of sulfites (and other winemaking additives) in favor of the far more culturally impactful issue of the reduction or elimination of pesticide use.
Here is an archetypal example, from fellow Substack author (and future vigneron) Oliver Stevenson-Goldsmith:
“It amazes me that, as a community that mostly agrees that all the hard work is done in the vineyard, we end up arguing about details in the winery. What’s in the wine only affects the drinker. What’s used in the vineyard affects the whole ecosystem.”
I agree that elimination of synthetic chemical pesticides in agriculture is more important than disagreements about sulfite addition in wine. If I were covering agriculture for a major news outlet, instead of writing a Substack aimed at a niche audience of natural wine aficionados, I would concentrate on pesticides instead of winemaking. But I see no reason why arguments for pesticide reduction in agriculture cannot coexist with arguments for sulfite elimination in winemaking. In fact, for reasons to follow, I consider the two subjects intimately linked.
Scroll down for a short essay about how natural winemaking advances the cause of synthetic pesticide elimination.
For subscribers, here’s a bonus piece: OF ADDITIVES & INTRUDERS: VIGNERONS RESPOND - Translated highlights from the immense Francophone response to Sylvie Augereau's recent remarks about the acceptability of additives in wines presented at La Dive Bouteille.
A SET OF LIMITATIONS
Calls to talk about pesticides instead of winemaking seem to rest on the optimistic assumption that wine commentators exert influence on farmers of all stripes and agricultural policy at large, when the unfortunate fact is wine is widely (albeit wrongly, to be sure) considered a frivolous subject compared to, say, production of grain or sugar beets. If natural wine nonetheless maintains a hold on the public discourse vastly out of proportion to its market share, it is because its production poses questions about economic scale that “just” organic and biodynamic wine do not (or not to the same extent).
It’s not for nothing that Anjou biodynamics pioneer Mark Angeli, echoing a common sentiment, says, “There is a whole protocol to follow to make wines without sulfur. But in no case can we do it with all wines, every year.”
Like France’s protesting farmers, Angeli is making an appeal to economic reality: the necessity of producing a given quantity within a given price range each year, when one works at a certain scale. And they all have a point, to the extent that they work within the context of business structures that cannot be systemically changed overnight.
More-than-organic farming and natural winemaking comprise a set of limitations that are troubling and thought-provoking precisely because they run counter to the cycles of accountancy underpinning advanced economies. Yields are subject to climatic variations, as are fermentations; in the absence of yeasting or filtration or sulfitage (or even with some of these things), some natural wines can take years to attain a pleasing, stable state of equilibrium. In the meantime, everyone crows about “flaws” that are, as often as not, merely phases.
CONSUMER EXPECTATIONS
It is rare nowadays, in “developed” Western economies, for consumers to confront the limits of seasonality and the vegetal and fermentation cycles. Back in February of 2023, I recall watching the entire UK media apparatus go into conniptions because poor harvests in Africa and southern Europe meant tomatoes were unavailable. In February. It didn’t matter that tomatoes surely have no place on menus in England in winter; consumer expectations made it international news.
To a populace accustomed to the norms of commodified supermarket wine - which is to say yeasted, enzymed, acidified, heavily sulfited, fined, filtered, degassed wines from machine-harvested fruit deriving from overcropped vineyards treated with synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers - natural wines can provoke a similar sense of misplaced surprise and indignation.
That a natural red wine, bottled young, is a bit (pleasantly) spritzy, is completely normal for a beverage made from fermented grapes. But consumer expectations make it controversial. That a mature natural white wine, bottled at optimum limpidity, is rather expensive is completely normal for a wine that has aged several years. But, consumer expectations.
CONFRONTING THE BIG LIE
In American politics, the “Big Lie” has come to refer to Donald Trump’s claims to have won the 2020 election. His Republican primary challengers have failed to compete largely due to their unwillingness to confront the Big Lie. In the wine world, the Big Lie is the idea that natural wine can be assessed by the contrived, consumer-driven standards of conventional wine - that it ought to be just as profitable as conventional wine, and that it ought to slot neatly onto supermarket shelves without bucking any mass-market expectations.
This is partly why La Dive Bouteille organizer Sylvie Augereau’s recent remarks about wine additives and fermentation problems rubbed so many natural winemakers the wrong way. To suppress or hide or de-emphasize the difficult cuvées, and to advocate the use of additives or filtration to avoid such difficulties in the first place, is to go along with the Big Lie. At that point, you’re not educating wine drinkers. You’re serving them product that meets their expectations.
Whereas the revelatory power of natural wine - one of the key reasons we talk about it so much - lies in its ability to expose the Big Lie. It does this by illustrating the delicate links between farming and winemaking, and the limitations that must be heeded to maintain said links. One limitation is the non-use of synthetic pesticides in farming, since they suppress native yeast populations and indirectly result in nutrient imbalances by eliminating biodiversity. (Both phenomena tend to result in troublesome fermentations and unpleasant wines.)
As early natural wine advocate and author François Morel once told me:
In reality, the expression “vin sans soufre” hid something more vast. Notably on the level of work in the vineyards. Obviously, to manage to successfully make wine without sulfur, you had to have a juice that is balanced, which means well-farmed vineyards. Obviously these people worked their vineyards. They worked without herbicides, pesticides, with none of that. All that was understood. It wasn’t just the same shit as usual with less sulfur.
When we talk about truly natural wines, we’re always necessarily talking about the non-use of synthetic pesticides. But we’re broaching the subject of pesticides with the aid of a subject that has proven more broadly inspiring and thought-provoking than, say, plastic-wrapped organic bananas, or a jar of Demeter-certified tahini.
FRANCE’S FARMERS WILL HAVE THEIR REVENGE
To be sure, natural wine is an engaging subject partly because it is difficult and less readily available than organic produce at a supermarket.
Understanding natural wine requires an awareness of the limitations of vegetal and fermentation cycles; of the evolving, changeable nature of living wine; and of the value of manual farming on a human scale.
The moment we begin to apply this understanding of natural wine to other, less glamorous agricultural products is the moment we begin to perceive the scope of the societal changes that will be required to persuade France’s farmers (and those abroad) to finally abandon synthetic pesticides.
FURTHER READING
What Does La Dive Bouteille Stand For?
Of Additives & Intruders: Translated highlights from the immense Francophone response to Sylvie Augereau's recent remarks about the acceptability of additives in wines presented at La Dive Bouteille.
The first Ecophyto plan, introduced in 2008, aimed to reduce pesticide use by 50%, and failed, as did the second Ecophyto plan, introduced in 2015 with the same objective. The contours of the scheme are as obvious as they are familiar, at this point. The plan is to have a plan, only to abandon or revise it whenever it comes time to actually implement said plan.
bravo for the In Utero reference