Organic in Practice

These growers farm organically — no synthetic herbicides, no systemic treatments, in many cases for twenty or thirty years — but have never taken the certificate. The reasons are mundane rather than evasive: the annual fee and the paperwork are a real cost to a five-hectare estate; certification removes the freedom to treat once in a catastrophic year rather than lose the entire crop to mildew; and a good many vignerons regard careful farming as simply how vines ought to be tended, not something to be advertised on a label. Michel Noëllat and Jean-Marc Millot in Vosne-Romanée, Denis and Arnaud Mortet in Gevrey, Marchand-Grillot, Henri Germain et Fils in Meursault and Hervé Souhaut in the northern Rhône all belong here — as does much of what we sell.