In the past few years, consumers’ attention to food sustainability has deeply changed. More and more people are, infact, looking for product that are cultivated and processed ethically, respecting at the same time the environment and human health.The world of wine as well is now compliant to this growing attention of consumers: “green” wines production has grown a lot and, with it, also confusion among typologies. In particular, it’s quite hard to answer to the following question: what’s the difference between organic, biodynamic and natural wine? Infact, inspite they have in common the attention to environment and to the rhythms of nature, there are deep differences related to cultivation of grapes, to the processing and marketing of wines.
We start from organic wine (in Italian “biologico”, from the greek bios, meaning life). It is the only product to be controlled and ruled according to both EU and national laws. Organic wine is the only one to be acknowlwdged at law level and requires the respect of specific regulation. Therefore, it is not based on producers’ self declarations but on a control system which is uniform all over Europe. After many years of lack of specific laws, the EU Regulation 848/2018/UE has provided the details about what producing organic wines means. If before it was possible to speak only of “wine produced with organically grown grapes”, today the whole wine production process is regulated by very specific rules.
First of all, any farm that wants to be awarded with the logo “BIO” must go through a three years transition time from conventional to organic agriculture, after a previous declaration of the intention presented to the competent institutions and to the authorized control agencies. Only aftewards it will be possible to put the EU logo on the label, the euro-leaf, a rectangular logo showing a leaf made of little stars, that we are now able to see on wine bottles and on organic products in general.
Organic wine is produced with grapes coming from certified organic agriculture, a system that requires to use no chemicals for pests, weeds and pathogenic organisms control. Moreover, it is not allowed the use of GMO products and implies traditional practices for prevention.
During wine production only few additives and adjuvants are allowed, all of certified organic origin and little amounts, working essentially “by subtraction”. An important point of organic production is then the reduction of sulphites amount respect the wines produced with conventional method. The accepted limit of sulfur dioxide are 100 mg/l for dry red wines (versus 150 mg/l of conventional) and 150 mg/l for white and dry rose (versus 200 mg/l of conventional).
Organic wines labeling must then respect very specific requirements because, besides being compliant to labeling general regulations for all wines, the label must include the words “organic wine” , the euro-leaf of organic EU logo, and the identification code number of the certification agency.
An important role is played by certification agencies and control bodies responsible to run inspections in the member farms at least on a once – a – year base in order to verify the respect of rules and procedures, registers keeping and much more. It is not easy, then, to acquire such certification and being allowed to add the EU organic logo on the label, even because all the production steps, from vineyard to the bottle, must respect the requrement of traceability.
Biodynamic wine is very similar to organic wine, but is not submitted to european regulations. To be allowed to biodynamic wine labelling, it is necessary to obtain a certification, and the most common is by Demeter association, named after Demetra, goddess of cultivated land, and then of agriculture and in particular of wheat. It was born in 1928, as first organization that issued food production standards; moreover, by defining a specific regulation, this association has actually created a product certification. As suggested by the name, biodynamic wine is tightly related to biodynamic agriculture techniques, a discipline much closer to philosophy than science. This kind of approach to agriculture is based on the principle that plants, ground, animals and human beings are all part of one unique system which is integrated and self-sufficient, linked to the rhythms of nature and cosmos.
The differences between organic and biodynamic wine are substantially based into an olistic view of cultivation. Biodynamic brings the concept of organic agriculture to the extreme, searching for a sinergy with nature and its cycles, but taking into account the spiritual value as well. Therefore, any wine produced according to biodynamic discipline comes from grapes cultivated following lunar phases, and dividing pruning, irrigation and harvesting practices into specific days. Harvest must be absolutely handmade.
Ob viously, Demeter will release its certifications to wine farms that make no use at all of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers, but non only this. It is necessary to use, according to a monthly calendar, some specific biodynamic products like hornmanure and cornosilica made according to specific prescriptions. The restrictions are, therefore, much harder than those required for organic certification.
The target is to maximize environment sustainability. It is avoided the use of fining agents of animal origin, no yeasts to induce fermentation, because only spontaneous fermentation is allowed, or by a starter from grapes coming from the same farm. Then, to be considered a biodynamic wine, it must be bottled only in glass and the plug must be not a plastic one. So as for organic wine, also biodynamic wine does not reduce to zero sulfites, but reduce them futher: 70 mg/l for red wines, 90 mg/l for whites and 60 mg/l for sparkling wines.
Before talking of “”natural” wine it is necessary to clarify that the two terms together could be considered a contraddiction, a kind of oxymoron, because wine does not exist in nature but is the result of knowledge, processing, man work. It is claimed in doctrine that grapes as well, without man work and with no natural support (trees, bushes), could not survive laying its branches on the ground.
The so-said natural wines have no regulation to be compliant to, but only rules shared by the various producers associations. Their peculiarity is to act as less as possible during all the production steps, reducing at zero the use of chemicals, wine adjuvants, winemaking, maturation and refinement. Harvest is generally handmade, careful selection of grapes for quality and subsequent low yields. In cellar spontaneous fermentation is preferred, with no addition of sulphorous in any stage of process or very little amounts and only in case of need.
In substance, the main target of whoever produces natural wine is to offer to consumers a product obtained as much as possible according to the cycles of nature.
The doctrine, in particular prof. Luigi Moio in 2024, declared that selected yeasts affect wine perfume not more than 20%; and that natural wines are more exposed to the risk of infections than the products added with sulphites, added within the limit that laws allow.
In the end, for every wine lover there is a way of being wine “green”, and the various approaches to sustainability make the world of wine tasting more and more multi-faced, and offers hints to compare continuously the different production philosophies.
Author: dr.ssa Betty Mezzina
