\nApril 13, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) announced<\/a> the four winners of its second annual
\n“Growing Green” awards, which honor leaders in the sustainable-food
\nworld in four categories: “thought leader,” “producer,”
\nbusiness leader,” and “water steward.” I interviewed
\n“thought leader” Fred Kirschenmann here<\/a> and “business leader” Karl Kupers of Shepherd’s Grain here<\/a>. Now I turn my attention to Mike Benziger, who brought home
\nthe “water steward” prize for his work at Benziger Family Winery. <\/a><\/p>\n
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Mike Benziger on the family farm. When Mike Benziger and his family began growing grapes and
\nmaking wine in 1970s-era Sonoma County, the prevailing agricultural style could be described as
\n“scorched earth.” Agrichemical concoctions fed the vines, killed the pests, and flattened
\nthe weeds; plentiful well water provided easy irrigation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But such practices not only kill soil, they also deaden <\/p>\n Q. Tell <\/p>\n A. It <\/p>\n So, <\/p>\n So <\/p>\n And <\/p>\n Q. Benziger <\/p>\n A. When <\/p>\n Over <\/p>\n In <\/p>\n Biodynamics <\/p>\n When <\/p>\n Q. Animals are integral to biodynamic farming. What kind of animals <\/p>\n A. In <\/p>\n So <\/p>\n Virtually <\/p>\n Q. What <\/p>\n A. We’ve <\/p>\n In <\/p>\n Then <\/p>\n Q. Benziger <\/p>\n A. Yeah, <\/p>\n Q. Sounds <\/p>\n A. Our <\/p>\n Q. Please <\/p>\n A. First, Related Links:<\/strong><\/p>\n Cuba’s urban-ag revival offers limited lessons<\/a><\/p>\n Interview with ‘Growing Green’ business leader Karl Kupers<\/a><\/p>\n Fred Kirschenmann, winner of NRDC’s Growing Green “Thought Leader” award<\/a><\/p>\n
\nwine. Over time, the Benzigers began to rethink modern viticulture. One motivation was improving the product, making it stand out out from the gusher of wine
\ncoming out of Sonoma. Another was the sinking water table on Sonoma
\nMountain, where the family keeps its vineyards. Faced with surging water costs,
\nthe family began searching for new farming methods that didn’t treat water as a
\ncheap and easy resource. Thus started an odyssey that inspired the family to
\nconvert its Sonoma property to biodynamic growing practices<\/a> in the
\nmid-1990s—and that won Mike Benziger recognition from the NRDC as a “water
\nsteward.” I caught up with Mike last week via phone.<\/p>\n
\nus about how Benziger saves water.<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nall started because we were running out of water—our wells were dropping.
\nNecessity really was the mother of invention. We’re located on Sonoma Mountain,
\nand water recharge was not happening anywhere near as fast as we were using
\nthe water. The bottom line in California is there’s probably not going to be
\nenough water to go around.<\/p>\n
\nwhat are we going to do to address that? You throw climate change into that mix,
\nand the problem gets that much more critical. There’s a saying in the wine
\nbusiness: wine is for loving, but water is for fighting. But it turns out that
\nwhen you use significantly less water in the field, you can actually raise the quality
\nof wine. There’s not a tradeoff between water use and wine quality. Of course,
\nthere are economic benefits, too—one of the biggest costs we incur at
\nour facility is for pumping water out of the ground.<\/p>\n
\nwe looked to the vineyard first. Far and away, our growing practices used the
\nmost significant quantities of water. So, by designing vineyards that needed
\nless water, by not planting in areas that had an excess demand for water, and
\nby planting plants that were smaller, by planting plants that were less
\nthirsty, by planting plants that had rootstalks that went deeper and pulled
\nwater from lower soil depth, we saved a lot of water.<\/p>\n
\nwe quickly found that by irrigating less and using less inputs, our grapes,
\nolives, and other products were more concentrated in flavor, higher in quality,
\nand had a longer shelf life to it.<\/p>\n
\nis well-known in the industry for being certified biodynamic. Talk about the relationship between
\nbiodynamic growing practices and water conservation. <\/strong><\/p>\n
\nwe first moved into our property in 1980, we hired the best advisors. And they
\ntold us, “Hey, you better get rid of all of the natural things in your
\nvineyards and push them out to the other side of the fence. We don’t want any
\ncompetition in your vineyards. Let’s get rid of all the insects, let’s get rid
\nof all the weeds, let’s get rid of all the birds. We need to have this under
\ncontrol. Only vines should be in a vineyard area.”<\/p>\n
\ntime, we did a pretty good job of killing everything. One day, we went outside
\nand we didn’t hear a peep: we didn’t see an insect, we didn’t hear a bird, our
\nsoils were eroding because they were dead, and quite frankly, our wines were
\nhit and miss. And that’s when we knew we needed to look for some farming practices
\nthat maybe treated the land with a little bit more respect.<\/p>\n
\nabout 1994-95, we started to look around for different farming practices.
\nBiodynamic farming resonated with us because it did two things: it regenerated
\nthe land, meaning it built biological capital, and it individualized our
\nproduct. And that was the thing that really, really attracted us. By farming
\nthis way, and by looking at biodynamics as a closed system of agriculture, we
\nwere able to individualize—make our property more distinctive over time.<\/p>\n
\nmeans recycling all the products within your property, and reducing the use of
\nimported inputs … including water. Over time, our philosophy came to never ever
\nfeed the vine, but to only take care of the soil. When you feed the vine, when
\nthe food for the vine is put on the surface of the soil and then dripped in
\nwith an irrigation system, the roots stay right where the food is, which is
\nright in the first eighteen inches. If we take care of the soil, the roots go
\ndeeper to find the nutrients the plant needs—the nutrients aren’t all there at
\nthe surface. The goal is to get the roots to explore the entire soil profile
\nand to eventually get down to where more permanent sources of water are, which
\nin our case, tend to be down below six to eight feet. Once we can tap into
\nthat, then we can really delay our irrigations and save hundreds of thousands
\nof gallons of water.<\/p>\n
\nthe roots reach the lower depths, we can really tap into what I call the Holy
\nGrail: and that is in being able to showcase what is called in the wine
\nbusiness the terroir of the property …
\nthe sense of place, the sense that the wine came from somewhere
\nspecific.<\/p>\n
\nare on your farm?<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nbiodynamic farming, you try to eliminate the use of inputs by enabling natural
\nsystems, through use of plants and
\nanimals. We use plants as habitat areas to bring in good insects that eat the
\nbad bugs, which eliminate the need for pesticides, and we bring in the
\ncaretakers of soil biology and that eliminates the need for fertilizer.<\/p>\n
\nwe have cows, which provide the manures for our compost, and sheep, which are
\nout in the vineyards every day during the fall, winter, and the early part of
\nspring. With every step, sheep do three things: they eat, they shit, and they
\ntill. They’re pretty cool animals and they really invigorate the soil biology
\nby keeping the grasses down low, that way we don’t have to bring our machinery
\nin early when compaction is a problem. They also provide the ability to turn
\ntheir manures into grasses under, so that they break down and they keep the
\nsoil biology humming. They also put little dents, not too many, but little
\ndents in the soil that act to hold water and help to recharge the soil aquifer
\nfaster. The other thing they do, which is really important, is they take care
\nof disease protection by turning under with their paws all the litter that’s
\nleft over from last year that usually has mildew and other bacteria in it; they
\nturn it under and the soil bacteria take care of it right away.<\/p>\n
\nall farms had animals for 10,000 years. They’ve been pushed off most farms over
\nthe last hundred years because we decided that monocrops are more efficient.
\nBut we really didn’t look hard enough to see the real reasons why our ancestors
\nwere using animals<\/p>\n
\nelse are you doing to reduce water use in the winemaking process? <\/strong><\/p>\n
\nconstructed wetlands that recycle 2-3 million gallons of water a year. All of
\nthe winery waste water and some of the grey water on our facility is captured
\nin a pond and then, by gravity, it’s recycled through this large wetlands that
\nacts as a kidney that cleans the water to an incredibly high level—to where it
\nlooks good enough to drink. That’s the water that we then use for landscaping,
\nand we then use for irrigation. It’s used twice.<\/p>\n
\nthe actual winemaking process, we recently invested in what’s called
\n“all-vibration technology.” We’ve eliminated all belts and all screws. And
\nthat right there, eliminated, I think, 18-20 percent of the water use for harvest last
\nyear alone, just converting out of belts and screws to these very
\neasy-to-clean, very efficient vibration tables. They clean up almost by
\nthemselves.<\/p>\n
\nthere’s cleaning wine barrels. You can imagine how hard it is to clean a
\n60-gallon barrel and get it all clean on the inside when there’s only a little
\nhole to work through. In the past, we used up to 25 gallons per barrel. But
\nwith the new technologies that we’ve invested in, which is based on steam,
\nwe’ve been able to get that to below 5 gallons per barrel.<\/p>\n
\nis obviously known most for its wine—what else is grown on your Sonoma Mountain land? <\/strong><\/p>\n
\nwe grow about 30 different types of vegetables and we make olive oil and we
\nmake honey. We have about 100 lamb. We
\nsell all of our olive oil in the tasting room, then we supply local
\nrestaurants
\nwith vegetables and beef. We’re also trying to make on a regular basis
\nwhat I call an estate meal, which is a meal made entirely off the property of
\nthe lamb or the beef or the chicken with all the vegetables that we grow, with
\nthe olive oil and the honey, tasted alongside the wines that are made right
\nthere in that system, and to see if there’s an overlap or a crossover in the
\nflavors or the profiles or the textures of the wine or the olives oil or even
\nthe veggies.<\/p>\n
\nlike an old-school diversified Mediterranean farm—olive groves, vineyards,
\nvegetables, meat, all growing right on top of each other. <\/strong><\/p>\n
\nproperty is 85 acres and less than 40 of it are in grapes. Then the other 35 or
\n40 are the biological support system for the grapes. The grapes are the lead
\ncharacter in the play. A lot of the time, [all the supporting actors] makes the lead character
\ninteresting. I don’t want to give the impression we think we’re perfect in
\nterms of sustainability—we can always do better! But it turns out that by
\ndoing things like conserving water and improving soil health, we make better
\nwine. So we’re committed.<\/p>\n
\nrecommend a few relatively inexpensive examples of your wines. Nothing too fancy—I work at Grist! <\/strong><\/p>\n
\nI’d try the 2009 Benziger Sauvignon Blanc –<\/a>– that’s just hitting the markets right now. Then I would recommend the 2006
\nBenziger Sonoma Country Cabernet Sauvignon<\/a>.
\nAnd then we have another one called Signiterra<\/a> that’s a blend of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon that is a biodynamic property
\nin transition—that is an awesome wine. Those
\nwould be the three that I would recommend.<\/p>\n