Organic Wines Are Great As Long As You Don’t Tell Anyone They’re Organic
Posted by Adam Morganstern on Mar 12, 2010 in Editorials
There’s been a lot of buzz online recently about an academic paper done by two students; Magali A. Delmas of UCLA and Laura E. Grant of UCSB titled Eco-labeling Strategies and Price-Premium: The Wine Industry Puzzle. The study looks at eco-certification and eco-labeling as two separate business strategies, and they found that wineries that are certified organic, but don’t let you know on their label, command higher prices. Wineries that certify, and put that information on the bottle, actually see a price decline. The lesson for wineries – go organic but don’t tell anyone about it.
We’ve dealt with this problem since we started the Organic Wine Journal. There are many fantastic certified organic and biodynamic wines out there, but you have to know the names yourself because you won’t find it anywhere on their labels. This leads to confusion not only among wine drinkers, but also with sommeliers, servers and the workers at your local wine store. Thankfully, the balance is shifting, and organic and biodynamic wines are being perceived as higher quality in general, but until the top winemakers come out of the cellar, so to speak, the findings of this study don’t surprise us.
Adam:
Maybe we should go back into the cellar and change our name from Organic Wine Review to “Wine Review” . . nah!
Cheers,
Brent
I think you’re one of the sites that will make that change unnecessary.
Yes, unfortunately i have to agree with the study and this is as ridiculous as anything can get. Especially these days when ANY other organic product starts off with an advantage over their conventional counterpart in the mind of the public . Not so with organic wines and dont get me started as to why…
For those of us who have known how good these wines can be and have dedicated many years( 30 to be exact ) to sharing them & their unique message with our fellow men this is, on a good day, frustrating.
As one of the elders of this industry I cannot thank you enough, you Brent & you Adam & Greg, for having jumped on your respective horses and riding along with us, brandishing our flag. Not a day too soon! It does our heart good, you guys are showing just the kind of courage & leadership that is needed.
Keep up the good work , merci du fond du coeur.
Veronique Raskin
Founder/ CEO The OrganicWineCompany
Thanks for the kind words of support Adam and Veronique. (BTW, can you change your site so I can subscribe to subsequent comments on any comment thread?)
Cheers,
Brent
Yes, the bigger you put the word ORGANIC the cheaper your wine will be.
BUT most of the wineries that are “closet organic” are probably very small and therefore command a higher average price anyway, just by dealing direct with more of their customers. OR perhaps staying in the closet helps them adds to their “mystique value”, whilst those shouting it out loud are perceived as uncool or crass..
As a grower, the worst size you can be is medium – too big to go for the “mystique value”, too small to make cheap “ORGANIC” wine and survive.