Here's an article that ran in WINE BUSINESS MONTHLY last summer.

Organic Farming in Dry Creek Vineyards
By John Intardonato
From Daily News Links, 07/03/2007


The Sonoma County Grape Growers Association sponsored an organic farming short course at the Michel-Schlumberger Wine Estate in Dry Creek on Wednesday. With more than 50 grape growers from Carneros to Cloverdale attending, winemaker and vineyard manager Mike Brunson took the group on a field study of the 100 acre, organically-certified, hillside vineyard and winery.

"We not only grow 14 different wine varietals here and on Bradford Mountain, we have an organic garden, sheep and chickens, some bees, and a whole bunch of things going on to maintain the vitality of the place," Brunson said. He noted that the winery stopped using pesticides in the mid 1990s, and they are still getting between 3 and 3.5 ton to the acre. "We're getting great flavor from smaller berries, and fewer seeds."

Balance is the key to organic farming, while making it a sustainable operation is the bottom line, according to Brunson; and letting nature work for you, is what makes the concept work in the grower's favor.

"Under-vine care is a big deal in organics," he said. "Because so much more hand work is involved, we bring in sheep to remove the suckers for us, and they keep down the weeds, too. The sheep do an awesome job. They leave a little wool here and there, but all in all they do a really good job in the initial growth stage." Once the vines have extensive leaf and fruit growth, Brunson said they resort to an under vine mower and weed eaters.

He admitted that buying a goat flock would involve up front costs, so the winery "borrows" the animals from a local goat farm for three to four months during the year."Besides weeding for us, they provide some great fertilizer, and you can't make a machine like that. Plus they're fun."

He said they have only watered once this year, and twice for the Zinfandel at the higher elevations. For mildew they applied one oil spray, and used wettable sulphur twice, and dusted once. "We think that's it for the season, too," Brunson said. A minimalist at farming, he said organics saves on water and on sulfuring as well. "Our canopies aren't thick and cluttered, so we don't see a lot of mildew pressure."

Using compost made from their grape pomace combined with a cover crop have kept their vineyard virtually insect free. "The advantages of a permanent cover crop are enormous. Not only do we have a really good balance going, we haven't put out any lacewings or lady bugs for a couple of years now. This spring, we saw an enormous growth of them right on the property. We think this high resident population is due to the permanent covercrop. They have somewhere to go and they have a nice cool place to get under the mat if they need to." He said, noting they do not have the mite problems some of their neighbors have.

Their one big problem was pocket gophers, which was resolved with a rodenator and natural predators. "Two or three years ago we lost over 400 vines to gophers," Brunson said. "We took an aggressive stance. We used a rodenator the first year, and followed with raptor perches for hawks, and some owl hutches, and it's really knocking down the population. We think we're maintaining a balance with the raptors, and the snakes are great, too."

Brunson said their composting program has maintained their soil during the past four to five years without using any man-made fertilizers. "We've been putting compost down every year, and mainly by hand, from the back of an ATV or tractor. You just have to be patient enough to let it leach through. We're helping it by doing a little thing called shallow incorporation. It's not really discing, but just running the disc lightly over the ground and pureeing it a little. One of our primary goals is to make sure the water that comes off this ranch isn't dirty. Were trying to get our ranch as close to wild as we can and still be doing agriculture and be economically sustainable as well. We're proud of the fact that we have one of the three blue streams up here that actually has cohoe salmon in it."

He said the winery is fighting the latest threat, the vine mealy bug with an aggressive monitoring and trapping system. "We do our own microscope work," he said. "I'm happy with the balance we have, and think we have a way better chance with our balance than those dependent on sprays and insecticides. And we think it's showing in the balance and flavors of our wines."

Judy Tuhtan, sustainable practices coordinator for the growers, organized the event. Lori