Frey Vineyards: in harmony with their land

Arrowhead Mills has been doing this for decades in Texas, with cereal grains and nuts and seeds. Their flour, nut butters, and baking mixes are fabulous.

When I was a wine consultant I often tried to encourage the local brokers to bring Frey wines in, but they were roundly disdained as easily spoiled, bad tasting, and organic, which for some reason was used as an epithet. I can only attribute that to ignorance, since their wines that I tasted were very good. I'm happy that they have persevered and I hope they prosper.

Maybe it was because I was raised amid engineers and chemists, but I've never bought the idea of 'natural' as being necessarily better than designed.  Wine's essential ingredient is ethanol (one of the alcohols) and there are a lot of ways of manufacturing ethanol (same for methanol, isopropyl alcohol, etc, etc.)  Plants are simply little biochemical factories.  And a lot of 'plant chemistry' consists in producing toxins to ward off predatory animals.  (Yep, we live in a 'natural world' in which chemical and biological warfare far predated the existence of homo sapiens).  

I guess part of my puzzlement about 'New Age gardening' is that it focuses on such a tiny thing while really big stuff (nukes, nanotech, biochemical weapons, etc) is ignored.  All of what humans produce is 'natural' (except maybe ideas, though they too are ultimately biochemical patterns in our brains....).  

Given the disproportionate number of humans on this relatively tiny planet, I suspect we are on a one-way journey (collectively as well as individually, sad to say...).   Maybe in a sublimely spiritual world (i.e. a non-existent one) we could stop applying technology to keep our civilization afloat awhile longer, but that's not an option.  If it makes some folks happier to live in a New Age bubble, that's fine -- but it won't feed the masses of people all over the world.  I don't think it would even provide enough ethanol to keep their minds 'messed up' so they could have 'happier lives'.

P.S. It isn't that I don't love nature (I do!) or that I don't love humans (I do!).  It's just that loving nature and homo sapiens has a common thread.  Our emotions crash into realities, and among these are disease, death, and time.  Brad Pitt (of all people!) made an interesting comment on very recent Charlie Rose show to the effect that the more one loves, the worse the pain when one's love object disappears.  The Buddhist answer is to become emotionally detached and thereby avoid the suffering.  I'm not so sure....  but equally I'm convinced that ignoring horror and tragedy isn't very smart either.  And my contacts with 'New Age' stuff persuades me they emulate the ostrich, hiding its head in the sand.  Sorry if this offends... it's because I care that I write.

WAY OFF TOPIC.... but I thought some of you might enjoy this!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/27/AR2008122700615.html?hpid=moreheadlines

(Yes I do sleep... but I break it up into four-hour blocks for no coherent reason...)

I'm with you, Doc, Nature gave us poison ivy and copperheads as well as sunshine, botulina as well as penicillin.

  I am glad Mr. Peterman enjoys Biodynamics, but I am curious as to Demeter  (a Greek Goddess) offering her certification. What next? Zeus endorsed hotrods? Persephone- approved pomegranates?

You know, it's pretty obvious that a small farm disturbs the neighborhood a lot less than a large one, and so far as there is space, that is probably the better way to go. Of course, that would mean a lot of us would have to give up on working in town and actually raise the food we eat as a full time job, somehow managing to sell enough to pay taxes, fuel costs, and the Peterman invoices.  It would work until you started doling out urbanites onto rural tracts- Anybody remember Oliver Wendell Douglas?

The US has about 3.5 million square miles of land area and a little over 300 million people. That sounds like 100 people per square mile. If you knocked out most of the people in Manhattan and LA who'd rather order in, you would be down to the high 90s per square mile. A square mile is 640 acres, meaning today there are approximately 7 acres per human animal in this country. That's way down from 40 acres and a mule.

Just as cities have developed with skyscrapers, unpleasantly concentrated factory farms have appeared,  with not very many square feet per pig or calf. How else do we expect to have plenty of legroom for the ones who are paying the bills?

 I envy anyone who has 7 acres, even more  35 acres for the family of five, but you really have to deduct all of those national parks, state parks, parking lots and oh, yeah, the roads that connect us, too. 

And how many acres of planting ( planting what, will that grow here?) does it take to feed that family of five. Did you leave room for a newly bailed out Big Three plant somewhere, or a textile factory to make up for the fact that mom can't knit polar fleece and the kids can't stand  sweaters made from a sheep they actually know? 

Let's face it, we are living in the last few generations that will be able to afford such cuteness as fertilizing the vines with Buttercup's Own Organic Cowpies.

Interestingly, Wikipedia states the world population density is  33 per square mile. Maybe Wiki Math is more accurate than mine. I do not know. That same article lists countries in order of population density ( By square kilometer, darn it). And even though we all know a pound of feathers is much lighter than a pound of bricks,   the US is about midway in the world's density sweepstakes ( Macau and Monaco, at roughly 18,000 and 17,000 per square km are at the top, we are at  #180, with 31.   Canada and Australia have three . Mongolia has roughly one and a half, but I understand it is a very dry heat...)

I hope you have a nice sunday.

wt

Truer words were never spoken.  Thanks, Doc.  I have long echoed your sentiments about natural vs. designed.  Molecules are molecules, no matter who made them or for what purpose. 

Recently, Cooks Illustrated magazine compared artificial vanilla and 'real' vanilla.  The compound of interest here, vanillin, is exactly the same-except one is man made in a lab.  Their conclusion, after numerous taste tests by what seems like a seriously OCD staff, was that artificial tasted better.  Lab analysis showed the artifical contains more vanillin.

But, I still buy the real stuff.  Brainwashed?

Everything can have its place in the world if done with measure, concern and affection for others and regard for the future.

Although its a windy, blustery Sunday morning........ it's a sunny one and I'm just gonna chillin' and going for a drive today so I second WT's "I hope you have a nice sunday.".

The conceit that we know everything that's in natural products seems to me to echo that of the late nineteenth century, that still persists in many down the years, that if we don't know of it, it's not important. But we are always finding new substances in food, plants, and all sorts of matter, that have powerful effects upon our bodies, our lives. Our hapless FDA, a henhouse over whom each succeeding administration reliably appoints a Big Pharma fox (or some other corporate machinator), provides us with regular lessons to this point, but our learning is retarded by greed and hope for miracles.

Chemists can take any substance, regardless of how revolting (margarine comes to mind), and add enough sugar, salt, and artificial flavors and colours to fool us into believing it's edible. This does not make it of the same value as the real thing, whose composition we only begin to fathom. Multiple vitamins are wonderful, useful additions to our daily regimen, but they cannot replace the spectrum of nutriments, known and unknown, in whole foods. In much the same way, chemical fertilizers are proven insufficient, and we cannot say that our synthetic products are in every way of the same value to our metabolisms as the natural ones. This is, in my opinion, a form of hubris, and we all should know where that leads...

I hope you had a refreshing beverage to assist in the perusal of that dry dissertation. I will leave you with something a bit lighter:

http://www.langston.com/Fun_People/1995/1995BKM.html

"Oh Barkeep!  I'll have me one of those dry dissertations on the rocks with extra olives please.  They do sharpen one's outlook don'tcha know" :) says Peter Lake as he turns his chair around, straddles it and rests his elbows on the back hoping to hear some tall tales.

yeah,

640 K ought to be enough for anybody. Any more than that is selfish.

I'm just happy that the smoke has cleared from the debacle that developed from the Night Before Christmas poem.  Give peace a chance.

Gotta agree with Olivia's reminder that our knowledge of biochemistry is still cursory... Gee, I wish I were a teenager looking out at the vast fields of 'the unknown' waiting to be discovered in that field... What an adventure awaits our young explorers!!!

Wells said Caprichosmorales, I couldn't agree more.

Gotta go start dinner, see you guys tomorrow.

Hmm ~ GGlad I had the chance to check in today ~ Frey wines look like they could be a option for the Wednesday Nite Festivities. We always like to try somehting new & different so why not ring in '09 with an organic wine? Will have to see if they are sold in this area.

Nachista ~ Molly will adjust, just her give her a little time, although the most common phrase in our house now with 2 dogs is Stop Chewing on your Borther. the younger one seems to think the olders ones ears are toys... But it took a few months for the older one to acclaimate & now they get along pretty well.

Rings90,

Spring training is just around the corner ...... pitchers and catchers will be reporting to AZ in no time.  This will be the Cubs century.  They just lulled the rest of the league into a false sense of security over the last hundred years.  Long-term planning will lead them to the promised land.

Stoney,

Do you have any snow left in your neck of the woods?  Our thunder storms pretty much took care of our 16 inches of snow.  We've now got a big head start on this springs car-eating-jaw-cracking pot holes.

Hope your holidays have been exceptionally good to you and your family.

Be well

Peter Lake ~ I'm in total agreement with your assessment of THIS being the Cubbies Year. Am ready for you to send that rain a little bit further north, spent all weekend shoveling out my parents weekend retreat. Snow was up to my Knees in places, totally lost the dogs in a few cave ins & woke up this AM to about 3 more inches of the white powder on the ground.  What a winter we are having here..... Snowbanks as high as the vechiles.....Well at least its organic...    

Well done, Rings. Being a Cubs fan is the mark of gentleman, a man of long suffering patience, and impeccable moral fiber. Smartly done. I shall join you in our victory march when the Cubs are finally acknowledged as the true champions of sport.

And we've got PILES of snow left up in Lake Arrowhead. One of those monstrous snow eating machines was out today cutting four foot high walls on the edges of all our roads. I was sure I saw bits of a Hyundai coming out the end.

Rings90 & Jonathan,

Have you seen the movie version of "Bleacher Bums"?  There is a speech at the end that will bring a tear to the eye of any Cub fan.

Next century is finally here!!!!!!!!!!!

Peter Lake,

We're down to about sixteen inches on the level after a soggy couple of days thanks for asking and for your kind wishes.

To sum up how the hoidays are going: I spent an hour and a half today watching our tow headed four year old grandson having a nap in a little ship's bed beneath a window. An embarrassment of riches all by itself.

Cubs: If Derek Lee can play to his career average while cutting down on hitting into DPs and Fukodome avoids a Lou Gehrig first half followed by a Lou Costello second, it's all good!