Alice, I applaud your eagle eyes on the wine list, esp in the face of a server who thinks you're a total freak for caring. I had a similar encounter recently in Cali, only it was for a much more minor offense: I turned a glass back (my dad's actually) because it was corked. The server didn't understand what I meant by "corked" (even after a sommelier-worthy explanation), and finally replaced the glass with a different red because, she explained, we "didn't like the first one." Nevermind that I had asked her to simply open another bottle of the same and pour it for my old man. I guess, sometimes, it's just a pain to be right.

here's my round-up for those kind of salespeople

O for obstinant
B for belligerent
S for snooty
V for vacuous

thanks for the info and the insights-AC

What's next?...LCFI...Low Carbon Footprint Index?

I don't know what's worse, that 'organic' and 'biodynamic' and 'sustainable' are used as 'marketing' terms (let's leave alone for the moment the horror that 'marketing' is merely a form of calculated mis-information)instead of conveying real meaning, or that people in the wine business sometimes just lie about what they are selling, either through ignorance or greed. (And in this case there are several guilty parties, including salespeople who will say anything is "organic" to make a sale, and a buyer who let this happen instead of doing a modicum of research and tasting in order to find out what Pure Wine might be. Never mind the poor waiter who is just saying his lines and has no interest in the truth; he's an aspiring actor after all, not a truth-seeker.)
So thank goodness for the Byron Bateses of the world who use their power for good. AND, look who's actually converting people. That's great!

Hi -

Just came back from the national biodynamic farming conference near sacramento, ca (which was amazing, but that’s perhaps a bit off topic).

Saw your blog posting about organic/sustainable wines. I hate the term sustainable, as you do, because it just means chemical farming.

But I overheard a grape grower telling a story about another guy (obviously not at the conference) who said, “ya, really, I farm my grapes organically, ‘cept I just spray a little RoundUp”

So much greenwashing going on these days. I plan to meet with a group that wants to strengthen the Demeter-USA standards so they really, really distance themselves from USDA organic.

SOOOOOO many reps come with wines saying they are organically farmed, ‘cause they figure that’s what I want to hear. RARELY is it true.

Byron is doing some great stuff at Bette.

Are you telling me they serve raw, or nearly raw morels? It's one thing to screw up the arcana of a wine list, and it's another to put your customers in the hospital.

Aside from my general notion that you should cook stuff you pick up off the ground in the woods before you eat it, there are famous cases of mass poisonings with raw morels. A retirement luncheon for the Vancouver Chief of Police had 77 local worthies puking their guts out. There is a heat-inactivated toxin in morels, and while you don't have to incinerate them, they taste better with a little caramelization anyway.

Good thoughts, I like the wine cop thing.
But to address Bonny Doon and being organic as of June 07 and that the 07 vintage will be their first organic release, it does take seven years to be "certified" organic. So they would have been "practicing" organic methods to get certification. Previous vintages from the Santa Cruz Vineyard would still be considered organic just "uncertified" until the 07 vintage. On the Bio part, I have no clue.
Keep up the good writing!

Just a wee bit of correction. Legally, it takes only three years to convert to organic from chemical and not seven.

I am a wine salesman. Our company sells mostly small estate stuff. Italy and Austria. We have one winemaker that is certified biologic on the label. But this is only because he is big enough to afford the procedure. We have another winemaker that has decided to pony up the sum to have certified organic on her label, mainly because, she says, she's sick of the growers that lie about their organic growing practices. As winemaking, and its attendant task--grape growing--is, perhaps, the highest form of farming (to state it all too simply), there is a kind of competition to create the purest and best of the form--at least in Europe, anyway. My experience is that, at least with the best winemakers, organic certification is no more than a sideshow--a piece of entertainment. Certain customers may demand it. And this is particularly true with the American consumer, who is often absorbed needlessly in an over-emphasis on the particular and definitive instead of the referential and inferred (this should be entirely different topic, mostly having to do with language versus understanding, and I wheep, this is the land we live in and the language we speak.) But, most of the time, a good winemaker is an organic winemaker, anyway. They are in the act of expressing terrior. They, therefore fear chemicals--not part of the terrior, right? But then, they refuse certification because they hate the cost second, and dealing with the red tape first. But finally, perhaps with the best of intentions, all kinds of manipulation takes place in winemaking. This, more than anything else, drives me nuts. Nobody (or only a minute few) is going to own up to what the hell is going on in the cellar, no matter what. I personally would love it if there were comprehensive explainations of what is in the wine and what went into making the wine, required by law on each and every label. If this could happen, there would be no end to the scope of the consequences. And, I think, all good.