Beyond Organic Wine

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.comChristopher Renfro – Adam TolmachHey welcome to Beyond Organic Wine, I’m Adam Huss, thank you so much for listening.This episode features audio from the Embracing Hybrid Grapes Conference that took place at UC Davis on January 26th, 2026.This episode is available for paid subscribers to the Beyond Organic Wine substack. You can subscribe and listen to t…

My guest for this episode is Terah Bajjalieh. Terah is a California winemaker, sommelier, and founder of Terah Wine Co., crafting intentional wines that champion underrepresented Mediterranean varietals and organic farming practices. With 14 harvests across five countries and a Master’s degree in Enology from France, she brings a global perspective to California winemaking. Her wines—described by the New York Times as “superb” and recognized in Wine Enthusiast’s Future 40 Tastemakers 2024—are vibrant, textured, and built for connection. As a female, LGBTQ+, Arab American winemaker, Terah is committed to elevating lesser-known voices and varietals in the wine industry.That’s Terah’s official bio, and there are so many important nuggets of connectedness in it… But I want to add that I’ve had the pleasure of working with Terah and some of her best qualities aren’t things that usually go into a wine bio. Terah supports and shows kindness to everyone she knows. She looks for ways to help and helps generously when she can. I’ve never heard her speak a disparaging word about anyone. She bought a ticket and attended the Embracing Hybrid Grapes conference even though she doesn’t work with hybrid grapes and doesn’t intend to, but simply because she knew I wanted her to be there. She’s the kind of person who, like her fellow Bay Area natives Alyssa Liu, Autumn Durald Arkapaw, and many others makes me proud to be a Californian, and makes me hopeful just knowing she’s out there doing her thing. Her thing, in this case, just happens to be beautiful wine. And she’s one of the best arguments that I can think of for supporting small producers. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.comThis episode features Ron Lane, who retired as Superintendent of Agriculture for the UC Davis Environmental Horticulture and Plant Sciences Departments to found Circadian Crop Sciences. During his academic experience he became frustrated by the toxic effects of sulfur and copper in our wine and food crops and began looking for safer and more effective a…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.comThis episode features Deirdre Heekin’s keynote speech at Embracing Hybrid Grapes. Deirdre’s winery is La Garagista in Vermont. We decided to title her keynote “The Vineyard of Lost Time” because Deirdre has a book coming out later this year by that title, and part of her presentation was an excerpt from her book. So her language becomes poetic, inspiri…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.comThis episode features audio from the Embracing Hybrid Grapes Conference that took place at UC Davis on January 26th, 2026.It shouldn’t be controversial for me to say that the genetics of our wine crops should one of the important criteria used in determining if we qualify as practicing regenerative viticulture. It shouldn’t be controversial to say that …

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.comThis episode features the audio from the first panel at the Embracing Hybrid Grapes Conference that took place at UC Davis on January 26th, 2026.This episode is available for paid subscribers to the Beyond Organic Wine substack. You can subscribe and listen to the full audio on the Substack app or at beyondorganicwine.substack.com. And a huge thanks to …

Johannes Pinchbeck is a Canadian grape breeder who lives north of Edmonton, Alberta and develops grapes that can take sub-arctic cold and still be productive. The extremity of his climate introduces aspects of grape growing that seem unbelievable, and that remind me of how mind-blowingly amazing these plants are that have adapted to survive in these conditions. Enjoy this journey to explore a kind of viticulture you probably never imagined possible. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.comElaine Chukan Brown is a gifted writer, speaker, and global wine educator, as well as an outspoken advocate of diversity in our wine cultures… and everywhere. Elaine has won many awards and honors including Wine Communicator of the Year. But more than that, Elaine is a badass, beautiful human being who I learn from every time we talk. Every presentation…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.comThis episode features Will Bucklin of Bucklin Old Hill Ranch. Will is the caretaker of one of California’s oldest vineyards, and he discusses some of the many things we can learn from a vineyard that is over 150 years old. One of the remarkable things about a vineyard that old is that it pre-dates the Green Revolution and the industrialization of modern…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.comHey, this is Beyond Organic Wine, and this episode features audio from the Embracing Hybrid Grapes conference that took place on International Hybrid Grape Day, January 26, 2026, at UC Davis in California. This audio is only available for subscribers, and features Matt Niess of North American Press telling his story of how he became the first and only w…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.comThis episode features Zach Geballe of the VinePair Podcast. Zach’s experience as a wine and drinks communicator for VinePair builds on years of experience as a sommelier and beverage director in restaurants. He and the VinePair team do a great job of staying informed and having informed perspectives, and sometimes strong opinions, about the wine and bev…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.comOn January 26, 2026, I and Elodie Oliver produced a historic conference at UC Davis that was dedicated exclusively to the benefits of hybrid grapes for California wine. I will be releasing the audio from each of the keynotes, presentations, and panels for Beyond Organic Wine substack subscribers. This is the first of that audio. I hosted and gave this w…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.comThis episode features Derrick Vogel, a grape grower in northern Michigan, and the co-owner of Folklor Wine & Cider with Izabela Babinska. Derrick introduces us this unique winegrowing region at the northern edge of where Vitis vinifera can grow thanks to the buffering influence of lake Michigan, and where hybrid grapes are just as common because of the …

I had such a great time on my first trip and was so impressed by the wines that I went back to Quebec for a second trip and discovered another fantastic producer who has been certified organic since 2021, growing a few select vinifera and several hybrids, and making some outstanding wines. They are Vignoble Sugar Hill and please do yourself a favor and try their wines. This is a second career for the owners, and their first career must have been successful, because the winemaking at Sugar Hill indulges in the one secret ingredient to making incredible wines that almost no one can afford: TIME. They have a sparking vidal blanc for sale right now that spent 12 YEARS, not months, 12 YEARS on lees before disgorging… it is the best expression of Vidal Blanc I’ve ever tasted and one of the best sparkling wines I’ve ever had. They have a St Pepin that is not only the best St. Pepin I’ve ever had, but was so good that I almost smuggled a case across the border so that I could share it at the Embracing Hybrid Grapes conference… I didn’t but there’s still hope for those of you coming… the good folks at Sugar Hill maybe sending a representative with wine to the conference. Then there’s the Dolce Luna, their off dry wine that will convert you to off dry, made with a blend of hybrids…. We talk about all these and more, and we talk about them in English, Quebecois, and Spanish… because their vineyard manager and winemaker Jorge is Guatemalan, and one of members of the small team there, Ariane, acted as translator for us and gave her own input… so this is a fun and colorful conversation about cold climate viticulture and some of the most precision winemaking of some of the best examples of hybrid wines you’ll find anywhere. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com/subscribe

Reflections on some of the big questions of 2025, and recommendations of some of my favorite books from 2025. An end of year wish for you and your wine, and a big thank you to everyone who makes Beyond Organic Wine possible. I hope to see you at Embracing Hybrid Grapes on January 26, 2026.Embracing Hybrid Grapes in California. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com/subscribe

What if I told you that you could take a piece of degraded, marginal land with 3.5 pH soils and turn it into an agricultural production system with five times the productivity of neighboring conventional farms without using any fertilizer or pesticides or outside inputs besides sunlight, seeds, and plants? What if I told you that there are decades of data to support this and that it can be done anywhere, and that this system makes grapes more productive, healthier, and more delicious?Erik Schellenberg is the Commercial Horticulture and Natural Resources Educator at Cornell Cooperative Extension. He runs Black Creek Farm & Nursery in the Hudson Valley of New York, and he’s implementing a commercial scale married vine (or vite maritata) vitiforestry polyculture. If you don’t know what married vines are, it means growing vines on and with living trees as their trellising. But I prefer to think of it as the “Three Sisters” of perennial agriculture, in the sense that I don’t think the emphasis should be solely on the vine… I mean why isn’t it called a married tree? But that we should think of these living partnerships as polycultural guilds with symbiotic and stacking benefits.In this episode, Erik outlines a syntropic approach to agroforestry, and breaks down how this system works whether you’re growing cacao and coffee in Brazil, or grapes in Switzerland… and anywhere else. You likely have some appreciation for the importance of trees. But so much of our approach from a viti-forestry perspective is about how to integrate trees into our wine monocultures without hurting productivity, and sometimes we even may argue that we have to sacrifice productivity for ecological reasons. After listening to Erik present how syntropic agroforestry with vines works, you will begin to see that not only is using trees the most productive way of growing vines, but that without trees we will be handicapped in our efforts to farm with fewer inputs and to increase health and resilience. In this system, pruning functions almost exactly like rotational grazing, and really takes regenerative viticulture to the next level, where we think of perennials as cover crops… but even that doesn’t capture it exactly.This is a kind of viticulture that embodies succession, the ecological process that most of our vineyards fight against, and how humans become the regenerative partners we are meant to be in our communities. We dig into the details of vitiforestry and how to select the right tree to grow with vines. And we get into the myth of invasive species… and even some ecological solutions for the spotted lantern fly.There’s a moment in this episode in which Erik talks about how a tree responds when it gets pruned, and I got goosebumps thinking about what it would mean if we followed this example. And there’s another mind blowing moment where he discusses the ecological function of a vine and how vines may be the plant equivalent of a mastodon or elephant, and how that informs pruning and developing an early successional wineforest for their greatest productivity.I was excited about growing vines with trees before, but now I can’t imagine growing them any other way. Enjoy! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com/subscribe

My guest for this episode is Nika Carlson of Greenpoint Cidery in Hudson, New York. There are some unique and wonderful aspects of what Nika does that make this conversation fun and enlightening in ways that I find thrilling and inspiring…. She planted her estate orchard entirely from wild seedling apple trees that she selected from her region. She ferments a landscape of flavors, including herbal and floral ingredients in her concoctions. She lives part-time, nearly off-grid at the orchard. And she offers a cider CSA by sailboat on the Hudson River. She also introduced me to a wonderful book titled “Folk Wines, Cordials, and Brandies” by anarchist and puppeteer, M. A. Jagendorf, a source of inspirations and recipes for a incorporating more diversity into our fermentation cultures, much like Nika is herself. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com/subscribe

My guest for this episode is Joseph Brinkley. Joseph is the Senior Director of Regenerative Organic Farming at Bonterra. He oversees farming of Bonterra’s 800+ acres of estate vineyards in Mendocino County, all of which are farmed with organically. Bonterra is one of the largest organic B-corporation wineries in the US, and they are now the largest winery to achieve Regenerative Organic certification. Joseph discusses the importance of the social focus of the Regenerative Organic certification, which is unique in nearly all wine certification requirements. Since 2011 Joseph has helped Bonterra show the world that ecological best practices in viticulture, which includes the entire community, can be done at any scale, and they do this while producing delicious wines for under around $15 a bottle. We discuss all of this, biodynamics, hybrid grapes in California, and much more.Enjoy! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.comMy guests for this episode are Julia and Alex Alvarez-Perez of Usonia Wine in the Finger Lakes region of New York… and they will be sponsoring Embracing Hybrid Grapes in California with two of their wines… and I’m very much looking forward to sharing them with those of you who attend… you are in for a surprise and a treat…Very much like you are in for …

My guest for this episode is Franz Weninger of organic and biodynamic certified Weingut Weninger in Horitschon, Austria… and you, dear listener, are in for a treat. Franz is a second generation winegrower who thinks deeply about the soil, the plants, the systems and ideas that go into the ecology of wine. He offers practical and surprising insights into how to grow vinifera with less sprays, how to design vineyards for human psychological health as well as environmental health, how using highly-resistant hybrids shouldn’t be an excuse for neglecting our vines but an opportunity to care for them in different, less obligatory ways, how hybrids shouldn’t be an excuse for keeping high-density monoculture, and how a single tree can benefit a vineyard, and how if we don’t want to picnic in a vineyard… maybe we shouldn’t drink the wine from it.If this talk inspires you as much as it inspired me, you might want to check out weninger.com where Franz has published many posts that dig even deeper in to his thoughtful and revolutionary approach to winegrowing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com/subscribe