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Here’s a quick mention of a few upcoming things that I’ll say more about in the future: First, the book release party for my book Wine Liberated will be held in Ithaca, NY at Autumn Leaves Bookstore on November 14th. Wine will be served. It’s an anarchist book store. I’ll be there, trying to inspire a new odyssey for the next century of wine exploration. Second, the Embracing Hybrid Grapes conference is happening February 21-22 at UC Davis and in Berkeley at the Donkey & Goat winery. Tickets will go on sale in a month-ish, and we are looking for sponsors and hybrid wine producers who want to showcase their herbicide free wine to a thirsty west coast. Third, I’m going to MC Undercurrent 2027, which is THE organic and biodynamic wine conference in New Zealand, maybe the entire southern hemisphere. It’s June 1-3 in Queenstown, and the amazing Alica Anderson of Amvive will be the keynote speaker. Finally, please subscribe at beyondorganicwine.substack.com to support this podcast and all the work of Beyond Organic Wine. Thank you! At this point in history, Halloween 2026, talking about the very scary crisis in agriculture, especially in the US, may be like being on the Titanic and brining attention to the fact that the boilers are flooded. It’s true, and it’s a seriously serious issue… but it’s merely a symptom of much bigger issues. So I start this episode with a quote from my guest as a reminder of where our focus needs to be. I started a boycott of glyphosate and all herbicides in wine because it is an important statement that we don’t need to tolerate discussion about this anymore. The known knowns of glyphosate are utterly damning, and even though there are certainly many unknowns, they give zero reason to excuse its use. And yet this boycott doesn’t solve the larger issues. And Dr. Michelle Perro reminds us of the power and responsibility we have as agents of change, as instigators and initiators. But we need to speak up, stand up, and own our capacity to re-engage with our communities in not letting our lives be dictated by corporations who seek short-term material gain and the power to protect and increase their profit-making ability despite its devastating effects on humans and all of the lives with whom we share this world. Wine invites us to think about the future. We make decisions today in wine that we know we won’t taste, in some cases, for years. Wine asks us to think long-term. To think perennially. To think about systems that exceed our own brief lifetimes. I find it ironic that we think we can’t live and make wine without these novel chemicals that were only invented a few decades ago, that are harmful for us in multiple, intergenerational ways, when our wine cultures were developed over thousands of years without fossil fuels, let alone chemistry, I know it isn’t easy to farm ecologically, but easy is only a short term solution, and short term thinking seems to have created some long term problems. We find ourselves deeply invested in an approach to winegrowing that is only possible with chemicals. But that doesn’t make those chemicals good or wise, and examples to the contrary, the hundreds of folks I’ve interviewed for this podcast, prove that these chemicals are not the only way to grow grapes commercially. I know that there can be pretty extreme consequences to weaning off some of these things when there aren’t other easy alternatives, and it would suck to be the people who bear the burden of those consequences in our lifetime. But I think those consequences can be felt voluntarily by us now or they can be felt by our children involuntarily, because agricultural approaches that are only possible with chemicals are not sustainable in the long term. If you haven’t read my post, How To Grow Wine Without Herbicides, please do. My guest is Dr. Michelle Perro. Dr. Perro is a veteran pediatrician with over four decades of experience in acute and integrative medicine, co-founder and CEO of GMOScience, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. More than fifteen years ago, Dr. Perro transformed her clinical practice to include the health effects from GMOs and their associated pesticides. She has worked as both Emergency Room Director and Attending Physician from New York’s Metropolitan Hospital/New York Medical college to UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, Oakland, CA. Dr. Perro has co-authored the highly acclaimed book, What’s Making our Children Sick. Stay tuned for her upcoming book, Making our Children Well, an instructional guidebook for parents on nutrition and homeopathy. Her charity, GMOScience, has a mission to educate about the connection between regenerative organic agriculture and human health. Her motto is “Educate to Regenerate.” I posted on Instagram about an article Dr. Perro wrote exploring new findings about the way that glyphosate robs our minds of needed metals like lithium and it went viral… 150,000 views later, we had this conversation about how important a vibrant and diverse microbiome are to both humans and grapevines, and the importance of many minerals and metals to human and vine health, and how stupid it is, therefore, to spray ourselves and our vines with a chemical that is both a patented anti-biotic and chelator. 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

Beyond Organic Wine podcast is listener supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. My guest for this episode is Morgan Twain-Peterson, MW. Morgan is the owner and winemaker of Bedrock Wine Co. in Sonoma, CA, a winery dedicated to preserving California’s historic vineyards. The wines have been featured four times in Wine Spectator’s Top 100 List, placing as high as number 9. In 2014, Morgan, alongside friend Tegan Passalacqua, was named the San Francisco Chronicle Co-Winemaker of the Year. In 2017 Morgan became a Master of Wine, making him one of a handful of winemakers in the United States to get that certification. In 2020, Bedrock was named Winery of the Year by Antonio Galloni. Bedrock farms and sources grapes from some of the oldest vineyards in California, preserving some varieties of grapes that no longer exist anywhere else on earth. The Bedrock estate vineyard is Regenerative Organic certified, and produces wine from grapes that are 135 years old. We talk about how to regenerate decades of conventional thinking in viticulture, how regenerative organic viticulture is the best way to prepare for this Super El Nino that’s hitting this winter, nutritional considerations when transitioning to a no-till system, reducing inputs through regenerative viticulture, what we can learn from old vineyards as we consider planting new vineyards, how diversity generates uniqueness, Morgan coins the term “sheep exudates,” and much more. Beyond Organic Wine podcast is listener supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. 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

For those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, Happy Harvest, Merry Samhain, and a Celebratory Equinox to you all wherever you are. This episode is about Magic, the cunning arts that have been practiced for millennia in most cultures. Even if you have clear and strongly held thoughts about Magic, I think it’s important to consider for a moment the space between those thoughts. You don’t have to let go of healthy doubts to admit that any thoughts contained within words, like the ideas of this sentence, are quite limited… threads of logic spun across vast oceans of truth. Our net of language may catch fish, but can it catch the sea? Enlightenment, I’ve heard it said, is the space between thoughts. The practices of Magic are as old as agriculture. And I think we can find something to hold onto in that word “agriculture” or “viticulture,” even as we follow my guest for this episode into realms that are unfamiliar to some of us, myself included. The root of “culture” in viticulture or agriculture is the same root of the word “cult.” It implies both turning or tending the soil, and worshiping, honoring, and caring for it. The same proto-Indo-European root gives us the words “inhabitant” and “servant.” And so we have embedded deep in the roots of our language a reminder that what we do as farmers, as winegrowers - the material work of caring for the soil-plant communities to which we belong – is simultaneously a spiritual rite of worship, of love, for this land, and that this land is our home and our role in relation to it is not to manage it but to serve it. This understanding asks us to re-imagine, in a way that is both literally and figuratively radical, the kinds of perspectives and relationships that have come out of the reductive, materialistic approach to science. My guest for this episode, Todd Elliott, wrote a book to help us with this re-imagining. I see the approach he offers - the cunning approach, the use of Magic - as a way to help us re-imagine our relationship to the community of life as one guided by the ecological intimacy, the devoted dependence, and the deeply rooted love that is our true and ancient relationship with a world teeming with sentience. Whether you believe in Magic or not, I think Todd and his book, The Cunning Farmer: Agrarian Magical Practices, Mythology, and Folklore, can help us approach our interaction with our local ecology, our land, our community, with more curiosity, more care, and deeper connection. And those are all urgently needed things. And re-engaging with our land, re-immersing ourselves in the wild and mysterious communities of life that surround us, may bring a bit of magic back into our wines and our lives. And that may be what actually saves us. Enjoy! Another great book: Wine Liberated 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.com In 2020, Spain experienced one of the worst downy mildew outbreaks in modern history. The conditions were perfect, or perfectly horrible, for downy mildew to spread rapidly. Some producers lost 100% of their crop, even after spraying 15 or more times with fungicides. Albet i Noya already had been growing a block of resistant hybrid varieties in 2020, so…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com What if the multi-year contraction in wine sales is a good thing? So much press and media attention has been given to the causes for the ongoing decline in wine sales, and are we at the bottom, and why aren’t millennials or gen Z drinking, or why they are but we mis-read the data (as if these designations represent real people in any meaningful way), an…

A prejudice-free re-telling of the evolutionary history, as well as the redacted wine history, of the world’s most popular grape. This is a free episode, but Beyond Organic Wine can’t exist without your support. Please subscribe to support. Thank you! 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

Katya, Domaine de Cassagnas - Vivan! Co-op founding member I’m incredibly inspired by this episode for multiple reasons. First, this is about a positive action, a proactive solution, to some of the wine’s biggest issues right now. Secondly, this solution embodies the values I want to promote, increase, and spread in wine, while de-funding the parts of wine that don’t need to continue. This episode answers the questions of how do we increase wine sales for small, beyond organic wine producers? How do we increase profit on every sale of wine they make while also increasing and helping to stabilize their sales? How do we connect drinkers with the people and stories behind the wine that they buy? How do we make it easy to find wine that represents our values? This solution answers all of these questions. The third reason I’m inspired by this episode is because my guest, Gregory Kinsman-Chauvet, is an entrepreneur who is clearly motivated by mission rather than by money, as you’ll hear. Greg is one of the members of the Vivan! Co-op and he is helping to create this online hub for small organic, biodynamic, and natural wine producers to sell directly to consumers without the middleman taking half of the sale price. We started with the overview of what the Vivan Co-op does, and as I began to realize how important this was, I began to consider how I would apply this to the US, since Vivan is exclusively local to Europe. So I began asking details, and then I let the recording continue as we talked about a few other fun topics, so there are some funny surprises toward the end. So have fun and enjoy! This Substack is entirely listener & reader reader-supported. Please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thanks! Raf, Karma Village - Vivan! Co-op member 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.com This episode is first interview with a New Zealand winemaker, and I’m glad to finally be taking us all on a journey to one of the most beautiful and special wine areas on earth, Aotearoa New Zealand, and the sub region of Central Otago, and the sub-sub region of Gibbston. This is Pinot Noir country, and one of the precious few areas on earth where a co…

My guests for this episode are Marta and Cristina of the the Porto Protocol, which is both a resource hub and community promoting climate action for the global wine ecosystem. Because of the emphasis on community that Marta highlights in this conversation, I recorded a special introduction for it. Here’s the text of it: Glyphosate, the main active component in RoundUp, has been considered to be safe because it acts on the shikimate pathway, and the shikimate pathway is not found in mammals. And since we humans are mammals, glyphosate was deemed virtually harmless to us. But what is a human being? Are we individual organisms? What is a grapevine? What is a tree? Who am I in relation to the world around me? Am I independent of it or completely and utterly dependent on it? The fascinating thing about glyphosate is that it has forced us to realize that we are not individual organisms. We are consortiums of myriad and diverse organisms working as a community. We have more micro-organisms in and on us than there are cells that make up our body. Even the mitochondria, that live inside the cells of our bodies are, in a way, little microbial entities with their own needs and characteristics separate from ours… whoever “We” are. As it turns out, bacteria, fungi, archaea, protozoa, and many other forms of microbial life all have the shikimate pathway, and “we” – this community of life to which we attach our human identities – need all of those other lives to be able to live and thrive. So when we use a substance like glyphosate, and saturate our world with it, and eat it, and drink it with almost every bite of food and sip of wine… what does that do to community of life that we call ourselves? When I use glyphosate I dissolve the foundation of “me.” And so glyphosate has shown us how to use the reductive perspective of science to sell corporate, political agendas. It has shown us how to monetize the omissions of faux-objectivity in an interdependent world. It has shown us how to profit off the ignorance implicit in a disconnected world-view that we bless with peer reviewed studies. The questions we don’t ask about these substances that are being sold to us to make our lives easier are the loopholes of our own dissolution. So when I talk about the soil-plant community (rather than referring to individual “plants”), when I talk about grapevines and trees as community builders, when I use the term “community of life” instead of that human-alienated term “nature,” it’s because this shift in perspective is at the root of the cultural revolution that we need to be able to see what’s happening clearly and make real change that will finally enable us to re-envision and stop the insanity of what we’ve been doing to our community in the name of agriculture. The return to a community perspective is not some feel-good phrasing. It is the revolution. In this episode with Marta and Cristina of the Porto Protocol, Marta talks about how the community aspect, the engagement, the sharing and collaborating, is the most valuable resource of all the resources the Porto Protocol has to offer. I hope what I’ve just said makes this resonate even more deeply as you listen. I hope you boycott glyphosate and all herbicides from wine. I hope you exercise extreme skepticism about anything that promotes reductive thinking, hyper-individualism, and disconnection. I hope you see yourself as a host and steward of legions of lives and begin to ask what it means to be human if being human depends on the survival of all of the lives of this world. A special thanks to Lindsay Valdez for connecting me with Marta and Cristina, and for boldly asking great questions. 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.com My guest for this incredible episode is Michael Cook. Michael is the Viticulture Program Specialist for the 55 counties of North Texas with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. His primary function is to provide educational support for the nearly 120 commercial regional vineyards, which grow vinifera, hybrids, and muscadines, by providing workshops,…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com My guest for this episode is Eric Mayer of Napachar, and this episode is all about biochar. After Eric earned a PhD in Environmental Engineering from Stanford University he went looking for a more immediate way to alleviate the climate crisis. When he learned about biochar’s potential for rapidly scalable carbon sequestration and the simple technologies…

My guest for this episode is Pierre Muller. Pierre is an agroforestry consultant and owner of AGECO in Catalonia with a wide range of experience and projects in multiple contexts, and this episode digs into some of my favorite topics and the subjects that I’m personally exploring on the WineForest Farm in New York. Vitiforestry, Agroforestry with Vines, polycultures, married vines and why we don’t like the term “married vines,” agroecology, incorporating permaculture design in wine landscapes, thinking of our wine farms as mosaics, creating alternatives to monoculture by creating communities of collaboration and cooperation, and building some of the most powerful solutions to climate change… and beginning to understand that the secret to those solutions is that we build them first in our minds. Pierre also gives definitions and a metric for evaluating the differences between conventional, sustainable, and regenerative, and they are the best definitions I’ve heard. This is one of the most exciting and inspiring discussions I’ve had with someone working and thinking at the cutting edge of ecological winegrowing. Pierre’s Handbooks and Guides (most available for free): https://www.ecoag.org/en/guides PDF of all the Scientists, Authors, Reference Materials, Books, etc. mentioned in the episode 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.com I want to say a very special thank you to everyone who subscribes and supports Beyond Organic Wine. There has been a surge of support since I called for a boycott of wines grown with herbicide, and that was honestly the last thing I expected and it means a lot to me. “Venenum in Auro Bibitur” My guest for this episode is the brilliant Pauline Vicard who…

On July 22, 2026, Adam L. Huss of the Beyond Organic Wine podcast and Substack, with the support and cooperation of dozens of other wineries, wine sales professionals, and wine educators around the world, has announced a global boycott of all wines produced from vineyards that use herbicides, including glyphosate (RoundUp). # boycottherbicidewine #boycottglyphosatewine Huss states: “Herbicides are not necessary to grow wine. In fact, by degrading soil health they decrease the potential quality of wine. It’s time we start defining ‘great wine’ in a way that includes the most important aspect of its greatness: how it was grown. There is no excuse for using herbicides in viticulture that can rationalize the harm they cause to human and environmental health. We drink wine to add beauty to our lives, and herbicides only create ugliness.” Beyond Organic Wine is entirely listener & reader-supported. Please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thank you. Inspired by the story and activism of a fellow winemaker living with cancer, Nick Dugmore of Stoke Wines in Australia, as well as the recent executive order by US president Donald Trump to increase glyphosate production, and the US Supreme Court decision which further removes the power of people to protect themselves from the potential harms of glyphosate, Huss announced the boycott to call attention to the pervasive use of herbicides in winegrowing, and to generate a groundswell of support and education aimed at peer-pressuring wine producers, wine sellers, wine reviewers, and wine drinkers to stop supporting the use of herbicides in wine. “Karen MacNeil has taken a very public stance in opposition to the use of unnecessarily heavy glass wine bottles. She and others have decided that there isn’t any good excuse for using these heavy bottles, and the resulting harm from the increased CO2 footprint is significant enough to take action. So she has publicly refused to review wines sent to her in heavy bottles. This is really important, and I and many others support this whole-heartedly. We are at the same point in history when it comes to the use of herbicide in the growing of grapes,” Huss says. “I’ve found that many people who love wine already have this boycott in place in their personal lives. Now we all need to take a very public stance against the use of these unnecessary chemicals in the production of wine because the harm to wine quality, human health, and the greater community of life far outweighs any perceived benefits.” Glyphosate (packaged and sold as Roundup by Bayer/Monsanto) is the most used pesticide on earth, and because of that it will inevitably become the “poster child” of the boycott, Huss says. But there are many other herbicides: Atrazine, Trifluralin, Pendimethalin, Glufosinate, 2-4D, Dicamba, among others. Though some of these are not used in wine production, due to the fact that they kill vines on contact, the boycott is against all herbicides in wine. “The question I’ve gotten the most since the announcement of the boycott is ‘How do I know if a wine was made from vineyards that use glyphosate?’,” Huss says. “It takes some work, but it’s important we do this work, and there are some short-cuts. First, if a wine or its vineyards are certified Organic, Biodynamic, or Regenerative Organic, you can rest assured that no glyphosate or chemical herbicides were used to grow the wine. Unfortunately, most other ‘sustainability’ certifications for vineyards allow the use of glyphosate and other herbicides (Napa Green is a notable exception as of 2026). Secondly, if a wine doesn’t have one of these certifications that prohibit herbicides, ask them directly. Literally call them and ask them if they use herbicides. Some other rules of thumb: if their website only talks vaguely about their farming practices and refers to them as sustainable without getting into details, that’s a red flag. Also, look at the winery website for photos of the vineyards. If there aren’t any, that’s suspect, and if there are photos and there is bare or mostly bare dirt under the vines, especially if it’s a neat strip of bare dirt next to strips of grass growing between the rows, that’s a huge red flag. They could be tilling under vine, but most often they’re spraying glyphosate. If a winery website has no mention of their farming at all, that’s a red flag. And lastly, as a rule of thumb, if you’re buying wine in a grocery store and it doesn’t have organic, biodynamic, or regenerative organic certification, and you don’t have time to investigate further, you can assume they used herbicides. Its use is the unfortunate default for industrial wine production.” How you can get involved: 1. Spread the word – Post about your participation in the boycott on your social media, websites, newsletters. Talk about it in your restaurants and put it on wine lists. Put a sign announcing the boycott on the door of your wine shop or winery. Announce it on the invitation to your wine tasting. Do your own press release to local press about your participation in the boycott. Be clever and have fun with this. Go viral. 2. Take action – Enact a zero tolerance policy toward glyphosate in wine. Quit the wine clubs you belong to if the wineries use herbicides. Don’t buy wine that you aren’t sure was made without herbicides (if you don’t know, you can assume it was made with glyphosate), stop serving wine made with glyphosate at meals and in restaurants, at wine tastings and fundraisers. Stop selling wine made with herbicides in your shops, bars, restaurants. Stop reviewing and recommending wines made with herbicides in your magazines, social media, and other publications and media. Do this publicly and loudly. Ask your local wine shop to start a “No herbicides section” and help them determine the wines that should go into it. Let people know that the use of glyphosate in wine is inexcusable and should be eliminated. #boycottherbicidewine #boycottglyphosatewine Beyond Organic Wine cannot exist without you. Please consider subscribing. 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

Matt Johnson Ph.D. is a wildlife ecologist, ornithologist, agroecologist, and a professor in the Department of Wildlife at Cal Poly Humboldt in Northern California. This episode looks at the amazing solutions and incredible benefits that winegrowers can incentivize by actively welcoming songbirds and owls onto wine landscapes… as well as the beautifully rich and wonderful world that can result from opening yourself to relationships with the more than human members of your world. Resource links: Matt’s pdf presentation, with data, charts, visuals, and mind blowing info of all kinds. Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat (book) Rambunctious Garden (book) Wild Souls (book) Wesley The Owl (book) Death In The Vineyard, Part 1 - Sympathy for Vole d’Mort 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