All vines are created equal. All vines are not cultivated equally.
Here are two vineyards, one cultivated naturally, or biologically, and the second - conventionally. Can you tell the difference?
It always scares me when I see a "perfect" vineyard, or any cultivated field for that matter, where there's no life. In the vineyard in the front, you can feel the crawling, the slither, the jumping, the pulsation - all types of movements of life. At the same time, the second vineyard in the back looks like a chemical warfare zone.
In both places vines grow and produce grapes. The grapes are turned into wine. And someone will tell you that none of the chemicals used to burn the soil in the second vineyard will get into the wine you may innocently drink.
Truth is that if you do drink wine only occasionally and if you don't care about the poisoning of soil then drinking conventionally grown wines is fine. Cheers!
Truth is that just like all living creatures vines do have perceptions about their surroundings. They interact with the living organisms around them. They absorb life.
I often imagine that a vine surrounded by tens and hundreds of other different plants has conversations with them. They talk about the day, the weather, the food and even about the predators. Crazy! Leaving out the romantic view, scientists call this "chemical communication."
Such chemical communication happens because of "volatile organic compounds (VOCs) [that] can be released from leaves, fruits, and flowers. VOCs play various roles in plant development, survival, and gene expression." Inquiring minds can read more about this at "Whisper Down the Vine: Plant Communication."
A conventional vine producing conventional grapes has no life experiences at all. It grows in a sterile environment, does not communicate, thus does not learn anything about life, does not teach anything to its kids - the grapes. Sadly, the grapes contain exactly what the synthetic fertilizer had to give to them. How come then the wine "connoisseurs" talk about the variety of fruit aromas and flavors in wine? Well, we, the hominids, have not yet managed to completely kill the equally created nature of vines. Not yet.
If you are reading this you are smart enough to have heard and know that "a wine is made in the vineyard." But did you ever ask which vineyard? Or what vineyard?
One thing is sure - every glass we raise when filled with conventionally grown wine promotes nothing but deterioration of life.
There's a vineyard. It is clean from abusive chemicals. Not only - there are more than one such vineyards. There are enthusiasts who cultivate these vineyards for the love of nature. There, in those vineyards - life happens.
