December Wine Club: In the Green
A visit to the Pato winery in Portugal in 2022.
How do you choose a wine off of the shelf if you’ve never tried it? In 1978, Robert Parker, a wine critic, wagered that scores and his write-ups would tell you all you need to know. The scores in his system range from 50 - 100, with 100 being the best. But the best for whom? Since enjoyment of wine is subjective, how do you know you will agree with the rater?
I started GoodWine partly because it occurred to me that there had to be a better way to shop for wine. Lots of wine is tasty, and so for me what makes a yummy wine good is whether or not it’s made with care for the planet and the people who live here.
And guess what? Robert Parker’s system has adapted, too! In 2021, his organization started an award called the Green Emblem. This award goes to wineries that are committed to sustainability and care for the environment, like protecting the health of soil, using renewable energy, reducing waste, and more. The current list features 50 producers, which—when thinking about the number of wineries worldwide—is a pretty select group.
This month we’re so excited to feature three wines that have received the Green Emblem! The first is from an OG producer of organic wine in Germany, and the second and third are from Portugal. I visited one of these myself on a trip in 2022.
We’d love to hear what you think! Does the Green Emblem award pass muster for you? Shoot me a note or message me on Instagram at @getgoodwine! I’d love to chat. And for past months’ write-ups, just click here.
The Wines
Our white this month is a Riesling from a pretty famous producer in German-loving wine circles (and beyond): Clemens Busch. After visiting a Central and Eastern European wine festival last month, German wine has definitely been on the brain for me, so I was thrilled to see that we could get this wine locally—and that Clemens Busch is a Green Emblem producer!
Clemens Busch is famous for doing things differently. They are among the first producers in Germany that committed to organic viticulture. Their capsules (the foil on top of the bottle) actually serve a purpose: They are red, blue, and grey according to what color slate that particular wine’s grapes were grown on.
You may already know that Riesling is capable of aging for a long long time. This wine is delish now if you give it lots of air, but it’s so well made that I wager you could certainly enjoy it in ten years or more. Prost!
— Clemens Busch Riesling Trocken 2023
Our second wine hails from Filipa Pato, a female wine producer working in the Bairrada region of Portugal, and her husband William Wouters. As I learned on a trip to their winery in 2022, Filipa and her family are famous for showing skeptics that the indigenous Baga grape can do great things. With high tannins and high acidity, Baga can be a bit of a tough nut to crack. But this version is fresh and tasty owing to the way it’s made. For this one, Filipa and Team ferment and age the wine in amphora, which is that classic clay vessel in which wine was made in ancient times in places like Georgia and during the Roman Empire, too. We hosted a fun happy hour recently at the shop, and this was a crowd fave. Enjoy!
— Filipa Pato Vinho Tinto Baga "Post-Quercus" 2023
Our last wine is from Portugal as well—an easy-drinking, fruit-forward blend of red grapes from the hot and dry Alentejo region of Portugal in the south, where cork trees grow aplenty and provide about half of the world’s supply of cork for wine closures.
Whereas the Pato wine was savory and a bit rustic, this wine is plush. It’s made from a blend of Aragonêz (the name for Tempranillo in the Alentejo region), Trincadeira, Touriga Nacional (known for Port), and Syrah.
The producer, Esporão, is one of the world’s largest producers of organic wine with 1,663 acres under vine in the Alentejo and in the Douro valley farther north. It’s cool to see a large producer showing the way on organics. Cheers!