You will find a handful of accredited, fully organic wines here, but don’t be disheartened. Growing good grapes (the precursor to making any decent wine) involves a lot of thought processes, and many of our growers were already noticing the detrimental effect of chemicals on their soils and were taking action long before the organic movement became ‘de rigueur’.

Some converted to organic practices, biodynamic systems or both, but the sheer bureaucratic demands to become ‘officially accredited’ has put many off obtaining full certification.

As well as having to work within these hoops, our producers are also running businesses; for many, growing good grapes without any recourse to chemicals is an extremely difficult or impossible risk.

That said, we actively seek out producers, often in countries with drier climates such as Chile and South Africa, who produce good wines which sit well in our range and say organic on the label. Otherwise you will note our butterfly symbol () used throughout the list against the wine code, where we are convinced that the grower is doing everything possible to reduce chemicals and promote sustainable farming practices, while producing wines to our very exacting standards of quality.

James Tanner