Red wine & I are great friends. However like any great friends sometimes we have a falling out and need to spend some time apart. Red wine hangovers can be particularly nasty. I’d heard that organic wine hangovers are less intense so was curious to test this theory with an organic red last night.
Insulating myself against the cold night, I ventured out to the local bottle shop to find a suitable test subject. There were four choices in the entire store. One from France, one from Cowra NSW and two from South Australia priced between $14 – $25. I choose the $19 one produced by Angove – a 2008 Shiraz Cabernet.
The wine was great. Smooth, full bodied and all the descriptors usually accompanying a South Australian wine of that vintage. And yes I didn’t have a hangover today. Although didn’t excessively indulge either.
But I’d expect a wine for that price to deliver and could easily find one around the $10-$15 mark that would be equally enjoyable. And that’s the dilemma. Should I in the spirit of my 365 experiment continue to buy only organic at $19 a bottle or enjoy a fatter wallet through buying cheaper (with the current wine glut I could actually get a halfway decent table wine for around $6-10)?
Let’s look at the top 4 reasons to drink organic wine.
- No chemicals, pesticides or herbicides used in the growing of the grapes
- Grapes farmed using sustainable practices which is better for the land in the long run
- Lower levers of sulphur dioxide used in the production – better for your head
- The more drunk / requested by consumers the greater likelihood more winemakers will jump on board the organic train. And that help push the product more into mainstream and prices down.
All sound reasons and enough to suffer the wallet hit so yes I will make an effort to buy organic from now on.
What do you think of organic wines? Any great ones to recommend?
Great blog topic! Think you will like organicwine.com.au. They have a great selection of organic wines, I remember buying a mixed dozen from them about 2 years ago. To be honest they were not very impressive wines as a whole, but some were drinkable. I’m sure the range has improved by now. This is the delemma, i don’t like to compromise the quality of my drink to obtain a beverage without preservatives (which is the main reason I buy these wines – nasty sulfides 222 or 220). They should be able to produce good wines without sulfides, but somehow they usually just don’t stack up. Please blog about any great preservative free wines you come across.
Thanks! Tried on the weekend Rosnay Triple Blend 2006 Vintage but again a little expensive at $20 a bottle. Might try an online case but a little nervous about committing just in case I get a bad one.