Sunday, January 04, 2009

I would like to order wines that have NO added sulfites or yeasts. I have many allergies to things like eggs, corn, soy, yeast, wheat. I drink wine occasionally and LOVE it. I do notice tho that most wines give me real headaches and uck feeling. Do you have any available that are 100% organic, not just organic grapes? I look forward to hearing from you. I look forward to finding great wines to drink in 2009.

Also, my son likes reds, I have drank mostly whites, like pino grigiot- my uncle brought one to me that had the most buttery after taste, which has to do with the oak? I donʼt know. But then my son brought us over some Chilean wines, two dif kinds and wow. One was too spicy but the other had some punch but not overwhelming, so now I think I need to look into reds as well. So I will be learning as we go. Just no sulfites or yeast added, is that possible?
Thanks, Joann
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Hi Joann,

Thank you for contacting us. Your concern is one that I hear everyday. If you take the time to read my pages on sulfites
http://www.theorganicwinecompany.com/sulfites.php and on vegan wines you will see the difficulties of finding wines without sulfites.
You can easily find wines that have had no contact with albumin in the vegan section. In reality there is none left in the wines because of the tight filtration that is used for bottling anyway. This process also eliminates any residual yeast. It is impossible however to make wine without yeasts, be they naturally present or added, just as it is impossible to make yogurt without them! And there is no difference between the 2, it is just a selection of strains, just like you can make yogurt by chance, hoping that the right kind of ferment will be naturally present or add one which you already know. If you’re lucky you might get a fabulous result, if not, well…

On the other hand to import wines without sulfites is extremely risky and not worth the effort. Your reactions have 99% probability to be caused by other things, namely residues of pesticides or other chemicals. I have had thousands of sensitive people over the years completely satisfied with the level of quality that we provide. My sister actually got into this because of her extreme sensitivity to anything chemical and she is a very good “guinea pig”!

Bottom line, I will refund you if after trying any of our wines you do not feel just fine, that’s all I can say. Trying is the only way to know for yourself. However if you insist on finding 100% organic you will need to turn toward the handful of domestic producers who can provide them: Frey, Organic Works, China Bend, Badger Mountain (probably the best one). However their taste will make you understand why everybody else uses sulfites!

If you were truly allergic to sulfites it would be safer to drink red wines since there is always a higher content in white wines! In reality my own experience has shown that was not the issue with sensitive people. But you can only trust your own physiology!

DrMic

Thursday, January 01, 2009

Hello,
I just ordered your organic wines. I did have a question that maybe you could answer. I recently heard on a TV news program about wines tested contained metals. They listed the wines from 3 countries that had no metals. They were Brazil, Venezuela, and Italy. Why would wines have metal and were does the metals come from? Processing, soil? Any danger to health?
Thanks, Nancy
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Hi Nancy,
While this study has been drummed up if you look carefully at the way it has been conducted the results seem at a minimum unreliable or even not significant.
It is a meta study, gathering results of a bunch of previous studies and the way these things are put together and weighted is central to the quality of the results you get. Unfortunately this kind of occurrence is frequent nowadays in journalism under the cover of “science”!
The presence of lead for instance may be attributed to studies done before 94 when lead capsules were still in use (for expensive wines mind you) and therefore be totally irrelevant nowadays. It is not clear either if the amount found of any of the co-called heavy metals (I did not think Manganese belonged to them) is really significant in terms of their bioactivity. All of that seems pulled by the hair.

Based on these results I would not worry about it. In any case, if metals are found in wine, apart form copper which is widely used in the fields as an anti mildew, they probably come from their presence in pesticides or weed killers or even as pollutants in synthetic fertilizers. Since none of these are used in organic agriculture, this particular risk is probably close to 0 when you drink organically grown wines anyway.

All the best

Dr Mic