Organic='crap'??

I know organic wines can be funky little bastards. They can be cruel Jekyll'n'Hyde's at times. So maybe I was expecting bit much from my lone bottle of Breton 'Gallichets' from the 2003 vinatage. Tart (and I mean UNRIPE here), unsweetened cranberry juice and little else. The first night I was pondering throwing this battery acid plastic-stopped bottle down the drain, but my sympathetic heart thought, 'nah, let's she performs tomorrow'. That night, I went to bed thinking wines made from Biological raisins must be pure crap, short and simple. I wished I bought this local so I could stand a shot of taking this back so I wouldn't be out shy of $20 for an expensive bottle of Draino. I was also surprised that for such a hot year, this wine showed so unripe and cold climate (think 'Newfoundland').

Well, lo and behold, the next night the wine changed course. The acids were still there, but lacked the short pointy stick that jabbed the jugular during the previous encounter. It began to show classic cabernet franc tobacco. It even took on weight. It managed to become .... Drinkable. Still, no-how would I ever mistake this for the 2003 vintage. Weird. Anyone else have experiences like this?

My first question would be whether this is "organic wine" or "made from organically grown grapes", Mark.

If it's organic wine, then it should be less than 10ppm in sulfites. And if it is technically/legally organic wines, I'm scratching my head wondering why the hell they're putting it under a plastic cork??? Seems contraindicated to me.

If it's made from organically grown grapes (which is to say, organically farmed but tradtionally made), that's another story altogether.

The vintage was hot, yes, but you should always take into account whether the growing region or specific vineyard is generally hot, and how the viticultural practices of the vineyard are adapted to the heat. Some places that suffered from the heat suffered a lot less than others...and in general, those places with indigenous (or long term traditional) varieties fared better than those with nuevo wavo gloablized varieties. In other words, Tuscan Sangiovese tended to do okay, whereas the Merlot and CS tended to suck that year. Likewise, some parts of the Rhone did well; others did not.

Writing off organic wine because one was bad makes as much sense as writing off red wine because you had a bad one.

Some of the 03s I've had had a weird combination of high alcohol and green, underripe flavors. This might be because much of the sugar came from raisining, rather than ripening, due to the heat.

Hoke - I think the grapes were organically grown, not organically made.

Oliver - I wouldn't write off anything from one try. That green quality was what surprised me. Never would have expected that from a ripe Loire vintage. Do you have experience with many Loire reds or red Burgundies from 2003 sharing this quality?

I tasted a group of 03s from S. France that all had that curious 'over/under-ripe' quality to some degree; the Loire is cooler, of course, but '03 was so odd, who knows.

I actively seek out Organic and Biodynamic wines (Many of the worlds best wines are indeed Biodynamic). Even if I don't completely buy into all of the spiritual aspects of Biodynamie, many producers who believe in it are so incredibly passionate about their art, that you can't help but respect them. And anyone who is entrenched so deeply in a philosophy to make the best possible wines can't go wrong. However, there are other producers who use Organic as a crutch to defend bad winemaking. As with most things, it must be taken on a producer by producer basis.