Is Organic Grape Growing Possible in the FLX?
When we purchased Silver Thread in 2011, it was a practicing organic farm growing only vitis vinifera (a.k.a. European) grape varietals. For over 20 years, founder Richard Figiel had doggedly pursued organics even if it meant sacrificing much of his crop to fungal diseases and insects. At the time, we joked with him that he should be charging at least twice as much for the Pinot Noir given how low the vineyard yields were.
Unsurprisingly, we took a close look at the ledgers and decided to move away from Richard’s methods. We had a young family to support and needed more than 1 ton of fruit per acre out of the vineyard. Many industry colleagues told us organic grape growing was impossible in the Finger Lakes, thereby substantiating our choice.
For the next four years, we followed a vineyard management regimen that was sustainable, but not organic. We increased the yields, but were unhappy using synthetic pesticides. It felt wrong that our clothes smelled like chemicals and that our children couldn’t set foot in the vineyard all summer. Paul began learning about new disease control methods that rely on biological materials. That was the beginning of our biointensive journey.
Paul working in the vineyard.
In 2016, we planted cover crops under the rows, which eliminated our use of herbicides (i.e. weed-killing chemicals). Over the next two years, we started introducing biofungicides, which work a lot like probiotics to balance the microbiome in the vine’s leafy canopy. We also leaned into bioinsecticides, which target specific insect pests instead of killing off all insects. It wasn’t a perfect system in those early days. In fact, we had many setbacks. We continued to use a couple of synthetic fungicides during the growing season to ensure a healthy crop—we just didn’t have a good organic control for downy mildew or black rot. Overall, our observations told us we were on to something with the biointensive methods. Maybe organic grape growing wasn’t impossible in the Finger Lakes, but we hadn’t found the right combination of tools yet.
Shannon doing some weeding in the vineyard.
In 2022, we planted Good Earth Block with locally-adapted varieties that are naturally resistant to fungal diseases. We have been successfully farming it 100% organically with biopesticides. When we added Riesling and Chardonnay (vitis vinifera) to that block in 2023, we took a plunge and decided to farm them 100% organically, too. Downy mildew almost defoliated the young vines in the fall of 2024. We could have given up, but a new biofungicide based on fermented chitin (insect and crustacean exoskeletons) came on the market this year. It is effectively controlling downy mildew and allowing us to farm the entire Good Earth Block organically. We will get our first harvest of 100% organically-grown Riesling and Chardonnay from Good Earth Block this fall, and are excited to share those wines with you down the road.
We’re enormously proud of our efforts, and are excited to be on the forefront of biointensive grape growing in the Finger Lakes. Is organic grape growing possible our region? Our results this year say “yes.”
Silver Thread Vineyard
