Biodynamic Applegate Valley vineyard awarded “Best for the Birds”

WILLIAMETTE VALLEY, OR – Klamath Bird Observatory (KBO) and ConsciousWine have developed a new set of sustainability standards that are strictly for the birds. Participating wineries throughout the up-and-coming Rogue Valley wine region were evaluated on a range of bird-friendly practices from building the right-sized bird boxes to promoting overall biodiversity.

This “Best for the Birds” award at KBO’s Wings & Wine Gala went to Cowhorn Vineyard & Garden, a celebrated Applegate Valley estate run by Biodynamic duo Bill and Barbara Steele. Among the tiny winery’s many winning practices scarecrows have given way to predator perches that allow river access for raptors that in turn naturally guard the vineyard from other grape-hungry birds.

“Fine wine and environmental stewardship go hand in hand, and we commend Cowhorn for taking home top honors at this year’s Best for the Birds competition,” shares Jeff Weissler, the ConsciousWine Guy. “Winemaking offers a unique window on the world that reminds us that we are all part of one interconnected web of life. With so many vintners now striving for sustainability, Earth-conscious wine lovers can enjoy wines that are as good for the planet as they are on the palate.”

“Each of the vineyards participating in our Best of the Bioregion Wine Competition is a winner,” said John Alexander, Executive Director of the Klamath Bird Observatory. “They choose to use conscious farming practices because it is the right thing to do, and our hope is to bring greater consumer attention to their “bird-friendly” viticulture practices. They demonstrate how each of us can make better decisions to help keep common birds common.”

The competition was produced in association with Chery Garvey, wine buyer for Ashland’s locally-owned independent food and wine store Shop ‘N Kart.

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Joe Camarlingui with KOBI/NCB5 television and Jeff Weissler visit the Cowhorn estate and talk about what makes ConsciousWine.

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In Media, Media Coverage, Uncategorized | Tagged with KOBI-TV

Consciouswine.com is a new site that talks about wine — eco-friendly wine.

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In Jeff's Blog, Media, Media Coverage | Tagged with KTVL

Oregon’s eco-conscious wine industry got a new player on Earth Day when the wraps came off the Ashland-based website ConsciousWine.

Part educational site and part e-commerce hub, the gorgeously designed ConsciousWine.com is aimed at teaching consumers about well-made, earth-friendly wines that line up with principles including sustainable farming, organically grown grapes and great taste.

And the website may become the platform to launch the West Coast’s eco-friendly answer to Gary Vaynerchuk.

Like Vaynerchuck, who leveraged social media to become the ubiquitous everyman of fine wine, ConsciousWine founder Jeff Weissler is a passionate wine guy.

Also like Vaynerchuck, Weissler happens to be a fast-talking East Coaster, a recent transplant to southern Oregon.

Weissler professes a love of what he calls “vital” wines — one of ConciousWine’s core principles.

“Vital products have a life force,” Weissler said. “Making a wine that is delicious on the first sip takes a lot of manipulation. (Vital) wines unwind when they hit air, they take time to stretch.”

In talking about how he came to launch ConsciousWine, he wends his way through topics including a stay at a raw food detox health center, the book “Cradle to Cradle” by William McDonough and Michael Braungart, and the Pachamama Alliance.

He’ll also tell you that as a long-time wine store manager in suburban New York, Weissler became annoyed by two things: wines from all over the world starting to taste the same and wines with an organic label tasting bad.

“What I want to do is empower consumers to know what’s behind the label,” Weissler said.

Thus, he developed the four principles of ConsciousWine and created an educational website. Twenty Oregon wineries have made the ConsciousWine list — seven of them are “featured” on the website including Brick House, Brooks, Cowhorn Vineyards, Dominio IV, Maysara, Montinore and Wooldridge Creek.

Weissler is not a fan of wine-industry certification. There are too many of them, he said, and they are contradictory and confusing.

Oregon has given birth to at least three such certifications:

• The Oregon Certified Sustainable Wine label piggy-backs on a quartet of other industry certifications. Two of ConsciousWine’s featured wineries also turn up on the Oregon Certified Sustainable Wine website: Montinore Estate and Wooldridge Creek.

• Salem-based Low-Input Viticulture and Enology Inc., or LIVE is one of OCSW’s partners and certifies sustainable wineries. Last year it was charged with administering a program incubated by the Oregon Environmental Council for wineries that have successfully shrunk their carbon footprint. The only LIVE-certified winery that appears on the ConsciousWine featured list is Wooldridge Creek.

• The Portland-based Salmon Safe certification, another OCSW partner, has been awarded to Brick House and Wooldridge Creek, among many others not featured on ConsciousWine.com.

Weissler’s business partner, Vincent “Vinny” Liscio, is back in New York and runs the numbers side of ConsciousWine. He expects the site to make a modest slice of income on e-commerce sales of conscious wines with the rest coming from advertising and, as he puts it, “other things we’ll sell on the site.”

“Wine is a nice handshake to get you started on your conscious journey,” Liscio said. “We want to reach out past wine eventually.”

Liscio said an up-front investment of about $200,000 went into building the site with an ongoing investment required to produce the videos, podcasts and webinars Weissler plans to use as educational tools.

Bill Steele is co-owner with his wife of Cowhorn Winery, which last year launched a bottle rinse-and-reuse program. Steele said he is happy to see Weissman hanging his Web-based shingle.

“He’s the person who’s going to vet the wineries independently,” he said. “There’s a fair amount of greenwashing going on. … As a consumer, I want to put my money behind green people, not greenwashing.”

And as fast as he can find them, Weissler said, he’ll be adding what he considers to be truly green wineries to his list.

In Media, Media Coverage | Tagged with Sustainable Business Oregon

Jeff Weissler hosts new webisodic wine show, podcast and blog

ASHLAND, OR – This Earth Day wine lovers woke up to a new world of Earth-friendly choices with the public beta of ConsciousWine, a web portal devoted exclusively to wines that are as good for the planet as they are for the palate.

Starring the larger-than-life, 5-foot 6-inch Jeff Weissler, aka “The ConsciousWine Guy,” the site features a webisodic wine show, online radio program, blog and directory covering vintners who grow grapes and make wine the Old World way, naturally.

With a fun, casual style that is anything but snobby, Weissler helps wine lovers and treehuggers alike, get to the heart of what really makes wine green, and good.

“ConsciousWine was born out of two frustrations that I experienced as a wine retailer,” shares Weissler. “First, thanks to industrial agriculture and ‘better living through chemistry,’ wines from all over the world, even different varietals, started tasting the same. Yuck! Second, and sadder still, organic wine did not consistently equal quality, leaving early adopters with a bad taste in their mouth and forcing top-rated certified-organic grape growers to forgo the green stamp of approval for fear of being branded bad.”

To make The List, vintners must create vital, great-tasting wines from sustainably-farmed, organically-grown grapes, and engage in one or more of twelve practices ranging from biodiversity to water conservation to good worker policies. All the featured estates farm exclusively with OMRI-approved products, and many carry Demeter’s Biodynamic® brand, representing the most rigorous and respected sustainability standards in the field.

With no legal definition of sustainability, and more certification schemes than a connoisseur can keep track of, Weissler hopes to help confused consumers make sense of what green really means in the wine world, both on the ground and in the glass. His blog covers virtually every aspect of natural winemaking, focusing mostly on estate wineries that put people and the planet on the same bottom line with profit.

Weissler’s webisodic wine show will feature field reports focused on his twelve practices that give buyers a first-hand look behind the labels at holistic estates such as Ambyth, Cowhorn, Dominio VI, Michel-Schlumberger, Montinore, Paul Dolan, and a handful of hand-picked California and Oregon wineries to start.

As ConsciousWine rolls out to include more wineries and other regions, Weissler’s online audience will get to virtually visit them all, meeting the green scene’s most intriguing vintners, farmers, restaurateurs, sommeliers, and sustainability entrepreneurs.

For millennials on the run who would rather listen to, than read about new releases, Weissler’s tastings and reviews are available exclusively as podcasts, and often feature the winemakers.

This summer, ConsciousWine will also open an online winery-direct shop stocked with fine wine and food from holistic estates considered to be among the best in the United States, most of which go well beyond organic in their principles and practices.

The ConsciousWine Guy is supported by an ensemble cast of all-star friends from Ashland, Oregon, a tiny town that Jeff describes as “the intersection of Old World and New Age” located in Oregon’s up-and-coming Rogue wine region.

Despite being a 30-year veteran of the wine business, having worked for leading companies such as Zachys, Suburban Wine & Spirits, and Domain Selections, Weissler is reluctant to label himself an expert and the first to admit that he’s no sommelier. In his quest to explore the world of conscious wine, he has personally visited and vetted every winery on the website.

“I am a passionately curious tour guide to the emerging world of conscious wine,” shares Jeff. “My main goal is to bridge the grand canyon of public perception between organic farming and quality wine. I aim to debunk destructive market myths about green wine and demystify the seemingly magical processes at play on holistic wine estates that are producing some of the world’s purest and most pleasurable wines.”

In Media, News Releases | Tagged with Earth Day, Public Beta