All Natural

Put farming’s organic guru “Amigo Bob” Cantisano in the same outfit and you’d find yourself going back and forth, trying to figure out which man is which. But both are on the side of justice and the organic method.

“The instant you meet Amigo Bob, you’re comfortable with him,” says Lou Preston, who, philosophically wary of the growing monoculture of the grape in Sonoma County, has spent the last dozen years turning his venerable Dry Creek Valley vineyard into a more diversified farm. “Susan and I wanted to know and respect our land better than we had, so, in 2000, we hooked up with Amigo and started to find our way back to the land. We cut our wine production substantially—from 25,000 cases per year to about 8,000—began to plant other crops and decided to become sustainable and organic.”

Preston says he now sells a good portion of his winegrapes, which lets him select the most interesting for his own wines. “We got a little fixated on grapes and wine at the outset, like a lot of people have done here. Why not? This is a marvelous place for them. But the big ‘M’ word [monoculture] is the elephant in the room, and the answer to that is the bigger ‘S’ word: sustainable.

“When I was growing up, my family was invested in a little farm, on Eastside Road south of Healdsburg, that had a small dairy and a variety of crops. The family later sold that, but its charm held over to me, and when I’d finished my first year at UC Davis in 1973, Susan and I bought this property and threw ourselves into the wine industry. But it got so that it was more about being on the road and ‘selling’ than it was about farming. I put in an adobe forno oven, started baking bread and began to think about ways to scale back the wine and get back to the notion of farming.”

Vines were torn out, some of the land was turned to pasture for sheep and some to orchard (mainly apples and olives, but also some peaches, plums, walnuts and almonds). There are rows of tomatoes, peppers and winter greens that go over well with farmers’ markets and local restaurants. “One local chef came out and asked if he could forage for radish seed pods, wild mustard greens and collard shoots. It’s wonderful fun to be able to sell weeds!”

As a part of this conversion of mind and soul—and soil—the Prestons turned to the leading organic guru, Cantisano. “We needed a coach, a mentor, and Amigo Bob is a natural teacher,” says Lou. “We instantly took to each other. Some people see the tie-dyed shirt, the dreads, the Birkenstocks and, well, I don’t know what they might think. But it doesn’t take long to understand that this is the most accomplished and knowledgeable guy in the state when it comes to sustainable, organic and biodynamic farming. He’s the guy who put the Eco-Farm Conference together.”

(The Eco-Farm Conference is a big deal in the organic/sustainable community. Started at the Firehouse in Winters, Calif. in 1981 by a group of 45 environmentally conscious farmers, the Ecological Farming Association has since put together educational programs that have trained more than 60,000 farmers and gardeners about renewable energy and better management of water and soil issues, with the goal of cutting production costs and expanding environmental benefits.)

The big picture

“The main thing he did for me,” continues Preston, “was to teach me not to go overboard, to slow things down a bit, to assess and evaluate better. I have a tendency to charge forward, to buy into new things whole hog. Amigo’s approach is philosophical, conceptual. It’s not just, ‘We’ll substitute this for that.’ There has to be a reason—a good reason—to make any change, no matter how small. The important thing is the mental shift, not just the simple substitution. It’s not a new tool or a new product. We’re not just using something different than Roundup to control weeds; we’re changing the whole paradigm. We’re becoming stewards of the environment and, by doing so, we’re looking for an overall balance. Thus, we’re not wholly eliminating, say, sharpshooters, we’re just cutting back their populations so they’re no longer a threat to the vine.”

The difference in approach can be dramatic. I remember Bob Fetzer taking me into one of his vineyards just after they’d shifted to organic farming practices a couple of decades ago. “Now just stand here and listen,” he instructed. I did. After a moment or two, the vineyard became quite noisy, wholly alive with insects and birds. He dug a toe into the soil: earthworms squirmed. The place was alive with sound and movement. “Five years ago,” he said quietly, “you would have heard nothing. This place was nearly dead.”

Nothing dead about Preston’s land these days. “We put the sheep and chickens we raise into the vineyard to keep the weeds down and provide a little nutrition to the soil. Amigo has made cover cropping a key part to revitalizing our soils, along with a serious commitment to composting. We’ve cut down tilling the soil, because we believe excess cultivation is damaging—‘killing’ may not be too strong a word—the soil. A cover crop is a living mat, a living mulch that retains soil moisture and preserves organisms—insects, earthworms, bacteria—that are essential to a healthy, productive soil. When you create a healthy environment, nothing gets out of whack.”

Preston started working with Cantisano in 2000 immediately after hearing Amigo Bob’s pitch. “We began by putting down five tons per acre of compost and immediately saw an improvement in the health of our vineyards. It was remarkable. Of course I had to learn, on my own, that you could also overdo it: Put on too much nitrogen; allow too much moisture to remain; allow too much growth in the vine. It’s all about balance. He hasn’t steered us wrong in any way; in fact his main job is to rein me in!”

The three main issues, notes Preston, are weed control, the health of the soil and the understanding of the environment from the insect’s point of view. “It used to be that the university and the ag commissioners would just teach us to ‘find the silver bullet,’ referring to the spray that would kill off the weeds or exterminate the insects, never mind the insidious things that such a radical approach did to scar our land. Amigo looks toward the overall and ongoing health of the whole of the environment.

“So we now look for means of controlling weeds without getting rid of them entirely. We look to composting to rebuild the health of our soil naturally. We look for means of propagating competing insect colonies that keep each other in check naturally, again, without eliminating them entirely. Ladybugs, lacewings, spiders, you name it, they’re here. Beneficial insects, we now call them. What a change in concept!

“And Amigo makes it fun. It’s a hoot to go out with him into a part of our vineyard. He’ll pull out an insect net—it looks like a fisherman’s net, only the mesh is finer—and wave it around like a madman. The thing is, when he’s done with a few sweeps, you’ll find a fistful of insects in that net. ‘This one’s the bad guy,’ he’ll say, ‘but this one will eat the bad guy, so it’s OK that they’re both here.’ All of a sudden it all makes sense.”

Taking cover

My own first contact with Cantisano came about the same time as Preston’s, in 2000, when I was writing a story for Vineyard & Winery Management on Doug Shafer’s commitment to conservationism at his Napa Valley winery. “Bob is something of a throwback,” Shafer told me at the time. “He’s a Deadhead, with a pony tail and sandals, and his main clients are Central Valley farmers with carrots and row crops. I mean, it’s a great visual [I told you]: this redneck farmer in his John Deere cap, listening with great respect to this hippie organic farmer from Colfax.”

Shafer was focusing on better using cover crops in his vineyard, and Cantisano had this to say about the process at the time: “The use of cover crops had been practiced for centuries before it fell out of favor to herbicides and neatness. When you grow only grapevines, you create an environment in which the only kinds of organisms besides grapes that grow are things that eat grapes. You’ve created an environment that essentially favors pests. Two significant grape pests—phylloxera and the sharpshooter—are favored by that monocultural environment. By planting a cover crop, you create a diversity of species that encourages the predators, parasites and pathogens that feed on the grapevine’s natural enemies. It’s not that you eliminate them, but rather that you create a dynamic balance that keeps them in check and retards their growth to the point where they can do no real damage.” He suggested that phylloxera might not have regained its toehold after a century’s absence had it not been for the weakness of the present-day monoculture.

“The return of phylloxera was a prime example of what happens in a monoculture vineyard,” he went on. “When other vegetation is removed, the process of building organic matter is eliminated and the fungi that attack phylloxera can’t grow. The main reason phylloxera came on so strong in recent years is that California went through a six-year drought that both stressed the vines and reduced the fungi that ordinarily prey on phylloxera. Also, most vineyard soils lack enough organic matter to retain the little rain that did fall.”

At Shafer, Cantisano noted that cover cropping added organic material to the soil and increased its water-holding capacity. “We wanted to increase the vigor of these [stressed] vines, which grow in thin, rocky hillside soils. So we planted a high percentage of legumes to add nitrogen to the soil. In the rows between the vines, you’ll see purple and common vetch and two kinds of peas, Miranda and Austrian winter pea. On the hillside slopes and underneath the vines, we planted a mix of low clovers, including crimson, rose and California medic, a relative of alfalfa, along with a group of sub-clovers. Oats aren’t legumes, but we planted some for early season erosion protection and to give the peas and vetches a support to climb onto to reach the light.”

The growth process

Cantisano was born and raised in San Francisco, a ninth-generation californio descended from the Spanish Moraga family. (The “Amigo” came from a high school girlfriend’s posse, who saw him—with or without irony—as supremely “friendly.”) His interest in the land initially came from puttering in his grandmother’s garden. “I also had a great aunt and uncle who grew cherries, walnuts and winegrapes in Lodi,” he says matter-of-factly. “They taught me about farming using ‘old world’ methods. After high school, I lived in a few communes—San Francisco, Mendocino, the Sierras, Lake Tahoe—where I was the guy who grew the food.

“For some reason, I always felt connected with the earth, with the soils, and it made a lot of sense to pay attention to what was happening there. I started farming in Yuba City in 1973 and was one of the founders of the Ecological Farming Conference, which started at the firehouse in Winters, California [not far from Davis], with 45 people in 1981. The focus of the conference is education, celebration and agriculture. This year, our four-day event—now held in Pacific Grove on the Monterey Peninsula—drew 1,800 people from 35 states and six countries!” (He was also instrumental in starting the statewide certification process for organic farming in California in 1973.)

Amigo now lives near the village of North San Juan [in the California Gold Country], where he farms vegetables, fruits, grapes, berries and animals and cares for his grandchildren. His consulting practice covers a whole range of crops in California, Oregon, Arizona, Hawaii and Mexico, and includes more than five dozen wineries. “The essence of what I do for grape growers is to teach them to pay attention to the health of their soils. The first thing I do is ask them about the challenges they perceive. Then we walk the land and look for the signals of distress. Is their productivity down? Is water a problem? Are weeds a problem? Are there diseases, like nematodes, manifest or incipient? Are there bird or insect problems? Are there problems caused by the neighboring vineyards or other plantings? In the main, we’re trying to assess the overall health of the ecosystem and trying to discover the weak spots.

“Usually the problems have to do with basic soil health: its composition, texture, depth. If you don’t have good drainage, you can’t grow grapes, plain and simple. Or, if you have a rocky outcrop, and the roots have no place to go, that’s a problem. Occasionally, you find a soil that’s too fertile. I see myself as a facilitator, an educator who gets to learn a lot in the process. Basically, I’m an extra set of eyes and ears, sharing an awareness of good growing practices.”

Up the hill

The Chappellet family has been growing top-quality wine grapes on the steep, scenic slopes of Pritchard Hill—above Lake Hennessey [at 800 to 1,200 feet above sea level], east of St. Helena—for 45 years. It was one of the first new wineries to be built in Napa Valley post-Prohibition (Robert Mondavi had opened his mission-styled doors in Oakville the year prior, in 1966).

As of this upcoming harvest, all of Chappellet Vineyard will fall under the state’s organic farming certification (which Cantisano helped create). “We have 100 acres of vineyard here on volcanic loam soils,” says UC Berkeley graduate Jon-Mark Chappellet, one of the winery’s owner/directors. “It’s mostly Cabernet Sauvignon and its attendant Bordeaux varieties [Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec], but we also have three acres of Chenin Blanc, which we’re also known for. Amigo has been working with me and our vineyard manager, Dave Pirio, for nearly 14 years. Farming a hillside vineyard, our margins are very close, and there’s no way we can afford even the slightest diminution of grape quality. Bob has been around the block; he knows organic farming, in general, and grape growing, in particular.

“He’s particularly adept at taking things in stages; he knows exactly when you’re ready for the next step. He takes you at just the rate you’re capable of handling and is marvelously conservative in his approach. He understands traditional farming and is passionate about the benefits of the organic approach, which does well not only for the land itself, but for those of us who farm that land. Don’t forget, we live on the land we farm. Our kids grow up here; our employees are here all day. Organic farming is safe farming—no pesticides, no herbicides.”

That, in the end, is what organic farming is all about: returning the land to its natural state of health and balance, and improving the quality of the fruit, all the while preserving the inherent health of those who work the land with respect. Who says there’s no justice in the world today?

From the Fruits of his Labor

Preston Sauvignon Blanc 2010 Dry Creek, Organic, Estate: Light lemon and lime fruit that’s oily and fluid in the mouth; soft and supple texture.