Show Notes
On July 22, 2026, Adam L. Huss of the Beyond Organic Wine podcast and Substack, with the support and cooperation of dozens of other wineries, wine sales professionals, and wine educators around the world, has announced a global boycott of all wines produced from vineyards that use herbicides, including glyphosate (RoundUp). # boycottherbicidewine #boycottglyphosatewine Huss states: “Herbicides are not necessary to grow wine. In fact, by degrading soil health they decrease the potential quality of wine. It’s time we start defining ‘great wine’ in a way that includes the most important aspect of its greatness: how it was grown. There is no excuse for using herbicides in viticulture that can rationalize the harm they cause to human and environmental health. We drink wine to add beauty to our lives, and herbicides only create ugliness.” Beyond Organic Wine is entirely listener & reader-supported. Please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thank you.
Inspired by the story and activism of a fellow winemaker living with cancer, Nick Dugmore of Stoke Wines in Australia, as well as the recent executive order by US president Donald Trump to increase glyphosate production, and the US Supreme Court decision which further removes the power of people to protect themselves from the potential harms of glyphosate, Huss announced the boycott to call attention to the pervasive use of herbicides in winegrowing, and to generate a groundswell of support and education aimed at peer-pressuring wine producers, wine sellers, wine reviewers, and wine drinkers to stop supporting the use of herbicides in wine. “Karen MacNeil has taken a very public stance in opposition to the use of unnecessarily heavy glass wine bottles. She and others have decided that there isn’t any good excuse for using these heavy bottles, and the resulting harm from the increased CO2 footprint is significant enough to take action. So she has publicly refused to review wines sent to her in heavy bottles. This is really important, and I and many others support this whole-heartedly. We are at the same point in history when it comes to the use of herbicide in the growing of grapes,” Huss says. “I’ve found that many people who love wine already have this boycott in place in their personal lives. Now we all need to take a very public stance against the use of these unnecessary chemicals in the production of wine because the harm to wine quality, human health, and the greater community of life far outweighs any perceived benefits.” Glyphosate (packaged and sold as Roundup by Bayer/Monsanto) is the most used pesticide on earth, and because of that it will inevitably become the “poster child” of the boycott, Huss says. But there are many other herbicides: Atrazine, Trifluralin, Pendimethalin, Glufosinate, 2-4D, Dicamba, among others. Though some of these are not used in wine production, due to the fact that they kill vines on contact, the boycott is against all herbicides in wine. “The question I’ve gotten the most since the announcement of the boycott is ‘How do I know if a wine was made from vineyards that use glyphosate?’,” Huss says. “It takes some work, but it’s important we do this work, and there are some short-cuts. First, if a wine or its vineyards are certified Organic, Biodynamic, or Regenerative Organic, you can rest assured that no glyphosate or chemical herbicides were used to grow the wine. Unfortunately, most other ‘sustainability’ certifications for vineyards allow the use of glyphosate and other herbicides (Napa Green is a notable exception as of 2026). Secondly, if a wine doesn’t have one of these certifications that prohibit herbicides, ask them directly. Literally call them and ask them if they use herbicides. Some other rules of thumb: if their website only talks vaguely about their farming practices and refers to them as sustainable without getting into details, that’s a red flag. Also, look at the winery website for photos of the vineyards. If there aren’t
More from Beyond Organic Wine
Here’s a quick mention of a few upcoming things that I’ll say more about in the future: First, the book release party for my book Wine Liberated will be held in Ithaca, NY at Autumn Leaves Bookstore on November 14th. Wine will be served. It’s an anarchist book store. I’ll be there, trying to inspire a new odyssey for the next century of wine exploration. Second, the Embracing Hybrid Grapes conference is happening February 21-22 at UC Davis and in Berkeley at the Donkey & Goat winery. Tickets will go on sale in a month-ish, and we are looking for sponsors and hybrid wine producers who want to showcase their herbicide free wine to a thirsty west coast. Third, I’m going to MC Undercurrent 2027, which is THE organic and biodynamic wine conference in New Zealand, maybe the entire southern hemisphere. It’s June 1-3 in Queenstown, and the amazing Alica Anderson of Amvive will be the keynote speaker. Finally, please subscribe at beyondorganicwine.substack.com to support this podcast and all the work of Beyond Organic Wine. Thank you! At this point in history, Halloween 2026, talking about the very scary crisis in agriculture, especially in the US, may be like being on the Titanic and brining attention to the fact that the boilers are flooded. It’s true, and it’s a seriously serious issue… but it’s merely a symptom of much bigger issues. So I start this episode with a quote from my guest as a reminder of where our focus needs to be. I started a boycott of glyphosate and all herbicides in wine because it is an important statement that we don’t need to tolerate discussion about this anymore. The known knowns of glyphosate are utterly damning, and even though there are certainly many unknowns, they give zero reason to excuse its use. And yet this boycott doesn’t solve the larger issues. And Dr. Michelle Perro reminds us of the power and responsibility we have as agents of change, as instigators and initiators. But we need to speak up, stand up, and own our capacity to re-engage with our communities in not letting our lives be dictated by corporations who seek short-term material gain and the power to protect and increase their profit-making ability despite its devastating effects on humans and all of the lives with whom we share this world. Wine invites us to think about the future. We make decisions today in wine that we know we won’t taste, in some cases, for years. Wine asks us to think long-term. To think perennially. To think about systems that exceed our own brief lifetimes. I find it ironic that we think we can’t live and make wine without these novel chemicals that were only invented a few decades ago, that are harmful for us in multiple, intergenerational ways, when our wine cultures were developed over thousands of years without fossil fuels, let alone chemistry, I know it isn’t easy to farm ecologically, but easy is only a short term solution, and short term thinking seems to have created some long term problems. We find ourselves deeply invested in an approach to winegrowing that is only possible with chemicals. But that doesn’t make those chemicals good or wise, and examples to the contrary, the hundreds of folks I’ve interviewed for this podcast, prove that these chemicals are not the only way to grow grapes commercially. I know that there can be pretty extreme consequences to weaning off some of these things when there aren’t other easy alternatives, and it would suck to be the people who bear the burden of those consequences in our lifetime. But I think those consequences can be felt voluntarily by us now or they can be felt by our children involuntarily, because agricultural approaches that are only possible with chemicals are not sustainable in the long term. If you haven’t read my post, How To Grow Wine Without Herbicides, please do. My guest is Dr. Michelle Perro. Dr. Perro is a veteran pediatrician with over four decades of experience in acute and integrative medicine, co-founder and CEO of GMOScience, a 501(c)(3) no
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For those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, Happy Harvest, Merry Samhain, and a Celebratory Equinox to you all wherever you are. This episode is about Magic, the cunning arts that have been practiced for millennia in most cultures.
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit beyondorganicwine.substack.com