Organic Wine

Organic Wine Pioneer

At Frey, we pride ourselves on being pioneers in organic wine. When we started the first organic winery back in 1980, organic was not a popular category like it is today. In fact, we faced an incredible amount of work in educating, informing, and spreading information about the organic cause. Over 40 years later, we’re proud to lead the charge for organic wine in the United States.

What is Organic Wine?

As the category of organic wine has become more popular, many different wine brands have decided to produce an organic line. However, making wine with organic methods is a different process than making wine conventionally. So, many wineries have opted to make wine with organic grapes but still add sulfites in their winemaking process.

At Frey, we use organic grapes and make our wines without added sulfites. All our organic wines are made with just organic grapes and organic yeast. The USDA has offered an organic track for wines honoring organic viticulture to accommodate this growing trend of “made with organic grapes” wines. However, the USDA Organic symbol only appears on the labels of wines BOTH made with organic grapes and processed organically. All Frey wines showcase the USDA organic symbol on our labels so that you can be sure our wines are made with organically grown grapes AND produced using organic winemaking methods in our winery facility.

Why Organic Wine?

We’re thrilled that more wineries are starting to use organic grapes. We believe that organic agriculture is truly a part of the solution for a world moving in increasingly precarious environmental directions. The Frey family is composed of several generations of organic farmers. Our founders, Katrina and Jonathan, fell deeply in love with organic agriculture while learning from organic farming trailblazer Alan Chadwick how to grow organic crops. Jonathan’s mother, Beba Frey, grew up farming in upstate New York, and she passed her love of good dirt onto her twelve children. The next generation of Freys has continued farming many different crops on the home ranch and out of a love for organics, lives on.

Don’t Panic, it’s Organic

Frey Vineyards has shaped the standard of USDA Organic winemaking in the US. For over four decades, we’ve been producing award-winning Organic wine without added sulfites. Premium organic grapes, a thorough understanding of wine chemistry, and meticulous attention during the winemaking process are the foundation of our wines. At Frey Vineyards, we combine the best of modern and traditional winemaking methods to showcase distinctive varietal flavors.

Through minimal manipulation in the cellar, we allow the wines to express the authentic character of our soils and climate. We let the pure character of each of our wines shine without adding synthetic preservatives or colorants. Frey Organic Wines are made with just two organic ingredients: grapes and yeast.

Organic Grapes

A long list of chemicals can be applied to conventional agriculture grapes. Grapes’ thin skins make them one of the crops you always want to get organically. We harvest the best organic grapes from Northern California and press them into a wonderful organic grape juice without any chemical additives added along the way. We ferment our grape juice at our organic winery facility, where all the grapes that enter are grown 100% organically.

Organic Yeast

Once we have our organic grape juice ready, our organic wines are fermented on non-GMO certified organic yeast. That’s it—our process is simple, clean, and direct.

The Real Organic Project

Frey Vineyards is proud to be a part of The Real Organic Project. As industry pressures mount from big ag, this organization is committed to keeping the organic standard strong so you can trust the organic certification when you go to the store.

Why We Believe in Organic

Over the years, we have received countless testimonials from Frey Wine enthusiasts about how delicious our wines are. We know that organic is important, but it’s entirely possible to make a fabulous, organic wine from organic grapes without adding any chemicals. Many folks who respond to sulfites laud us for making a wine they can drink safely.

We love being able to support organic agriculture not just for our wines but for the landscape, too. Our organic farm and the organic vineyards that we help to produce Frey wines are all nourishing the health of the ecosystem, including the human population! The farm workers in the vineyards are not subjected to the litany of pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides that are typically sprayed on grapes. Without the use of chemical fertilizers on the grapes, the surrounding wildlife (bugs, birds, mammals, etc.) can live their lives. And, incredibly importantly, the water cycle is kept clean in an organic vineyard; one of the harshest criticisms of conventionally-grown grapes is the consequence of run-off from spraying vineyards going directly into local creeks, rivers, and streams, contaminating not just the site, but wherever the water flows.