Often in France we hear the expression ‘lutte raisonnée’ and for the non-French speaker this can be a bit of a mystery. What is lutte raisonnée?
The expression applies to an approach in the vineyard. The literal translation is ‘reasoned struggle’ or’ reasoned battle’ and it’s used where growers work with respect to the environment yet are not certified organic. So what’s the difference between a grower who adopts a lutte raisonnée approach and one who is certified organic?
A certified organic grower is forbidden from using synthetic products, artificial chemicals and pesticides in the vineyard and any additions in the winery must be certified organic. These growers have made a commitment to working organically and the certification process puts them under scrutiny as they are subject to controls and lower limits of both products used in the vineyard (such as copper and sulphur) and in the winery (sulphur additions at bottling).
A lutte raisonnée grower has also made a commitment to ‘try’ and adopt an organic approach if circumstances allow. In the event of extremely difficult circumstances, a lutte raisonnée grower may use a systemic product (as for example in the case of a very wet season to combat downy and powdery mildew). This sustainable approach can be very close indeed to organic production but it gives them the chance to ‘opt out’ if they feel that working organically is just not practical for whatever reason.
As a consumer, the only way to guarantee that a grower is growing grapes and making wine organically is to look for the little green leaf symbol (with the stars of the European Union) or the sign AB (which stands for Agriculture Biologique).
AB Agriculture Biologique
The leaf showing organic certification
If a grower states on the back label that he or she is working sustainably or has adopted a lutte raisonnée approach, it’s difficult to know quite how close or far away from organic viticulture and wine making they are but it is very encouraging to see more and more growers moving away from the conventional approach.
There are around 755,000 hectares of vineyards in France and of these around 50,000 of them are farmed organically by approximately 3000 growers (around 6%). This figure is growing rapidly and in some areas the figure is much higher than this. In the Loire we have many organic growers and many that have adopted a more sustainable approach.
It pays to know your grower but if you don’t, and buy from a good wine shop, they will know how the growers work.
