Mimi Casteel
Dear Friends,
Here is an interview I did with Adam Huss about a month ago on his Organic Wine Podcast. This was an interview I totally enjoyed because Adam asked me the kind of “controversial and even incendiary” questions I really like to talk about.
~Mimi
Dear Friends,
Outside of my field notes, I rarely write in the growing season or near the harvest. Keeping up with the work takes 110% physical and mental presence, but this year I have decided that some things should not be looked at in the rearview. I have wanted to maintain a spirit of both optimism and truth here, and yet I do not want to ever do a disservice to the mission of Hope Well by presenting a prettier version of the truth, or even just the version one sees through the filter of retrospect, with blurred edges.
In previous seasons, my faith in the work and the land have given me the courage to double-down when things start to fall apart. There is a moment in every growing season when I am seized with crippling anxiety and self-doubt, but harvest comes and the joyful memory in my aching muscles takes away the edge. The backwards steps are overcome by more feet forward, and that is enough to light the fire again.
This year. This is a year of the hardest lessons. As we entered a(nother) uncommonly humid growing season it was clear that the reality of ever-more vineyards in our narrow valley means that our fungal foe powdery mildew has more presence than ever before. Organic growers who rely on non-synthetic controls are spraying much more often than anyone feels good about. My concern about mildew outbreaks was dwarfed by my concern over the reality of how much compaction from tractor passes our fragile soils can bear, even with permanent cover crop. We are trying to build organic matter in the soil, an essential component of regeneration, but how can we do that when we have to drive tractors so often to keep our fruit clean?
We managed to reach veraison with clean fruit, but with a heavy heart over what it took to be clean. I was texting constantly with my other organic colleagues: what does this mean? Do we accept this? Can we reasonably argue this is ‘better?’ or just less terrible?
As I tried to console myself that the soil compaction from our organic sprays is less because we have roots in the ground everywhere, and that even if the crop was the smallest on record this year to begin with due to a wet cool bloom period, it was clean and had the promise of excellence, a new plague suddenly appeared: an explosion in the population of voles.
During August our valley looks like the dust bowl. The thousands of acres surrounding us are put under plow, harrow and disc, putting countless tons of topsoil into the air, and leaving thousands of ground-dwelling vertebrates homeless. The vultures and carrion eaters descend to the feast laid in this wake, but the survivors, hungry and thirsty, seek shelter wherever it can be found. Our farm became the refuge just as the driest part of the season came on.
We’ve always had voles, and gophers and moles. These soil vertebrates have a real job to do. They have coevolved with this landscape to deliver mineralized, lower layers of subsoil to mix with topsoil and organic matter and recycling minerals. In the past our snakes and raptors and coyotes have kept their damage to our plants to an acceptable level. This year the predators are so overfed they are killing for sport, leaving the carcasses on end posts and dropping them on the ground. And still, legions skitter about laying waste to the crop. Having built a refuge of permanent cover, in a high cycle year for voles, I now am seeing what I have always feared might be true: our island of diversity and recovery is not big enough to support the failing health of the surrounding ecosystem.
Every year as harvest draws near I walk the vineyard daily doing the late-season perfection pass, tasting the progress. This year every day there is less. Bays full of vines girdled by thirsty voles turn red as the carbohydrates fill up the leaves and the vines produce excess anthocyanins in response. Because of the girdling the products of photosynthesis cannot be translocated to the roots, so those carbohydrates will not be stored for the following year, giving the vine a life-expectancy only as long as it has permanent storage. Bunches of fruit that have been girdled at the rachis (stem) wither and raisin before they have even turned color. Canes that would be next years’ pruning wood are also girdled.
My organic inspector’s advice was to clean cultivate. Break up their tunnels, kill them in the ground with the blades. Obviously, poison is not an option here. Even if I cultivate to try to save what is left, what will I lose in so doing? Ten years of hard work building soil. And if I don’t, why should I believe that next year won’t be worse? And even if we did manage to take the vole population down by taking an action like cultivation, can we afford to replant 30% of this vineyard to repair the damage already done?
If I lose the farm in this lesson because I can’t afford to recover from this, whether I till or don’t till, won’t have mattered much except to me. I, like many others, I’d wager, am forced to choose between what I know is best for the land, and what will allow me to eke out one more little vintage.
I’ve counseled others on transitioning vineyards to no-till. I never lie about what kind of commitment it is, and I never pretend to know all the answers. Being no-till AND organic would challenge the constitution of even the most seasoned veteran. I’ve tried to learn what happens when you keep walking the line, my faith that the system is constantly trying to rebalance itself has been my companion on that lonely road. How will we ever know if this works otherwise?
Failure is not scary to me. We’re good friends. I value the opportunity to learn. And sadly, I feel I have learned the most critical lesson yet: In an ocean of conventional, extractive farming, islands of regenerative practices will meet insurmountable challenges unless the farmer is wealthy enough to continue to throw money into the farm that has no offset in the profits afforded by value-added markets.
But even more to the point, I have always said, and I still believe, that the people who deserve and desperately need the truly nutritious food that can only be grown regeneratively, cannot afford the price of admission. The rich people who can afford to farm this way and eat this way will not find safe-haven when the real reckoning begins.
The mission of Hope Well is to look for a way to change agriculture. In twelve years I have learned so much, and every answer has posed new questions. We cannot allow ourselves be lured into believing that invoking the words ‘regenerative agriculture’ is somehow also an action. At the heart of this concept is old wisdom, a way of living with the land that requires patience, humility, and faith. It is noun and verb. For our land managers to adopt this way of life, society must adopt it with them, in support of them, for a better future for all. It must be adopted on a societal and a landscape level, on a scale that can succeed, that is not just hanging on by threads on tiny islands eroded on all sides by conventional extractive agriculture. Regenerative agriculture must become the conventional way if we are going to find our way to systemic justice, ecological repair, and climate resilience.
I write to think, and to first separate, and then reconcile the emotional experience of doing this work with the scientific observations that doing the work has afforded. As I began writing this, all I could see and feel was the barriers, the damage and destruction. All I could feel was the weight of failure. But I opened one of my million field notebooks and looked back over the year, the sightings of new wildflowers (a few), the return of our wild bees to the hive tree, the (much) bigger populations of predatory arthropods, soil invertebrates, bluebirds, tanagers, horned lark and scores of other creatures and plants.
But ABOVE that, in these darkest moments, without ever reaching out, I have been surrounded by the unsolicited love and almost deafening support of old and new friends who are on this journey too. Like a counter-flood to the voles, the love came in connections across oceans and lanes and walks of life: new friends from Provence who are using their considerable marketing prowess to raise awareness of holistic management; a young Burgundian from an historic estate who went full-force into no-till winegrowing where it is virtually unheard of; an American in traditional Burgundy who is transitioning ANOTHER historic domaine to regenerative practices; the most timely and heart-stopping letter and a beautiful book from a humane and beautiful butchery in New South Wales, and long email from a second-generation winegrower in Tasmania who is trying to spread regenerative practices with growers in her region; a raw and unfiltered visit with a group of incredible women of color in wine; and countless emails and texts from Costa Rica, Ecuador, Chile, Vermont, Texas, Arizona, New York, Colorado, New Jersey, Virginia; and here, in my home state, the calls from my people who know when I’ve gone to ground, the walks with my mother, and my little family telling me that no matter how few there are, these grapes taste better than any grapes in the world. The lives behind the words, their own paths, their pain, their joy, so many harmonic notes. We are finding each other and raising an army of will and walk that is poised to give and give more without judgement and with grace. This is only the beginning of the work, and I love beginnings. And now, again, I feel nothing but gratitude for this gorgeous, terrifying adventure I’m on.
THESE ARE JUST A FEW PEOPLE IN THIS FIGHT. MEET THEM, FOLLOW THEM, SUPPORT THEM
…and so many, many more.
I said I had questions, not answers. If these questions are interesting to you then please help me ask them at every level of our interconnected, interdependent lives. LET’S DO THIS TOGETHER.
And for more, see our next series, outcasts.
In this beautiful and heartfelt piece, Eric Asimov perfectly captures how our interactions with food, especially wine, can inspire and move us toward a new relationship with the natural world.
Read in the New York Times (Subscription Required)
Graphic: Brian Britigan
LISTEN NOW – Airdate: July 10, 2019
The latest episode of Levi Dalton’s “I’ll Drink to That!” podcast was released this week, and it features owner and winegrower Mimi Casteel. “Mimi sees a through line between viticulture as agriculture, and agriculture as an engagement with the natural world. How do you see that line? After listening to Mimi Casteel, your perspective might well change.”
Dear Friends,
A long time ago my dear friend Mark Sturges introduced me to the Acres Conference, and ever since it has been a yearly pilgrimage to connect with and be inspired by others working in holistic farming systems. I had the great honor of sitting down with the delightful host of the Acres podcast, Tractor Time, at the 2019 conference, and spending an hour talking about the mission and work at Hope Well, along with other spicy topics. For me this was a huge privilege, as this conference and the organization represent a major source of education and inspiration in my journey.
On this episode, we welcome Mimi Casteel, a wine maker in Oregon’s Eola-Amity Hills. At Hope Well Vineyard, Casteel is blazing her own trail and fast becoming one of the leading voices in the regenerative agriculture movement. Mimi talks eloquently and brilliantly — not just about wine, but agriculture and land use in general. As you’ll hear, her beyond-organic farm is singular within the American wine world. It’s not your typical vineyard, with its neat and tidy rows. It’s a dynamic ecosystem that incorporates livestock, welcomes in wild animals, eschews industrial inputs and produces prized pinot noirs. And for this work, Mimi was recently named the Wine Person of the Year by Imbibe Magazine.
The attention and interest in regenerative agriculture over the last year has been nothing short of dizzying. I am grateful, and hopeful that the light that shines on the movement now will guide and protect the mission as we move into a new and critical decade. – Mimi Casteel
“Mimi Casteel is our Imbibe 75 2020 Wine Person of the Year. Mimi Casteel makes wine—very good wine—under her Hope Well label. The wine is an enjoyable byproduct of a much larger experiment undertaken by Casteel. Using methods of regenerative agriculture, she aims to demonstrate that farming can be done in a way that not only improves the land, but even reverses the effects of climate change.” Read the article.
Who’s Really Trampling out the Vintage?
Una nota de gracias
About a year back, when I was still working with my dear friends at Lingua Franca, I found myself navigating the darkest hour between their night harvest and my dawn harvest at Hope Well. Not enough time to go home and get a nap, too tired to try to even bother getting warm. I was sitting in my car drinking coffee from a thermos in the 7-11 parking lot, as I did not want to wake my family by going home. Some of the people from the night pick were mulling about the parking lot, eating the only warm, cheap food that can be had at that hour of the night / morning. Why on Earth wouldn’t they be already home in their beds, you ask?
Because of course they were all going on to other jobs. Maybe their day job, maybe another pick in the daytime. We were all cold, sweaty, dirty and tired. I looked over to the car next to me and saw a woman sleeping with two little babies on her chest. Her hair indicated she was the abuelita, and the babies slept soundly, but she was clearly stirring. I watched her transition the babies to their mother, who had finished her snack and was taking her place in the car with the children while abuelita put on her gear and boarded the van to go with the pickers to the next job.
I watched them go as I tried to thaw my fingers on my thermos. I thought of abuelita and the three generations of her family working on farms across the valley. Mama was strapping her babies into their carseats and looking so tired that I tapped on her window and offered to follow her home. We delivered her babies to their older siblings. Mama quickly changed into the clothes she would wear while she cleaned houses the rest of the day.
As dawn drew close I asked her to be careful that day, please sleep soon, please thank her family for the beautiful work they were doing, and left to meet my crew at Hope Well. It was an incredibly emotional drive, which helped keep me awake, but I still struggle to convey what was burning in my chest.
At the gates of Hope Well I was greeted by the shouts and smiles of my well-rested compadres.This group of remarkable people I’ve known for so long, the crew that has worked with my family through the decades, also works with me at Hope Well. The work I am able to do because they belong here means everything to the mission of this place.
Since I was a child, I have watched the same group of men and women work the vines, first at Bethel Heights, and now here as well, and how differently they work than any of the very talented crews of contract labor I have had the opportunity to work with in other vineyards.
The way I work is, to put it lightly, different. I am asking these people to take a journey with me and this place. To take that walk I cannot just ask them to go out and do a particular job. I need them to understand the reason everything looks so different here. I need them to understand that our work is always toward the goal of repairing a relationship with this land. I need them to see how everything fits together.
There is real levity in the vines here. We do serious work with great joy in our hearts. As I crossed the gate that morning, into the arms of my crew, I’ve never felt more grateful for the system that my family has fought to maintain, even as the world turns away from any permanent labor model, outsourcing every job that can be systematized, placing the responsibility and liability on someone else’s business. Bethel Heights formed an alliance with Temperance Hill more than twenty years ago to provide full-time work, benefits, and proper working conditions.
I bring this up, because that parking lot at the 7-11 was full of the very same talent and skill that was waiting for me back at Hope Well. They are all a part of an unstable economy, built on their backs, that won’t take responsibility for the most important component of the work we do; The human component.
We have marginalized the most important work being done in this country. We have painted labor in terms of drudgery, mindless, unskilled tasks that anyone with education or talent would be a fool to tarry with. I would be the last person to point the finger at labor contractors or even the businesses that hire them for starting this epidemic. At the heart of this is the systemic death of a type of working landscape that understands how beholden we are to that work, and how our society is failing as that uniting force is vilified, alienated, and persecuted.
To work the land in the growing of food and fiber for your country is, I submit, the very highest calling. To put your body and your mind to bringing the harvest to the first responders, the soldiers, the doctors and the lawyers, lauded all, cannot the people who feed and clothe them be justly honored? To be very clear, the work we do, the synergy between bodies moving through space, the way the naked and healthy environment inspires a free mind to think about the work of the hand, the tool, the effort, there is no cubicle or desk that offers the same promise.
The people in that early-morning parking lot, the people behind my gate, the people who have picked me up when I have fallen, and suffered every loss with me as viscerally as I, WE ARE YOU. We are building your children’s future. Those hands that we classify as ‘unskilled’ and the direction of their work could change the fate of our world. Can we please stand up and give the greatest thanks of this season to the backs that brought that bounty to your table? Right now, they are cutting and wrapping your Christmas tree.
They are WE. The contracted laborer has all the promise of José Luís on my crew, if given the chance and the confidence to BELONG to this place. Our land turns on their affection. Our futures are their futures.
A mi gente: José Luís, Victor, Chapo, Tito, Joaquín, Blanca, Catalína, Asunción, Jesús, Nicolasa, Francisco, Maria, Isabel, Cente, gracias muchísimas por todo, cada día, cada año. Y a todas las familias trabajando en las granjas, ranchos, escuelas, casas, hospitales, ustedes tienen mi
gratitud tambien.
“Agriculture can play a leading role in combating climate change and reversing ecological damage. Mimi Casteel is showing one way to get it done.”
Read the full story by Eric Asimov in The New York Times, published October 17, 2019