Temple Bruer Organic Wines

What’s Organic Wine?

When you’re next sniffing the woody bouquet and tasting the essence of spice in your favourite drop of wine, consider what else you might be imbibing.

Has it been made using organic or non-organic practices, with or without preservatives? If it is organic, what does that really mean to you - your palette, purse and pleasure?
David and Barbara Bruer are the founders of Temple Bruer winery situated on the ancient flood plain of the Angas and Bremer Rivers in South Australia’s Langhorne Creek. The temperate climate is people-friendly making it a perfect spot to grow grapes and attract tourists.

In 1973 David and Barbara Bruer saw the potential for growing grapes with minimal sprays and purchased 50 acres of flat land with sprawling gums and meandering tributaries.
Then twenty-years later it all changed.

“It was 1993 and the kids were young,” remembers David. “After our house was crop dusted Barbara, told me that if we were going to continue farming we had to do it without chemicals.”
Trained as a chemist Barbara was concerned about the potential hazards from the sprays to their children’s health.
From that day on, David, also a chemist, was on a steep learning curve with a two-fold mission: to utilize his knowledge of chemistry and learn how to grow grapes without chemicals, using his skills as a winemaker, to create wine that won gold medals.
Organic Certification

In 1993 Australia’s wine industry had few organic standards. David was commandeered to lead the charge back to the future.
“Barbara pointed out to me that growing our grapes organically is only doing what farmers had done before World War II,” David says.
“She told me that if we didn’t convert to organic, it would be the end of our days as vignerons. She meant that she wouldn’t support me using chemicals anymore but with hindsight I can see that she also saw the future for the wine industry.”
Theirs was a partnership of equals and David immediately set to work to gather the information needed for the conversion.
He joined the Organic Growers Australia - at that time a fledgling organization - and argued the case for establishing standards that could be followed by anyone wanting to convert their produce to gain organic certification.
These standards state that organic means the products is not just chemical free but also grown and handled in a way that benefits all parts holistically - soil, plants, animals, food, people and the environment.
“We were lucky because our practice had always been to use minimal sprays. We didn’t use pesticides so we only had to find natural alternatives for the chemical fungicides,” says David. “We use a vegetable oil spray on the leaves and grapes and we’d always used plant-based compost made from crops, sawdust, grape seeds and skins, grass and hay - anything that’s not an animal product, so our soil and ecosystem was pretty healthy.”
This ideological dedication has earned Temple Bruer the ‘vegan friendly’ label, popular with an increasing number of wine drinkers. “We developed ways to clarify the wine without using the usual milk, fish or gelatin substances,” says David.

Preservative free?

“The benefits of organic growing are that the wines taste better, and it gives health benefits to humans and the environment,” says David. “We’re increasing our range of preservative-free organic wines which is both challenging and exciting.”
Temple Bruer has won a mantle-piece full of medals, but David’s particularly proud of the gold medal for their 2007 preservative-free Shiraz Malbec.
The preservative in wine is sulphur dioxide and some critics1 claim that it’s impossible to make a sulphur free wine because the sulphur dioxide is produced by yeast during the fermentation stage of winemaking.
“You’ve got to rigorously exclude oxygen at all times and control secondary fermentations, but the proof of the pudding is in the tasting,” David claims.
The future
“If I could wind back the clock I would have started on the road to organic wine growing much sooner,” David says. “But we’re happy with what we’ve achieved and we have a good reputation both at home and overseas.”
About 40 percent of Temple Bruer’s wine production goes to the UK, US, Canada and China. “We’d like to enlarge our market share so that more people can enjoy the benefits of organic wine. Our new range of sparkling reds are just hitting the markets and the white’s soon to follow,” David smiles with satisfaction, but it’s a hard-won prize.
“Barbara died of cancer last year and it knocked the wind out of my sails. We’d always been a team. Now more than ever, I’m committed to the organic practices we started together. It’s like a legacy to Barbara because it was her foresight, wisdom and strength of will that started us on the path to conversion. For that I’m eternally grateful.”
David’s dedication to the science of wine making, coupled with his passion shows in the quality and range of wines produced at Temple Bruer.
As increasing numbers of us are becoming conscious consumers, we’re keen to embrace a more natural life-style, and part of that journey is returning to enjoy and appreciate the age-old benefits of organic wine.

1. http://www.rosnay.com.au/the-wines/sulfur-use-in-organic-wine.html