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Drinks Food & Drink

Drink Organic

Rating: NNNNN


Malivoire Estate Bottled Chardonnay 2004 750 ml $22, at most Vintages outlets (product #573147) Malivoire is located in Beamsville (on the Niagara Peninsula), and almost all its wines, while not designated organic, are made from estate-grown grapes without the use of chemical fertilizers, insecticides or herbicides. A number of the wines are available at Vintages outlets. The 2004 estate bottled Chardonnay shows the care the company takes with its product. It’s lively, full and smooth, the way nature intended. www.malivoirewineco.com

Frogpond Riesling 2002 500 ml $12, at Frogpond Farm, 1385 Larkin Rd, Niagara-on-the-Lake, 905-468-1079 Frogpond is Ontario’s only certified organic winery. Unfortunately, its wines aren’t available at the LCBO. Visit the farm, where the wines are sold, and see vineyards that conform to Canadian, European and Japanese organic standards. www.frogpondfarm.ca

Bonterra Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 750 ml $19.95, at most Vintages outlets (product #342428) A reliably available organic label, California’s Bonterra is owned by the massive American booze conglomerate Brown Forman, which has been pursuing full varietal organic production since 1995. If your local LCBO is going to stock one organic wine, it’ll be one of Bonterra’s. Or maybe all three: Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. www.bonterra.com

Nuova Cappelletta Minola Barbera del Monferrato 2003 750 ml $17.95, at selected Vintages outlets (product #701946) This Barbera del Monferrato is produced through biodynamics, a whole other approach to sustainability, incorporating agricultural systems that can either be considered holistic or holy-jeez-that’s freaky. If you want a wine whose grapes may have been fertilized by dung-filled cow horns, then a biodynamic-grown one like Nuova Cappelletta is the way to go. If you distrust the term “organic,” biodynamic offers another level of agricultural rectitude. www.nuovacappelletta.it

Mill Street Organic Lager 6 x 215 ml $9.75, at the Beer Store If $20 bottles of sustainable wine prove unsustainable for your wallet but you still want to drink a product that tries to walk softly upon the earth, then check out the organic lager brewed by Mill Street, based in the Distillery District. This light, crisp beer was Ontario’s first organic lager. At 4.2 per cent in a 215 ml bottle, you’re not likely to get polluted on a couple of these. And since you can buy it at the Beer Store, you can return the empties. www.millstreetbrewery.com

St. Peter’s English Ale 500 ml $3.25, at most liquor stores (product #627463) Now here’s a beer to ease your environmental conscience. The water comes from the brewer’s own 100-metre-deep bore hole, and its malted barley passes the organic requirements of the British Soil Association. Besides all that, it really tastes good. If you wanted to pretend you were sitting in the garden of a rural pub gazing out over the rolling Suffolk countryside, drinking this beer would help immensely. And, along with stubbies, it’s the best beer bottle in Ontario. www.stpetersbrewery.co.uk

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