Beyond Organic Wine

This episode features a conversation with Amy Wong, an attorney and the Policy & Program advocate with the Oregon Organic Coalition. As the former Executive Director for the Oregon Organic Coalition, Amy was instrumental to making the historic, first Oregon Organic Winegrowers Conference happen in 2025, and she is once again active in facilitating the 2nd Organic Winegrowers Conference happen this April 20 & 21, 2026. This is the only wine conference in Oregon, and one of the few in the world, that is founded on the farming rather than just the wine. New Zealand has a great organic wine conference as well, and a few others, but consider that the vast majority of wine tastings and conferences focus on regional or stylistic elements of wine, rather than how the grapes were farmed. It’s probably no surprise to anyone that as the host of the Beyond Organic Wine podcast I think that’s it’s really important to support this kind of ecological-farming-first approach to wine. And I hope to see you at this year’s Oregon Organic Winegrowers Conference.

But this conversation is much bigger than just wine. Wine is just one part of Amy’s important work, and she gives us insight and practical advice about how we can navigate the local, state, and national organic issues and policies, and how we can become farmer advocates and agents of change toward a more organic food and wine system. This is an information and resource rich conversation that is timely, urgent, and provides proactive ways of addressing some of our biggest needs.

This is the last episode from Embracing Hybrid Grapes, so I’m inviting you to send me your hybrid grape related questions. Please email or message me.

This podcast is called Beyond Organic Wine for a reason. Seven years ago I started this podcast to promote organic values and bring attention to producers who practice organic viticulture because at that t…

Christopher Renfro – Adam Tolmach

Hey welcome to Beyond Organic Wine, I’m Adam Huss, thank you so much for listening.

This episode features audio from the Embracing Hybrid Grapes Conference that took place at UC Davis on January 26th, 2026.

This episode is available for paid subscribers to the Beyond Organic Wine substack. You can subscribe and listen to t…

My guest for this episode is Terah Bajjalieh. Terah is a California winemaker, sommelier, and founder of Terah Wine Co., crafting intentional wines that champion underrepresented Mediterranean varietals and organic farming practices. With 14 harvests across five countries and a Master’s degree in Enology from France, she brings a global perspective to California winemaking. Her wines—described by the New York Times as “superb” and recognized in Wine Enthusiast’s Future 40 Tastemakers 2024—are vibrant, textured, and built for connection. As a female, LGBTQ+, Arab American winemaker, Terah is committed to elevating lesser-known voices and varietals in the wine industry.

That’s Terah’s official bio, and there are so many important nuggets of connectedness in it… But I want to add that I’ve had the pleasure of working with Terah and some of her best qualities aren’t things that usually go into a wine bio. Terah supports and shows kindness to everyone she knows. She looks for ways to help and helps generously when she can. I’ve never heard her speak a disparaging word about anyone. She bought a ticket and attended the Embracing Hybrid Grapes conference even though she doesn’t work with hybrid grapes and doesn’t intend to, but simply because she knew I wanted her to be there. She’s the kind of person who, like her fellow Bay Area natives Alyssa Liu, Autumn Durald Arkapaw, and many others makes me proud to be a Californian, and makes me hopeful just knowing she’s out there doing her thing. Her thing, in this case, just happens to be beautiful wine. And she’s one of the best arguments that I can think of for supporting small producers.

This episode features the Winemaking with Hybrid Grapes panel from the Embracing Hybrid Grapes conference at UC Davis in January of 2026. Panelists include: Karine Pednault, Ph.D., Associate Professor at Université du Québec, Erin Rasmussen, founder of and winemaker for American Wine Project in Wisconsin, and Deirdre Heekin of La Garagista in Vermont, a…

This episode features Ron Lane, who retired as Superintendent of Agriculture for the UC Davis Environmental Horticulture and Plant Sciences Departments to found Circadian Crop Sciences. During his academic experience he became frustrated by the toxic effects of sulfur and copper in our wine and food crops and began looking for safer and more effective a…

This episode features Deirdre Heekin’s keynote speech at Embracing Hybrid Grapes. Deirdre’s winery is La Garagista in Vermont. We decided to title her keynote “The Vineyard of Lost Time” because Deirdre has a book coming out later this year by that title, and part of her presentation was an excerpt from her book. So her language becomes poetic, inspiri…

This episode features audio from the Embracing Hybrid Grapes Conference that took place at UC Davis on January 26th, 2026.

It shouldn’t be controversial for me to say that the genetics of our wine crops should one of the important criteria used in determining if we qualify as practicing regenerative viticulture. It shouldn’t be controversial to say that …

This episode features the audio from the first panel at the Embracing Hybrid Grapes Conference that took place at UC Davis on January 26th, 2026.

This episode is available for paid subscribers to the Beyond Organic Wine substack. You can subscribe and listen to the full audio on the Substack app or at beyondorganicwine.substack.com. And a huge thanks to …

Johannes Pinchbeck is a Canadian grape breeder who lives north of Edmonton, Alberta and develops grapes that can take sub-arctic cold and still be productive. The extremity of his climate introduces aspects of grape growing that seem unbelievable, and that remind me of how mind-blowingly amazing these plants are that have adapted to survive in these conditions. Enjoy this journey to explore a kind of viticulture you probably never imagined possible.