Soil to Soul by Bonterra Organic Estates

Soil to Soul: Farming, Food, Wine, and our Collective Future is dedicated to exploring diverse voices and perspectives as they relate to farming, food, wine, and the future we’re working to build. Soil to Soul is brought to you by Bonterra Organic Estates and is hosted by Jess Baum, Bonterra’s Senior Director of Regenerative Impact.

This episode features chef, writer, homesteader, and educator Georgia Pellegrini. Her critically-acclaimed books include Food Heroes, Girl Hunter, and Modern Pioneering. Georgia has written for The Wall Street Journal and hosts the television show “Modern Pioneering” on PBS. She has appeared on “The Today Show” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”, and has been featured in Food & Wine magazine and The New York Times. Georgia works to empower people to learn manual literacy, find their personal strengths, and pursue their life passions.

Listen in to our season finale as Georgia talks about her deep connection to her family's land in upstate New York, why fried onions and fresh herbs are the smells of her childhood, the experience of sharing a bathroom with frogs in the south of France, and how manual literacy connects us to our origins as humans.

Soil to Soul: Farming, Food, Wine, and our Collective Future is dedicated to exploring diverse voices and perspectives as they relate to farming, food, wine, and the future we’re working to build. Soil to Soul is brought to you by Bonterra Organic Estates, the largest Regenerative Organic Certified® winery in the United States, and is hosted by Jess Baum, Bonterra’s Senior Director of Regenerative Impact.

Nicole Dooling is an ER Trauma Nurse and a second generation winegrower from Mendocino County. She introduced regenerative organic practices to her family business, Mariah Vineyards, the first ever Global Land to Market Verified regenerative vineyard certified by The Savory Institute.

Listen in as Jess and Nicole discuss the wonders of Mendocino County and growing up in a rural area, the concept of how regenerative organic agriculture is farming in service of life, and how the Savory Institute is taking certification to the next level.

Today’s episode mentions Paul Dolan, a leader in the organic wine movement who passed away on June 26th, 2023. Paul’s decades-long influence on sustainable viticulture cannot be understated, and his legacy will live on for generations to come.

Soil to Soul: Farming, Food, Wine, and our Collective Future, dedicated to exploring diverse voices and perspectives as they relate to farming, food, wine, and the future we’re working to build. Soil to Soul is brought to you by Bonterra Organic Estates and is hosted by Jess Baum, Bonterra’s Senior Director of Regenerative Impact.

Today’s guest is Adam Schlegel of Chook Chicken, a B Corp-certified fast casual restaurant in Denver dedicated to serving delicious, responsible food sourced from those that care for and respect our land.

Before that, Adam co-founded Snooze, an A.M. Eatery in 2006 with his brother Jon, a breakfast and lunch restaurant that has grown to 59 locations around the country, where he led development strategy and sustainable and community initiatives and remains involved today. Adam is also active with various non-profits, start-ups, and government organizations working to improve agriculture, education, and food.

Jess and Adam discuss the evolution of Snooze and Chook and how they’re providing sustainable sustenance at an affordable price, the reckoning the restaurant industry faced during and after the pandemic, and the most important part of running a restaurant: taking care of staff.

This is the series premiere of Soil to Soul: Farming, Food, Wine, and our Collective Future. This podcast is brought to you by Bonterra Organic Estates, dedicated to exploring diverse voices and perspectives as they relate to farming, food, wine, memory, and the connections we all share. Soil to Soul is hosted by Jess Baum, Bonterra’s Senior Director of Regenerative Impact.

For our very first episode, we start with an interview between host Jess Baum and me, Elizabeth Archer, the producer of Soil to Soul.

Jess is the Senior Director of Regenerative Impact at Bonterra Organic Estates, where she steers the company’s overarching sustainability strategy and planning with a holistic eye. In addition to leading the winery’s efforts to reduce energy, waste, water consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions, she also works to advance the social aspects of sustainability, and engage employees and consumers in the regenerative revolution through creative storytelling and empowered connection.

Under Jess’s guidance, Bonterra Organic Estates has achieved Regenerative Organic Certification, been recertified as a B Corp, and has secured Climate Neutral certification for the Bonterra brand. Jess spearheaded the company’s formal commitment to the Science-Based Targets initiative, and helped to launch an employee engagement group called the B Squad.

Jess chose to join the wine industry because of its enormous potential to positively impact our environment, saying, “Wine is a beautiful and perfect vehicle to change the world.”

After the segment with Jess, we interview our first-ever guest, Joseph Brinkley. Joseph is the Director of Regenerative Organic Development at Bonterra Organic Estates, where he is instrumental in shaping and driving policy positions on climate-smart farming and business practices. Joseph is also a recognized speaker and panelist, and frequently advocates for climate action and healthy soils legislation in California and Washington, D.C. He is a member of the Ceres Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy Network’s Healthy Soils Working Group, and in 2023 was awarded the Ceres BICEP Climate Smart Agriculture Groundbreaker Award.

Listen in as Jess and Joseph discuss his path to biodynamic and regenerative viticulture, the interdependence of all living things and the systems we have created, and the importance of advocating for change to those systems to benefit us all. If you listen closely, you’ll hear the birds outside Joseph’s window on his homestead farm in Virginia.

To learn more about us and what we do, visit bonterra.com.

Brian Freedman writes regularly for Food & Wine, Forbes, and Whisky Advocate, and also contributes to publications such as Wine Enthusiast, Travel + Leisure, and The Bourbon Review. He is a frequent guest on news and talk shows around the country, and often consults as a sommelier and wine-cellar assessor. As mentioned in the episode, Brian’s #1 book Crushed: How A Changing Climate Is Altering the Way We Drink is now available in paperback.