We all care about global warming. In the last couple of weeks, I made two posts to Facebook about a South American winery that is focused on making lighter-weight wine bottles. According to one of the articles, the wine bottles’ weight is the single biggest contributor to global warming from the wine industry. I decided to look further into sustainable wine practices.
What Is Sustainable Wine Growing
According to Wine Institute, “Sustainable winegrowing is a comprehensive set of practices that are environmentally sound, socially equitable and economically viable. Sustainable winegrowing is being used by winegrape growers and vintners throughout California to grow and make high quality grapes and wine. These sustainable vineyard and winery practices conserve water and energy, maintain healthy soil, protect air and water quality, enhance relations with employees and communities, preserve local ecosystems and wildlife habitat and improve the economic vitality of vineyards and wineries.”
Discover California Wines adds: Sustainable, organic and biodynamic are all rooted in ancient techniques and have evolved to include new technologies and practices. More recently they have been formalized into standards and certification programs with clear requirements. At the end of the day, they have more in common than not.
Wente Vineyards says it’s all about making vineyards sustainable for generations and generations.
Buzzwords
Green Business Bureau highlights the three most important words in the wine world having to do with sustainability:
“Sustainability: Including the steps of biodynamic farming, and organic farming, the term “sustainability” in reference to the world of wine simply means that responsibility is taken for the endeavors’ effect on the planet, environmentally, economically, and socially.
“Biodynamic: Biodynamic farming takes organic farming a step further to include the health and biodiversity of the soil in the conversation as well as that of the grapes.
“Organic: In the world of viticulture, ‘organic’ can be defined as the farmer not using synthetic pesticides, or fungicides in the growth of their grapes.”
Green Business Bureau highlights areas of focus in three areas: the vineyard, the cellar and packaging and transport.
Their article is very thorough. I hope that many wineries and vineyards read it and adopt the practices discussed.
