October 24th, 2008
“There are 1300 vintners and growers in our program, representing 53 percent of the wine production and 33 percent of the wine-grape acreage,” says Gladys Horiuchi of the Wine Institute and its subsidiary, the CSWA, a non-profit created in 2002 by the institute when it put out its 500 page book on sustainable grape farming.
Back in Sonoma’s Alexander Valley, Rochford makes a similar stab at numbers.
“I’m pretty sure that around half of the local vineyards and wineries are doing at least one or two things to green up. The majority of people here are considering solar power, and there’s lots of people who are looking at or have converted some of their equipment to biodiesel. Or they have extensive recyling programs (that) save you money in the end, they make good business sense – so it’s a kind of a double deal. You get to be doing something that’s good for the environment and doing something that’s good for your business.”
In the past year alone, he says he’s noticed bird boxes cropping up on almost every estate.
Nationally, even some of the biggest winemakers in America have greened up their acts.
“It’s significant,” WineAmerica president Bill Nelson says of the sustainable-wine movement in the U.S. “It’s probably led by Fetzer Vineyards, because they’re big and their grapes are grown organically, and have been for a long time. (Fetzer is California’s largest producer of organic grapes). Also, there are a number of Gallo properties that use sustainable methods. …Most wineries are not organic, per se, but are sustainable.”
It’s tough to be totally organic, experts say, because the majority of vintners consider sulfides necessary to maintaining wine flavor and freshness – and to be certified “organic,” a winemaker can’t use sulfides, among other things.
“We’re not technically ‘organic’ in the cellar (only 3 percent of California’s 520,000 acres of vineyards are certified organic, per Horiuchi). But we use the gravity-flow method, a natural way to move the wine,” Rochoford says. “And we use a lot of wild yeast in fermentation instead of innoculating with a lab yeast.”
Also, he points out that among wine grape growers, the label “organic” can present a dilemma. In fact, the CSWA and the Wine Institute’s Sustainable Wine Growing Program are debating the certification process.
“The worry is that people will just pass those tests and then once they’ve earned the certification, stop (going any further),” Rochoford said. “…The hope is that these new generations (of winemakers) will voluntarily want to make changes. People don’t want their families and animals and customers exposed to these chemicals.”
WineAmerica’s Bill Nelson, in D.C., says that by and large, everyone who farms grapes is “very committed to their particular plot of land, because the characteristics of the grapes themselves are particular to that land. …It’s in the DNA of the people who grow wine to be really conservators, stewards of their land.”
This may be true, in principle, but as with all modern agriculture, the tendency in wine making over the past 80 or so years has been to rely on chemicals, non-sustainable techniques (super-heavy farming equipment compacts the soil, for instance, decreasing its richness and nitrogen), and otherwise big-carbon-footprint facilities to help make their vineyard a success.
But clearly this retro-trend is sweeping viticulture – even more so in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, where government controls can be stricter and farmers tend to be more eco-conscious.
American wineries like Medlock Ames, Shafer, Robert Sinskey (Sonoma), Granite Creek Vineyards (Arizona), Amity Vineyards and Seven Hills Vineyard in Oregon and Badger Mountain Vineyards in Washington are setting the curve.
The Shafer family, in particular, was far ahead of its time when it began adopting shades of
green in the late 1980’s, almost 15 years after the Shafers bought the winery. Second-generation vintner Doug Shafer tells his story on a video on the winery’s website. He talks of everything old becoming new, and the “new” (conventional) becoming archaic. It’s a fascinating turnabout, one that he and other earth-first grape growers hope will become the new norm in 21st century wine making.
“Twenty years ago, a Napa Valley vineyard was supposed to look as clean as a pool table,” he wrote in an About.com testimony. “Not a blade of grass, not a weed, no sign of bird or insect life, just knobby vines sticking up out of the soil. The only way to achieve that stripped-down look was by tainting the soil with rodent poison to kill moles and gophers, by spraying potent herbicides to kill unwanted foliage, and by applying some powerful insecticides to vanquish the bug world. Not only was it costly, it wasn’t a sustainable way to farm.
“Today, we are partnering with owls, songbirds, hawks, bats and other wildlife to cultivate our vineyards. Thanks to their efforts, along with cover crops, we don’t use insecticides, chemical fertilizers or rodent poisons. …”
As it turns out, in viticulture these days, this wild kingom is a peaceable kingdom. Salud!
For more information on the difference between organically grown grapes, organic wine, and biodynamically produced wine, see the Wine Institute’s website report.
Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media
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