sustainable wine

In my last post, I wrote about how difficult it is to grow grapes and make wine in an environmentally responsible manner, and how rare organic and biodynamic winemaking remains today. 

Now I want to focus on the brighter side: while “green” wine still accounts for a small share of the industry, that share is growing quickly, and it isn’t terribly hard to find wines from makers who are genuinely trying to be responsible environmental stewards. 

But first, it’s important to nail down the terminology used by winemakers to indicate environmentally friendly juice. 

Organic

Unless you’ve been asleep for the past twenty years, you know that Americans are eating differently these days. Once upon a time, price was pretty much the only factor in our food purchases; that attitude helped spur the growth of industrial-scale agriculture built on petrochemical fertilizers, monoculture, and efficiency over quality. (Hello, grainy and flavorless supermarket tomatoes!) 

Today, we’re more conscious of how the food we eat impacts the planet and our own bodies. Consumers are increasingly demanding more information about how their food is grown and made, and a large and growing number prefer to buy local and organic whenever possible.