Vintners and grape growers have been educating themselves and taking action in their businesses for years -- in fact the wine industry is seen as progressive and pioneering in this among agricultural sectors -- to improve the viticultural, environmental and social aspects of their businesses while remaining economically viable.
But since “sustainable” has been the buzzword of the decade -- meaning everything from eliminating herbicides and pesticides in the vineyards to slapping a single solar panel on a winery building -- it was important for the industry to provide concrete standards and ratings.
So now, under the Certified California Sustainable Winegrowing program, wineries have steps to folow and a way to prove to consumers, retailers and each other that they are taking those steps to farm, produce, package and transport wine sustainably.
The program is voluntary, but the majority of wineries and growers in the state have particpated in educational workshops and pilot programs since their inception in 2002.
Thank you for writing about the new California Certified Sustainable Winegrowing (CCSW-certified) program.
ReplyDeleteIt's not that we aren't concerned about informing consumers about the sustainability of our products - it's a bit more complicated. CCSW-Certified provides third-party verification of a winery and/or vineyard's adherence to a process of continuous improvement in the adoption of sustainable practices. While these positive practices ultimately produce winegrapes and wine, the program is focused on the winery and vineyard operations, which isn't the same as certifying the product. For this, and other issues in the evolving arena of "green" claims, we decided to refrain from allowing logos on bottles at this time.
Even so, interested consumers have access to a number of other information sources to determine if a winery or vineyard is certified. For instance, certified members are listed on the CSWA website: www.sustainablewinegrowing.org -- and certified wineries and vineyards can also use the CCSW-Certified logo on their websites, promotional materials, and on shelf talkers and other "secondary packaging." We are also considering options for evolving the program to allow the use of an eco-lable, perhaps by adding perfomance metrics (another project that the CA wine community is currently undertaking), in the future, but felt this is the appropriate next step for the industry.
The program is newly launched, and we have quite a bit of outreach and education to do both within the CA wine community, and next with gatekeepers and consumers. Please stay tuned as the program evolves!
Allison Jordan
Executive Director, California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance