Green Options

Two companies, one from France and one from Napa, California, use wind power to transport wine.

Have you ever considered how your wine from abroad is transported? How much carbon does it take for one bottle of imported wine to reach your local grocery store, especially from a faraway vineyard in Australia? How can those bottles shipped from so far away be so cheap? Are we externalizing the cost to the environment for future generations to pick up the tab? What about all of those other products we buy from abroad? Could there be another way that doesn’t involve burning so much coal?

Have you ever cracked open a bottle of your favorite wine to find it didn’t taste as good as you remembered? 

Or taken a sip from the House wine at some fine dining establishment, and tried to quickly recover from the pursed lips that would reveal it tasted a bit sour?

You probably chalked these experiences up to simply a bad bottle, or the Sommelier at the restaurant likely whisked it away uttering something about the batch of grapes that particular year. 
But did you know that the culprit was most likely the continually changing climate?

Experts say that grapes grown to make wine are more adversely effected than any other crop, making it even more critical for wineries to focus on reducing the negative effects on the environment.  So, from organic wine (wine that has been produced from organically grown grapes) to biodynamic agriculture (organic farming that excludes the use of artificial chemicals on soil and plants), the wine industry is committed to this important initiative. 

In addition, certified ‘green’ programs like the ‘Napa Valley Green Certified Winery’ are popping up all over the world, establishing sustainable and green business practices for wineries.  Certified wine production facilities demonstrate a commitment to conserving water and energy, reducing waste and preventing pollution with the primary goal of reducing their overall carbon footprint.  The result is less carbon emissions and more flavorful grapes.  

Gold LEED Certified Gaia Napa Valley Hotel & Spa in Northern California is an eco–friendly property whose name Gaia means “Mother Earth” in Greek.

Gaia’s green features include:

• Skylights: Solatube tubular skylights are used in conference rooms, lobby and the hallways.
• Landscaping: Chemical free landscaping with native and climate-adaptive plants for limited water use for irrigating.
• Education: The resort promotes awareness of sustainability with “GreenTouchscreen® kiosks show guests and visitors how much we are saving in water, electricity and how much CO2 we are emitting.”
• Water: Facilitied include DDLow flush toilets, low flow showerheads, and koi pond uses recycled water from the site, that’s filtered and cleaned prior to entering the pond.

Their science is impressive, but their timing is dead on. It doesn’t quite seem fair that California has been blessed with the perfect growing climate for some of the world’s best agriculture (and of course, wine) but saddled with a water shortage.

To help the Napa winemakers and wineries worldwide oversee their crop irrigation and management, Sebastian Payen and Thibaut Scholasch, of Fruition Sciences have turned the science of hydration [...]

Last week as we overnighted in the LEED Gold Gaia Hotel in American Valley, we thought that we should take advantage of what everyone else in the region does – wine tasting. But we figured to be a little different. We hit a few wineries of varying organic, green, sustainable qualities and found a few surprises. First, get it out your head to tie “sustainability” to traditional wine making. As Winemaker Steven Canter at Quivira mentions, “There’s nothing sustainable about bottling wine in a glass bottle, corking the bottle, then shipping it all over the country.”

We scooted into the Madonna Winery tasting room during a quite Sunday afternoon. Located in the Carneros Region of Napa Valley, this family produced wine believes in organic farming, without the use of synthetic chemicals and is a proud member of CCOF (California Certified Organic Farmers). But when we asked the two servers if they served organic wine it was as if we asked for a tasting of Miller Lite. One gave this look of confusion and the other got a little condescending. Apparently, they do not make organic wine. According to the servers, that whole organic wine issue deals with the adding of sulfites and they think that serious winemakers have to use sulfites. Everyone gets to do their own due diligence as far as organic this or that but don’t make us feel like idiots for bringing up the question.