The wine industry is following suit.

“These industry leaders are very concerned that their firms authentically ‘walk-the-walk’ when it comes to environmental issues and that they not be accused of just ‘greenwashing’ their businesses,” Smiley said.

In a survey of 28 wine professionals, all of them said they were using some sort of environmentally friendly business activity, from package redesign, use of biodiesel fuel, wastewater reclamation and developing “green” building plans. What was different from the typical green propaganda, these business people want to understand the difference between saying they are green and actually becoming a more well rounded business.

They expressed a concern, however, over the lack of clarity in the industry and among consumers over what many environmental terms like “sustainable,” “green,” and “low carbon footprint” actually mean and how industry can genuinely adopt environmentally sensitive practices.

Interestingly enough, many of the 73 wineries polled were adopting organic wine-making processes in addition to changing their business practices. 

Eighty percent of the vineyard representatives participating in the survey said they have used sustainable farming practices on at least part of their acreage during 2008. And 46 percent of the respondents said they have been, or plan to be, marketing their grapes as “sustainable” or “organic” during the current or upcoming year.

Survey participants from vineyard operations also reported that they are reducing their use of vineyard chemicals and mechanized equipment to deal with the rising cost of inputs.

What I gathered most from the article wasn’t the typical hippie response to saving the environment.  Many of the changes the wineries are implementing have more of a fiscal impact, making them good business decisions first, environmental ones second.  That is an answer I can respect because it means that the trend will have a longer lasting impact than if they were simply going along for the ride.

Read the full story here at US Davis News: article

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And the cork has grown back, several centimetres thick and ready for collecting.

On the harvest itself, only skilled laborers are able to properly garner the tools required in this delicate process:

“It’s like cutting cloth for dress-making”, says Mr Ferreira.

Conceicao Silva, who works as a forest engineer for the organisation overseeing environmental standards in the industry, adds: “Bring the axe down too hard on the branch and permanent damage could be done, which will rule out generations of future harvesting.

“If it’s properly managed, what we are looking at here is the ultimate sustainable resource.”

‘Sense of ceremony’

It will be more than a year before bits of these curved slabs of bark appear in wine bottles around the world.

They will have to be slowly dried out in the sun, boiled, graded, shaped and cut.

The best - single unadulterated chunks of natural cork - will be safeguarding the finest red wines as they mature for decades.

The shabbier parts will be chopped up into little pieces and re-shaped into an amalgam that might seal a bottle of beer or tile-cover a bathroom floor.

But here’s where I believe this cork became less popular and yes, it is political.

…cork only grows around the Mediterranean. Wine producers in the Americas, Australia and New Zealand long ago started to rebel against tradition by using plastic bottle-stoppers and metal screw-caps.

Many European wine-growers followed suit and, suddenly, cork no longer has the monopoly in what remains its vital market.

The misconceptions about the harvesting habits are something people are now just trying to clear up.

“We shouldn’t be cutting down the trees, I suppose,” says a couple from Austria.

Vanessa Linforth, who manages the Soil Association’s forestry programme for the Mediterranean, tells me this is the kind of misconception she spends a large part of her working life trying to correct.

“People may have heard misguided campaigns before,” she says.

“There was one about eight years ago, claiming cork harvesting was destroying a vital habitat. In fact, it’s preserving it.

I highly recommend you read the whole of this article as there is a great video of the actual harvest of the cork trees.  I do believe that while I am still a fan of the screw cap, cork might be the better ecological choice and one that I think I would recommend for organic wines.

Read Urging Vintners to put a Cork in it here.

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GENOA — Prairie State Winery always has been green with its organic vineyards and its eco-friendly packaging.

Now the winery’s owners have taken their environmental business plan a step further by installing a wind turbine.

Owner Maria Mamoser uses a wine thief to sample the wine kept in barrels at  Prairie State Winery in Genoa.

The winery, owned by Rick Mamoser and his wife, Maria, had a 50-foot tall wind turbine installed about a month ago adjacent to its storefront on Main Street. Genoa officials granted a special use permit to erect the turbine, a Skystream 3.7 model by Southwest Wind Power, said Mamoser, adding the city has been very supportive of their plan.

“We really wanted our winery to be green. It is a big part of our business plan to be green in everything we do,” Rick Mamoser said. “We originally looked at moving our business to a more rural setting to do more green energy but we found this turbine appropriate for in town. It encouraged us to build our business in town rather than move to an open area.”

The wind turbine is solely to augment and reduce the amount of electricity the winery uses, he said. It is tied to the power grid but is designed to help reduce the use of electricity. Prairie State Winery has not evaluated its electrical bill to determine what impact the turbine has had, but Mamoser is hopeful it will dramatically cut his electric bill.

Troy Rudy of Northern Illinois Wind Company sold the Mamosers the turbine. It is the first time a turbine is being used in a commercial setting in northern Illinois, Rudy said. Southwest Wind Power, based in Flagstaff, Ariz., manufacturers turbines for residential and commercial use.

“It’s a state-of-the turbine; it’s really simple,” Rudy said. “When it’s turning, it’s generating power and reduces the amount of electricity you are pulling out of the electric grid. The faster the turbine turns or spins, the slower the meter goes.”

The savings varies because there are many factors to consider, he said. His clients have been saving anywhere from 5 to 80 percent on their electric bills. The amount also depends on how much electricity the household or business uses. “I have clients who cut their electric bill in half,” Troy said.

A growing interest in wind farms — generated by T. Boone Pickens’s wind energy campaign aimed at curbing the country’s reliance on oil — has resulted in more interest in residential turbines, Troy said.

10-year payoff

He said he has received numerous calls from Genoa residents asking about turbines after they saw the one outside the winery.

Most people want to know how long it takes to pay for itself. Troy said it usually takes eight to 10 years. The average price of a turbine is between $13,000 to $18,000.

“The U.S. small wind turbine market grew 14 percent in 2007,” which translated to $42 million in total sales, according to the American Wind Energy Association, based in Washington, D.C.

Additionally, the “U.S. wind industry installed 5,244 megawatts in 2007, expanding the nation’s total wind power capacity by 45 percent in a single calendar year.” Illinois ranked third among states to add new capacity, with 592 megawatts added, according to a AWEA study released in April. There are several wind farms in Illinois.

The winery turbine spins most days, even when it doesn’t seem very windy, Mamoser said. When it doesn’t, people will drop by and ask why it is not turning. No one has had any complaints that it is a distraction or unattractive for the downtown, he said.

“People come in especially to ask about it,” he said, adding he has given the sales representative’s number to five people who want to learn more about the wind turbine.

Genoa’s city council and planning commission is hoping Prairie State Winery is helping start a trend, Mamoser said.

“I’d love to see 10 more of these go up in Genoa,” he said. “It’s expensive. Not everybody may be able to do it right away. But you feel good about the money spent. It just feels right. It just feels good to us that we’ve made a small commitment.”

Next year, the Mamosers are planning to put up solar panels.

Thank you to the Courier News for the use of this article.  Click here to go to their site.

Tags: Caloriesin Wine Organic: Wind Powered Winery

“Boho has converted all its glass bottles to the lighter wine casks and estimates a resulting 55% smaller carbon footprint and 85% less landfill waste. With the BIB system, no bottle labels or corks are needed, and shipping costs are reduced by the lighter weight of the casks versus glass bottles.

Boho Vineyards winemaker Adam Richardson created the environmentally responsible packaging, which uses only soy-based inks on 95% recycled kraft paper. The resulting new lightweight box features paisley swirl graphics, and the interior bags provide an excellent oxygen barrier. The wines stay fresh for at least six weeks after opening.”

Tags: Caloriesin Wine Organic: Packaging

Wine makers ‘pack bottles with artificial additives’.  Wine makers are packing their bottles with artificial additives that reduce wine to “alcoholic cola”, according to an investigation.

In some cases producers employ water, sugar and sometimes hydrochloric acid to ensure their wine has a uniform taste and consistency.

The research into the quality of the 1.5 billion bottles consumed in Britain, for tonight’s Channel 4 programme Dispatches, also cast doubt on the reputation of Champagne, with one expert suggesting that 70 per cent was not worth the premium price.

Malcolm Gluck, author of The Great Wine Swindle, said: “Many, many wines are no better than a sort of alcoholic cola. You get artificial yeasts, enzymes, sugar, extracts, tannins, all sorts of things added.”

Many cheaper wines have oak chips added to give the impression that they have been aged in a traditional barrel.

Some of the most well-known new world brands use milk and enzymes to make the wine less cloudy and ensure that the wine tastes the same from one batch to the next.

More than 60 Beaujolais producers are due in court later this year accused of disguising low-quality grapes with excessive amounts of sugar.

In Italy 70 million litres was seized and was found to comprise just 20 per cent wine, the remainder being water, sugar and ingredients such as acid and fertiliser, used to boost the alcohol content to achieve a higher price.

The investigation found traces of fungicide in leading Champagne brands and discovered that experts struggled to distinguish between a £6.99 sparkling wine and a Champange three times the price.

Jancis Robinson, the wine writer, told the programme: “From my point of view perhaps about 30 per cent of all champagne is worth the money.”

The British wine industry has fought to retain an exemption from food and drink labelling rules which means it does not have to list the additives.

John Corbet-Milward, spokesman for the Wine and Spirits Trade Association, said it is possible for drinkers to find out what is in their wine by talking to the maker or importer.

He said the use of different ingredients in varying quantities makes it difficult for producers to come up with an accurate label.

Tags: Caloriesin Wine Organic: Artificial Additives

Organic wine is twice as good for the planet
London, September 2 : A new research has indicated that organic wine is twice as good as the non-organic variant for the planet, as the former is more eco-friendly. 

According to a report in New Scientist, for the research, Valentina Niccolucci and colleagues from the University of Siena, Italy, measured the resources used to grow, package and distribute wine made from Sangiovese grapes at two farms in Tuscany 30 kilometers apart.

The organic farm used only natural fertilizers and pesticides, and most operations were done by hand, while the other used conventional methods of production.  The team worked out the resources needed to support the making of each wine - its “eco-footprint”.

A bottle from the organic farm had an eco-footprint of 7.17 square meters, half that of the non-organic wine with a footprint of 13.98 square meters.  This is because the mechanized production used more land and non-recycled glass. Though it’s not clear that organic food is always eco-friendly, the team said that wine producers could shift to organic systems to reduce their overall ecological impact.

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