Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/602988
December 2015 WINES&VINES 31 T his column has been building in my mind for the past several months. It started when I read two opinion pieces—one in The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat, the other in the Sonoma County Gazette—both highly critical of the wine industry's sustain- ability efforts in Sonoma County, Calif. It con- tinued to grow after the Napa Valley news media published several items expressing concern about the number of wine-related events and contending that, if such events continue to grow in number, they will adversely affect the com- munity. It peaked when I read an opinion piece in the Washington Post suggesting that partici- pants in the debates about mainstream agricul- ture compared to alternatives like organic, Biodynamic or sustainable were all wrong. As a result, I thought it was time to revisit the topic of sustainable winegrowing. It has been 17 years since I wrote my inau- gural "Vineyard View" column for Wines & Vines entitled "What Is Sustainable Viticul- ture?" A great deal has happened since 1998 in the field of sustainable agriculture. Let's take a quick look in the rear-view mirror—first at agriculture in general, and then at wine grape growing in particular. One significant development is the publish- ing of corporate responsibility plans by many major food companies, fueled primarily by perceived risks to brand damage if consumers get wind of bad things happening out on the farm. (Think something analogous to Nike and South- east Asian sweatshops.) As a result, some buyers such as Wal-Mart, Sysco, Unilever and Whole Foods Market have de- veloped programs to try and bring more transparency to how food is grown and to show that the farmers they buy from are good environmental stewards. Many of these programs c o m e i n t h e form of check- lists of prac- tices growers must complete, much to their annoyance. Wal-Mart is asking its suppliers to share details about important inputs such as water, nutrients and energy. Whole Foods just launched a certification program labeling pro- duce in their stores as being good, better or best in terms of sustainable farming practices. Even the commodity crop sector has be- come more proactive, as indicated by the evolution of the Field to Market program for assessing green- house gas produc- tion, soil erosion, water and energy use in the production of corn, wheat and soybeans. The grower com- munity is much more aware of sustainable agriculture than it was even 10 years ago as a result of these programs. Wine industry progress The wine industry has likely been the most proactive agricultural sector in the United States for developing programs to increase sustainability levels. The trend began in the mid-1990s with development of the Positive Point System by the Central Coast Vineyard Team (now simply The Vineyard Team), fol- lowed closely by the Lodi Winegrape Commis- sion publishing the Lodi Winegrower's Workbook, which established the model of using self-assessment to ad- vance sustainability in the vineyard. A group of Oregon wine grape growers came together in the late 1990s to form what would become Low-Input Viticulture (LIVE), which has been certifying sustainable vineyard prac- tices since 1999. The California wine industry united in the early 2000s to form the California Sustainable Wine- growing Alliance. Using the Lodi self-assessment model for both vineyard and n CLIFF OHMART Sustainable Winegrowing Revisited Farming is not rocket science; it is harder. There are so many things to consider simultaneously. Vineyard View