An Anti-Greenwashing Guide, US Wine Tourists are Becoming More Diverse
Grgich Hills is ROC, 818 Tequila is a B-Corp
A great piece by Betsy Andrews for SevenFifityDaily outlines ways for brands to incorporate sustainability practices into their brand ethos that avoid potential greenwashing. Napa’s Grgich Hills Estate is the latest winery to be achieve Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC); while Kendall Jenner’s 818 Tequila reaches B-Corp status. Bonterra Organic Estates kicks off a targeted marketing campaign squarely aimed at communicating its well honed sustainability credentials. Two pieces look at how US wine visitors are diversifying - The Wine Market Council revealed consumers broken down by ethnicity who plan on visiting US wine regions, while Brown Estates in Napa is a rare winery in the region to succeed in marketing to black wine lovers (they are black-owned, and do limited marketing). Mendoza’s organic vineyards are plagued by ants.
Marketing
Global: An excellent anti-greenwashing guide from Betsy Andrews published in SevenFifityDaily.
The piece outlines ways brands can have real impact, while realizing real financial benefits and staying clear of greenwashing tendencies.
The piece leans heavily on putting your money where your mouth (or brand) is by having employee participation, marketing that supports a charitable partner, and the overall brand strategy adhere to sustainable business practices.
Philanthropy can’t make up for polluting or wasteful sourcing, production, or packaging—then it becomes a purely symbolic action, which is a primary form of greenwashing.
Numerous examples are profiled including:
California-based Gray Whale Gin who was instrumental in having gillnets (long fishing nets meant to trap swordfish, but also entangle many other creatures) banned in the state. “Most people didn’t know these nets were still used,” says Ashley Blacow-Draeger, Oceana’s Pacific policy and communications manager. “Gray Whale Gin produced a video that raised awareness and helped garner more than $1 million from donors to match state monies for the buyout. They directly gave funds to reduce whale entanglements. They also reached a different audience than we, as a conservation organization, might normally reach.”
David Babich, the CEO of New Zealand’s Babich Wines, chose to partner the international Surfrider Foundation, started by surfers to clean coastlines and oceans, as well as New Zealand’s Sustainable Coastlines, with which Babich’s 80-some staffers do beach cleanups in their local Marlborough. He also has a personal connection with water, as a surfer, kite foiler, and shoreside homeowner in Croatia.
1% for the Planet is noted as a good conduit to finding a partner. Businesses pledge one percent of revenue to nonprofits and projects certified by the organization and then open their books to be audited.
Tyler and Rachel Eck, founders of Dunites Wine Company, support groups like Santa Barbara’s Environmental Defense Center through 1% for the Planet. “You pay a small, annual fee. They ask a bunch of questions and put you in touch with groups that fit your vision,” says Tyler. “It’s good for business, it’s good for the planet, and it’s not greenwashing. It’s an actual commitment. I don’t know why every business doesn’t do this because it’s a tax write-off, too.”
Napa Valley, California: Grgich Hills Estate has received Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC) from the Regenerative Organic Alliance (ROA). Press release via Wine Business
Grgich Hills Estate has been farming organically since 2000, becoming Certified Organic in 2006 and has been practicing regenerative farming since 2019.
US: Bonterra Organic Estates has kicked off a marketing campaign for their namesake brand that focuses on communicating its environmental credentials to targeted consumers. Press release via Wine Industry Advisor
Bonterra debuted its “Cultivate the Future” campaign within Volta’s nationwide network of electric vehicle (“EV”) chargers. The prominent media screens on Volta’s EV chargers face climate-conscious consumers displaying videos transporting the viewer to the nature at the heart of the brand.
A QR code enables consumers to learn more about the company’s extensive commitments to Regenerative Organic Certified® agriculture, climate neutrality, B Corporation status, and TRUE Zero Waste® certification.
Jalisco, Mexico: Kendall Jenner gains B Corp Certification for her 818 Tequila brand. The Drinks Business
Lake County, California: Shannon Family of Wines announces the release of their first CCOF Certified Organic wines. Press release via Wine Industry Advisor
These wines are from grapes grown on their Lake County Certified Organic Estate Vineyards located in the mountains of California’s North Coast at altitudes of 1,500 to 2,300 feet.
Napa, California: Next week kicks off RISE: Resilience, Innovation, Sustainability, Empowerment; Napa Green’s symposium focused around six pillars sustainable winegrowing leadership. Press release via Wine Business
The lineup includes over 60 speakers, with Marquee keynote addresses including: Jancis Robinson, MW, JancisRobinson.com (Apr 5); Jason Haas, Tablas Creek (Apr 12); Mimi Casteel, Hope Well Wine (Apr 13) and more.
RISE is designed to help anyone in the wine industry accelerate sustainability and climate action.
California: California Wines is kicking off “Down to Earth” Month in April. Press release via Wine Industry Advisor
The annual month-long celebration, in its 12th year, highlights the state’s wine community’s commitment to sustainable viticulture and winemaking through environmental stewardship, social equity and community engagement.
Düsseldorf, Germany: A recap of the first post-pandemic edition of Meininger's International Wine Conference dedicated to sustainability. Meininger’s International
Taking place the day before ProWein, 120 participants from 18 countries looked at a variety of approaches to sustainable action along the entire value chain.
Recent scientific findings were presented by Julia Frings of IFH Cologne on consumer attitudes towards sustainability and by Dr. Helena Ponstein (KlimaneutralerWein.de) on the carbon footprint of the wine industry.
Prof. Michael Bernecker, CEO of the German Institute for Marketing, explained how companies can credibly market their sustainable products without falling into the trap of greenwashing. For him, the importance of labels cannot be overestimated: "Consumers use expert assessments as an important criterion in their decision-making.”
Bordeaux, France: A look at the 13th forum on Sustainable Development of Bordeaux Wines Forum, hosted by the CIVB. The Buyer
Around 400 winegrowers, wine merchants and scientists together with professional bodies attended, headlined by speakers such as the CIVB’s president, Allan Sichell, and keynote address by Marc-André Sélosse (Paris Natural History Museum).
Jeanne-Marie Voigt, carbon climate engineer for the CIVB noted that the production of 1 liter of wine is the equivalent of travelling 400km in a car.
Other areas highlighted include the glass bottle. With the average bottle weighing around 430 grams both producers and consumers need persuading that lighter bottles are better for the environment. Breakage seems to be the biggest issue once the glass weight dips under 300 grams.
French supermarket chain Carrefour have been looking at using more trains to transport wines. They also are using more innovative trucks with hydraulic flooring to incorporate more wine in transit for any given journey.
Bordeaux producer Clarence Dillon wines noted its Clarendelle Brand, is paying a premium (they say) for the juice made by their vignerons, other initiatives include solar panels on their warehouse and oak trees planted on the land are there to encourage biodiversity and hopefully one day truffles.
Chateau de Respide plants cover crops like cereals, mustard and radish to aerate the soil so there is no need to plough. It has also adapted its inter-row machine to cover twice the area in one pass.
Diversity & Equity
US: At a recent Wine Market Council event, research was analyzed showing a more ethnically diverse mix of wine country visitors will be coming to US wineries, and they should make more concerted efforts to attract them. North Bay Business Journal & The San Francisco Chronicle.
The 2021 U.S. Wine Consumer Segmentation Survey of 1,772 domestic consumers showed the proportion of white wine consumers who had previously visited a California winery and planned to go back to one in the next two years (2023–2024) dropped 10 percentage points (22% from 32%).
The proportion of Black wine consumers who said they would do so nearly doubled (31% from 17%), and it jumped 10 percentage points for plans to visit Oregon and Washington wineries.
Hispanic wine consumers’ stated plans in the survey were consistent with what they said they’d done previously.
Asian wine consumers intentions to visit California wineries dropped 10 percentage points (41% from 51%), but their plans for going to Pacific Northwest wineries soared 22 percentage points (29% from 7%).
The council notes that Hispanic and Asian wine consumers are over-indexed in the survey from proportions in the U.S. population.
The council worked with research firm EthniFacts to discover how diverse groups of consumers engage with wine. The latest of the reports, released in September, uncovered 10 barriers Hispanic and Black consumers found with embracing the beverage. Among them is that wine marketing lacks visual energy, is “too white” and exclusionary, “not manly,” and doesn’t “collaborate with diverse influencers.”
In related news Esther Mobley reports for The San Francisco Chronicle on Brown Estate’s success in reaching Black consumers.
The winery claims to be (and is, as far as she can tell) Napa Valley’s first Black-owned winery.
An exception to the predominantly white Napa Valley wine tourists, Brown Estate has cultivated a large, devoted following of Black wine lovers, largely through word of mouth.
It wasn’t even on social media until 2015, and that was a direct result of the incident in which a group of black women were kicked off Napa Valley Wine Train for being too loud, and they decided to elevate their presence in Napa.
US: Diverse Powered Brands™ a bev alc B2B global marketplace connecting diverse-owned, diverse-led and diverse-made brands to buyers, wholesalers, as well as supplier diversity procurement managers has been launched by Founder & CEO of Women of the Vine & Spirits, Deborah Brenner. Press release via Wine Business
Suppliers can present and manage their brand content and the buyer community can search these diverse beverage alcohol brands in one marketplace, helping to centralize the discovery and ordering process.
Napa Valley, California: Demeine Estates announces their partnership with Stephanie Love, owner of Epicurious One, LLC, as their official Dream It, Live It partner for 2023-2024. Press release via Wine Industry Advisor
Love is a wine professional, wine educator, and the founder and owner of Epicurious One, LLC. Love is in the process of becoming the first African American woman to provide WSET I and II wine education instruction.
Dream It, Live It is a professional partnership opportunity aimed towards wine entrepreneurs that aims to use Demeine Estates’ established network to provide unique opportunities for minority-owned businesses and social responsibility organizations with a commitment to changing the wine industry.
Viticulture
Lodi, California: Cal Poly SLO is working with UC Davis on a project funded by FFAR (Foundation for Food and Agriculture) and CDFA (California Department of Food and Agriculture) to determine the impacts of long-term regenerative agricultural practices on carbon sequestration and soil health in red grape varietal vineyards across California. Lodi Wine Growers
Cal Poly SLO is looking for two types of participants:
Lodi growers with red grape varietal vineyards that have adopted one or more of these practices (compost, cover crop, no-till, and livestock grazing) for five years or more.
Lodi growers with red grape varietal vineyards that have not adopted any of these practices (compost, cover crop, no-till, and livestock grazing) for 10 years or more.
Mendoza, Argentina: A look at the region-specific difficulties that plague organic vineyards in Mendoza and elsewhere. wine-searcher
The region’s arid, desert climate has less vegetation than other winegrowing regions, attracting the high ant populations.
28 species of ants currently reside in the Mendoza region, including Dorymyrmex Tener, a formidable insect with a nasty nip. Omnipresent in the terrain of South America, certain species can lead to a dramatic reduction of yield in local agriculture.
Per Herve Birnie-Scott (founder of Terrazas de los Andes) "The biggest challenge, so far, in converting to organic methods has been the ants. There's no efficient organic product to fight them, so you must remove the anthills from your vineyards by hand. And doing it right you still lose as much as 5% of your production," he says.
"For the time being, we have not found an organic/sustainable way of managing this issue that is efficient enough. We have tried destroying their nest, sulfur, Diatomita (diatomaceous earth) but so far none of these have worked 100 percent," admits Claudio Mestre, Terrazas de los Andes' technical director.
As regions around the world seek to reduce chemical inputs and promote biodiversity, native populations of insects, birds and other animals are coming back in force and may poise new threats to growers.
NY State: Cornell has released a new hybrid - Aravelle - which contains traits of Cayuga white, a grape developed at Cornell in 1972, which is relatively resistant against bunch rot and mildew diseases. Cornell Chronicle
The new variety combines those traits with the taste qualities of riesling grapes, which grow well in New York’s climate and are fairly winter hardy but have been quite susceptible to fruit rot during wet periods.
Renowned Cornell grape breeder Bruce Reisch made the hybrid by crossing Cayuga white and riesling grapes in 1981, at the start of his career. Now, 14 grape varieties and 42 years later, Reisch announced Aravelle’s release.
US: Public and private grape breeders will soon have access to new powdery mildew-resistant grapevines produced by the USDA-funded VitisGen2 project. Wine Business
Eight “Renstack”’ vines that incorporate four to six different powdery mildew resistance loci have been released to Foundation Plant Services at the University of California, Davis.
These eight vines are the product of a decade of progress in incorporating advanced DNA sequencing to identify DNA markers associated with powdery mildew resistance and use them for marker-assisted selection.
Breeders have used resistant sources for variety improvement for more than a century but have not had an efficient way to screen new seedlings to identify the resistant ones without introducing the pathogen.
Burgundy, France: The Bourgogne region has announced funding to build biodiversity within its climats. Forbes
“The Climats du Vignoble de Bourgogne association, which coordinates the management of this World Heritage site, has created a Biodiversity Fund to finance and support collective projects aimed at maintaining and developing biodiversity across the Climats,” according to a recent press release.
Those interested in receiving funds must complete a diagnostic land study, for which financing is available.
Vineyard management bodies selected for funding will be eligible for amounts from 50-80% of each stage of biodiversity-related projects.
Biodiversity is also being prioritized by the European Commission with a strategy aimed at increasing protected land, high-diversity landscape, and organic farming while also reducing the use and impact of fertilizers and chemical pesticides.
Wales, UK: Four Welsh vineyards have joined in a collaborative project to look at ways of delivering innovative solutions to decarbonization and improving the efficiency of Welsh Vineyards through reducing the use of synthetic chemicals. Swansea Bay News
Supported by the Welsh Government’s Decarbonization and Covid Challenge Fund, the project’s objective was to increase knowledge and understanding of disease control and prevention methods in vineyards across Wales.
The project’s outputs will help to reduce future use of, and reliance on, synthetic chemicals.
The vineyards involved all apply different grape growing methods, including Organic, Biodynamic, conventional and Regenerative/no spraying.
The variety of Welsh vineyards within the project has allowed for a valuable broad look at existing practices and opportunities for synthetic pesticide use in different environments and under a range of management approaches.
Climate Change
US: A look at climate change’s impact on numerous wine regions throughout the US and what wineries are doing to mitigate or in some cases enhance benefits from the change. Wine Industry Advisor
The piece looks at the Finger Lakes (increased spring frost risk), Santa Cruz Mountains (moving from Pinot Noir to Bordeaux varieties), Sonita, Arizona (getting cooler and wetter), Willamette Valley, OR (can plant at higher elevations).