Champagne's Small Shifts Towards Organic and Regenerative Viticulture
2025 CA Green Medal Sustainable Winegrowing Leadership Award Winners
The 2025 California Green Medal Sustainable Winegrowing Leadership Awards winners announced, South Africa’s Journey’s End became the country’s first B Corp-certified winery. Regenerative and organic ag stops and starts in Champagne, research on UV-C light for powdery mildew control, agrivoltaic models for optimizing solar energy and agriculture, EPR goes into effect in UK, progress in the US.
Marketing
California: The 2025 California Green Medal Sustainable Winegrowing Leadership Awards have been announced. Press release via Wine Business
Spottswoode Estate Vineyard & Winery - LEADER AWARD, given to the vineyard or winery that excels in the three “Es” of sustainability — Environmentally sound, socially Equitable and Economically viable practices.
Chandon - ENVIRONMENT AWARD, given to the vineyard or winery that best demonstrates Environmental Stewardship through maximized environmental benefits from implementing sustainable practices.
Jordan Vineyards & Winery - COMMUNITY AWARD, given to the vineyard or winery that is a Good Neighbor and Employer using the most innovative practices that enhance relations with employees, neighbors and/or communities.
Nuveen Natural Capital - BUSINESS AWARD, given to the vineyard or winery that best demonstrates Smart Business through efficiencies, cost savings and innovation from implementing sustainable practices.
South Africa: Stellenbosch wine producer Journey’s End has become the first South African winery to gain the B Corp certification. Harpers
The winery is 100% self-sufficient in energy and water - utilizing a system that combines rainwater harvesting, wastewater recycling and precision irrigation to ensure sustainable water usage.
Packaging
Italy: VOGA Italia (Enovation Brands) has updated the packaging for its Pinot Grigio Delle Venezie DOC with a lighter glass bottle (20% reduction, no mention of actual weight) and a screw cap closure. Press release via Wine Business
The VOGA Italia line is VIVA certified, a certification program for sustainability in Italian viticulture.
California: FitVine Wine has launched FitVine Bubbly Rosé. Building in aluminum wine bottles. Press release via Wine Business
The brand is a Certified B Corporation.
Global: The global kegged beer sector, valued at approximately US$55.4 billion in 2023, is projected to reach US$73.89 billion by 2030, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.2%, per a report from market research firm MMR. The Drinks Business
Looking at what is driving demand, the report showed the growing popularity of beer, particularly among young consumers, has “significantly boosted the demand for beer kegs”.
The data outlined how “the proliferation of craft breweries has increased the need for kegs, as these establishments often rely on kegs for storage and distribution”.
This, it noted was likely due to sustainability and cost efficiency since “kegs offer reusable and cost-effective packaging solutions, reducing waste and packaging expenses for breweries”.
Global: A look at how some companies with targets to make 100% of their packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025 now face the hardest categories to transform, some are weighing whether it’s feasible. Packaging Dive
Amcor says that by the end of last year, 100% of its specialty carton packaging and 95% of its rigid packaging was recyclable.
Separately, 94% of its flexible packaging had a “recycle-ready” solution available, up from 56% in 2018, indicating the packaging is at least designed to be recycled by existing technologies — though, in practice, infrastructure may not yet be widely available, meaning it doesn’t get recycled.
Now comes the toughest work for Amcor along with other packaging producers and their customers: transforming the remainder of the packaging portfolio, sometimes referred to as the “final 5%.”
The most challenging part of the portfolio typically includes flexible plastics and multilaminates, both of which are difficult to recycle.
That’s prompting producers, brands and retailers to innovate with new materials that are recyclable, reusable or compostable.
But they’re also recognizing the trade-offs with redesigning packaging for certain products, as well as limitations with collection and sorting systems to ensure recyclable packaging gets recycled. At times, this has led companies to reconsider their lofty sustainability goals.
Viticulture
Champagne, France: The Drinks Business interview the chef de caves from Perrier-Jouët and GH Mumm (both owned by Pernod Ricard) on their goal to have 100% of their vineyards under regenerative farming by 2030.
For smaller Perrier-Jouët, they began in 2021 and 22ha out of a total of 66ha (about 30%) are now farmed regeneratively.
For GH Mumm which owns 218ha of vineyards only 25ha are currently being farmed regeneratively, 11.5%, meaning the Maison has a long way to go to reach its goal of 100% in the next five years; which the Maison has stated is pretty much a non-starter.
Champagne, France: Caroline Henry looks at the data on organic conversion in Champagne from last year. Terroir Champagne
Early figures of Bio Grand Est show that organic conversions have grown slightly last year, and new conversions exceeded people giving up on organic growing by 1%.
While the uptake of organic viticulture in Champagne remains well below the national average (about 8% of the appellation surface is engaged in organic viticulture verse the French vineyard average of 22%), it remains encouraging that the number of actual producers increased from 617 in 2023 to 631 in 2024.
To put this in perspective, Champagne has roughly 16,500 grape-growers, so only 3.8% of all growers have opted for organic growing.
But if the absolute number of growers increased between 2023 and 2024, this means there is interest and willingness to make a real ecological difference.
She held a live interview this week with Champagne’s sustainable leader Champagne Telmont ‘s CEO (majority owned by Pernod Ricard) Ludovic du Plessis. The Maison is actively converting their suppliers to convert to organic, and even Regenerative Organic, are setting an example for the rest of the appellation; they have also led in reducing bottle weights and eschewing gift boxes amongst other initiatives.
Washington & NY State: WSU researchers exploit powdery mildew weakness, making UV-C viable alternative to control disease. Wine Business
The trial was led by Michelle Moyer, Ph.D., professor and viticulture extension specialist at Washington State University with and her former Ph.D. student, Dr. Alexa McDaniel, who is now an extension specialist at North Carolina State University.
The study explored the application of UV-C light, as a non-chemical method, to control grapevine powdery mildew in Vitis vinifera vineyards in Prosser, Wash. by using nighttime UV-C applications.
Researchers also monitored whether these UV-C treatments would negatively impact basic fruit chemistry.
Additional data collected by collaborators in the Finger Lakes viticultural region in Dresden, New York provided comparative insights by using standard measures of fruit quality, including phenolics and tannins.
UV-C light was shown to be an effective method to suppress grapevine powdery mildew in vitis vinifera vineyards.
Agrivoltaics
NY State: Cornell University researchers have developed a novel optimization model for agrivoltaic site design and benefits, demonstrated using irrigation-optimization relative to economic and environmental goals. PV Magazine
The goal was a case study for site selection and design that prioritized economic and environmental objectives while considering irrigation and conservation of water.
Four models were developed: Two mixed-integer nonlinear programs (MINLP) models to perform a techno-economic and environmental analysis of co-locating solar PV with crops, independently targeting either economic gains or operational emission reductions; and two fractional programming (FP) models to assess water-use efficiency relative to economic and environmental goals, complementing standard monetary and emission evaluation metrics.
The researchers found that prioritizing solar installation in the FP models minimizes irrigation requirements, but economic benefits increase as the models allocate more land to crops.
They said that “a 90% cropland allocation yields the highest revenues, ranging from 10.78% to 186.77% ($5.86–34.88/m3) and achieving a land equivalent ratio of 4.40.”
Water Use
Napa Valley, CA: Katherine Martine recaps the recent Napa Valley Grapegrowers Smart Irrigation and Water Conservation seminar. Wine Business
Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP), which was approved by the State Department of Water Resources in January 2023, requires local groundwater management.
Being sustainable is defined as avoiding undesirable results in across six sustainability indicators: Lowering of groundwater levels, reduction of groundwater storage, sea water intrusion, degraded water quality, land subsidence, and depletion of water in interconnected systems.
The Napa Valley Subbasin experienced undesirable reduction in groundwater storage for three consecutive years in 2022, 2023 and 2024, and this requires action.
Per Duncan MacEwan with ERA Economics, who specializes in water resources and agriculture; there are voluntary water conservation measures that growers can consider and these include benchmarking water data, similar to how PG&E can benchmark electricity data and compare it to other users; using WaterSense devices; monitoring plant water and soil moisture; processing water treatment and reuse; considering water distribution uniformity; water metering; use of drip irrigation; cover cropping; canopy management and row orientation; and considering recycled water.
Legislation
UK: On April 1 the controversial Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) initiative, designed to shift the cost of packaging waste management onto businesses, has come into effect. The Drinks Business
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast accompanying the Spring Statement revealed: “the policy is unlikely to have a material impact on rates of recycling or packaging waste volumes in the next five years.”
Despite this, environment secretary Steve Reed insisted that EPR “will incentivize businesses to remove unnecessary packaging and make their products more recyclable and refillable.”
A major point of contention is the disproportionately high cost imposed on glass packaging. Defra’s latest estimate sets EPR fees for glass at £240 per ton, significantly higher than earlier estimates of £110 to £215 per ton.
US: An overview of how EPR programs are being rolled out across the US from Circular Action Alliance. Resource Recycling
Oregon’s program is in full swing, CAA plans to open a contamination audit center in the state, supporting a centralized material audit program. Samples will be brought in from across the state and sorted.
Other states where EPR programs are in progress: Maryland, Colorado, California, Minnesota.
Diversity & Equity
Rhone Valley, France: Chapoutier has launched a special edition of the Monier de La Sizeranne 2022 AOC Hermitage to honor the founder of the Valentin-Haüy association for blind and visually impaired people, Maurice Monier de La Sizeranne. Vitisphere
He created the first abridged version of braille in 1882.
Since 1996 Chapoutier has included braille on its back labels for all of the wines it produces.
Sustainability
UK: Cider producer Thatchers has planted 13,000 apple trees in Somerset this week to keep up with demand. The Drinks Business
The new 50-acre orchard will grow two apple varieties, Red Windsor and Katy; the apples will go into Thatchers Juicy Apple, the cider producer’s answer to consumers looking for more eco-conscious drinks.
The 4% ABV cider has been made using 100% renewable electricity.
The cidery focuses on waste reduction — apple pomace leftover from pressing is used for green energy or to feed local cattle, they’ve installed technology to capture CO2 produced during fermentation and reuse it as bubbles in their cider.
Agriculture
Japan: Square Roots Japan is working with farmers to develop “golden recipes” for indoor farming to preserve the country’s farming heritage with the benefits of technology. AgTechNavigator
The company is gaining insights from local, traditional farmers and applying them to grow crops in controlled environments, i.e.: indoors.
Small scale farmers, in regions like Hokkaido known for their high quality fruits, vegetable and dairy products are facing dual pressures from climate change and Japan’s demographic crisis.
They’ve been developing a business model that gleans wisdom from these farmers and translates it into ‘golden recipes’ for high tech indoor farming. Farmers would earn royalties.