Over $2 Million Saved by Lightweighting Over 14 Years
Four case studies on implementing DEI, environmental strategies
Some great actionable data on implementing DEI and Environmental initiatives by Jane Lopes of Legend Imports who is on the board of The Vinguard for SevenFiftyDaily. Compilations of black-owned spirits brands and Latinx-owned wine brands meant to be updated continually, take a look at Liquor.com’s and Vinography’s initiatives respectively and contribute if possible. Jason Haas of Tablas Creek shares the numbers behind lightweighting his winery’s production (~30,000 cases) since 2010 - the savings to date add up to over $2 million.
Diversity & Equity
US: Alder Yarrow is on a mission to publish a compilation of every Latinx-owned winery in America, following his attempt to do the same thing with black-owned wineries globally. Vinography
He’s got it started here, take a look and email him or add to comments if you’ve got others to recommend.
US: Liquor.com has published a directory of black-owned spirit brands, the list will be continually updated, email them with additions.
The list is cleanly broken down by state and includes a brief description of each brand, there is also a shorter global list as well.
Global: Jane Lopes delivers a great piece for SevenFiftyDaily looking at several case studies, including for her own business, on achieving DEI and environmental goals as outlined through a nonprofit called The Vinguard.
The Vinguard is an organization that has been “solely focused on fighting oppression in the wine industry through education and representation.” Their WINE (Wine Industry Equity) Pledge, outlines how businesses and individuals in the wine industry can be more equitable, safe, and environmentally responsible.
Lopes outlines the challenges and successes of four companies in achieving their stated goals, giving a realistic picture of what obstacles small businesses face in implementing programs, even with the best of intentions.
For her US-based import company focused on Australian wines, their goals were to make their social media more accessible to blind and low-vision communities; add two wineries to the portfolio owned by Indigenous Australians or people of color; and to become a fair-trade certified business. They succeeded on the first two fronts, and have pivoted on the last goal to B-corp certification.
Global: Tamlyn Currin advocates for a Wikipedia overhaul to promote more women. Jancis Robinson
Only 15% of the volunteer contributors are women, and, equally significantly, less than 20% of the biographies in English are of women.
The Wikimedia movement recognized this in 2011 and editors got together to focus on female biographies.
The WSET school in London has launched an initiative to correct the imbalance, at least for women in the drinks business. Over the month of March, they’re inviting you to create pages on Wikipedia for the women that lead and inspire in the world of wine, spirits, sake and beer. The goal is to reach the target of 100 new pages of women in wine on Wikipedia. To take part online, click here.
Italy: The Financial Times spotlights Italian women in the historically male-dominated wine business and the challenges they faced in their careers.
Nearly all were in families who have grown grapes and made wine for centuries, including the three Antinori sisters, led by the eldest, Albiera, the company’s president. She noted her father didn’t have a son, otherwise she probably would not have had the opportunity to lead the business.
In the 1990s women began making inroads, as young men from rural landowning families chose to pursue careers in cities. “The countryside was given to daughters [who] showed interest. Nobody else wanted to look after it.” said Antinori.
All the women profiled noted sustainability – both of the land and of the business – as a top priority.
Ikimi Dubose-Woodson is the executive director and cofounder of The Roots Fund. She says it came about as a means of improving representation within the industry.
To date there have been 155 scholars of color so far who have been able to advance their careers in the wide world of wine.
“We issue scholarships three times a year in a series of different categories – from our college programs to certifications, or business assistance,” she said. “Visit our scholarship page on our website to learn more and sign up to be notified when our next round of applications goes live.”
US: GroupM is putting its money where its inclusive mouth is, pledging to allocate at least 5% of its clients' ad budgets across Black, Hispanic, AAPI and LGBTW+ owned and/or focused media. Media Daily News
The pledge follows the release of data from Standard Media Index (SMI) indicating that despite massive growth in the past couple of years, diverse-owned media outlets represented less than 2% of all U.S. national ad spending in 2022.
That report, by the Association of National Advertisers' Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing in partnership with Maven/Media Framework, shows that for all the inroads the U.S. ad marketplace has made in increasing investments in diverse-owned media, it's still a fraction of national ad spending.
Portland, Oregon: Our Legacy Harvested, a nonprofit dedicated to educating, advancing and empowering the BIPOC community at any career level within the wine industry, has announced its second annual internship applications for the 2023 season, applications open now through Monday, May 1. Press Release via Wine Industry Advisor
Six wine production internships are available for applicants across the country, with the program taking place in Willamette Valley from August – November, during the winery harvest season.
Viticulture
NY state: A new research paper titled “The Potential for Agrivoltaics to Enhance Solar Farm Cooling” has been published in Applied energy from Cornell researchers led by Henry Williams, a doctoral student in Cornell Engineering. Cornell Chronicle
The engineers showed that solar panels mounted over vegetation reveal surface temperature drops compared to those arrays built over bare ground.
Solar panels were mounted 4 meters above a soybean crop and the solar modules showed temperature reductions by up to 10 degrees Celsius, compared with solar panels mounted a half-meter above bare soil.
In New York State about 40% of utility-scale solar farm capacity has been developed on agricultural lands, while about 84% of land deemed suitable for utility-scale solar development is agricultural, according to a previous research study from the group.
California: The combination of higher costs, reduced water access and labor shortages have farmers looking to technology-based solutions. KCRA
Hylio, a Texas-based company specializes in what it calls "AgroDrones “ that can perform spraying, watering and even seeding with better precision than traditional farm equipment, all without making an impression on the land below.
The company estimates that its drones use 1/10th of the water of a traditional irrigation system.
Climate Change
Jerez, Spain: A new research paper by a team from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) studied the potential impacts of climate change on flor, the veil of yeast on top of the sherry barrels specific to Manzanilla and Fino styles of sherry. Decanter
The study points to traditional ‘cathedral’ Sherry wineries as ‘good examples of nearly zero-emission buildings (NZEB)’, as their design provides the necessary levels of humidity and temperature for the flor to develop and thrive without the need for energy intensive cooling systems.
‘Jerez’s cathedral warehouses were built over 100 years ago and since then they’ve worked perfectly,’ César Porras Amores, who was involved in the study. ‘We know that climate change is a reality and the temperature in the world is increasing,’ he continued, ‘and for that reason we have simulated the indoor conditions in a futuristic scenario… to understand how the winery will behave in that scenario.’
Some cathedrals would struggle to absorb the estimated 2.3°C rise in temperature, meaning that they might fail to provide the necessary conditions for the production of biologically aged Sherries.
Although those close to sea like those in the low part of Sanlúcar, would have an additional insulating factor.
California: An interview with Chris Chen, Integrated Vineyard Systems Advisor in Sonoma, Mendocino, and Lake Counties at the University of California Cooperative on How to Farm Wine Grapes for Climate Change. Vineyard Team Podcast
He reviews tactics for growers to continue farming successfully amid climate changes including rootstocks, canopy management, new scions, and most importantly trialing.
Packaging
Europe: We missed this late last year in PackagingEurope, but BKWineMagazine spotlights two innovative projects to dramatically reduce or even eliminate carbon emissions from glass bottle production.
In England Diageo has partnered with Encirc to manufacture the world’s first glass bottles with zero carbon dioxide emissions. Plans for a new furnace that will reduce CO2 emissions by 90%; will be powered by electricity from non-fossil sources and hydrogen gas. The remaining 10% will be compensated for with carbon dioxide capture and storage. The furnace will be built in Cheshire, England, be operational in 2027 and be able to produce 200 million bottles a year in 2030.
Absolut Vodka and Ardagh Group plan to produce glass vodka bottles at a partially hydrogen-powered glass furnace, which it hopes will take the company one step closer to CO2 neutrality by 2030.
Berlin Packaging in the US makes a 100% carbon-neutral bottle in an oven heated by renewable resources.
Paso Robles, CA: Jason Haas calculates the amount of money his winery Tablas Creek has saved since switching to lightweight glass 14 years ago to be a whopping $2.2 million. Tablas Creek Blog
He comes up with this figure by looking at cost savings on purchasing lightweight bottles and adding to that figure what they pay to ship the filled bottles to customers via UPS and FedEx; he does not attempt to calculate cost savings on trucking wine for wholesale or to his shipping fulfillment provider.
In 2010 they bottled 80% of their production in 19 ounce (~539 grams) bottles and 20% of their higher-tier wines in 31.5 ounce (~893 grams) bottles modeled on Beaucastel bottles (Châteauneuf-du-Pape has some of the heaviest bottles, with an embossed logo).
With the change they paid $0.60/bottle less than the heavy bottle, and a little more than $0.06/bottle less than the mid-weight bottle they had been using.
They average 30,000 case/year (360,000 bottle/year) producing a savings of $63,200 per year on glass purchases.
The shipping calculation is a bit more complex but he arrives at $96,539 of additional shipping costs that they'd be incurring now if we were still using the bottle mix they were in 2009.
Sustainability
Languedoc, France: Languedoc producer Jean-Claude Mas is set to bring his first fungus resistant varietal wine to market, with the unveiling of a Souvignier Gris ‘Résistant’. Harpers
Bottled under a variant of the Arrogant Frog label, the Domaines Paul Mas wine from the 2022 vintage is the result of a 10-year project working with disease resistant hybrids that can better withstand oidium and mildew.
Along with Souvignier Gris, other PIWI grapes – a German abbreviation for European vines crossed with fungus-resistant American vines – that have caught this producer’s attention and been planted include Muscaris, Floréal and Prior.
1,000ha of Domaines Paul Mas have been converted to organic, while another 2,000ha of grower vines that the estate draws upon are in transition.
Mas said that the resistant varieties could help speed the estate’s path to greater sustainability. “If you are organic you have to spray immediately after the rain, several times a year, and I calculated that represents, on an estate of 100ha, 3,500 liters of fuel, which is a huge carbon impact,” said Mas.
US: Jancis Robinsons’s Tamlyn Currin reports on the Sustainable Wine Roundtable’s online discussion of ‘How to turn climate mitigation and adaptation into business opportunity’.
Panel discussions included real-life examples of climate innovation creating business opportunity, how to get started on tackling emissions, bottle-weight reduction, mitigation and adaptation in the vineyard, reducing impacts in the winery (from CO2 to H2O), carbon offsetting, transport and alternative packaging.
Some examples she notes include:
LJ Crafted Wines, an urban winery in southern California that sells wine directly from barrel to customers’ recycled, reusable containers.
A tiny producer in Portugal who collects empty bottles of his wine from restaurants and refills them. He also re-uses boxes.
González Byass, who built a new winery entirely focused on minimizing impact from the construction process and maximizing water and energy efficiency.
Ch Maris, a biodynamic estate in Minervois, Languedoc, that not only invested heavily in biodiversity on their estate but built an entirely biodegradable 9,000 m2 winery out of hemp. The certified B Corp winery is also entirely energy-self-sufficient.
Sustainable Wine Solutions in the UK, who work only with sustainable-minded producers, and sell wine to consumers direct from the barrel, to their trade partners in barrel, and have a bottle-return scheme.
Villiera in South Africa turned an unproductive vineyard into a wildlife sanctuary.
Marketing
Napa Valley, California: The six-event Climate & Wine Symposium now called RISE: Resilience, Innovation, Sustainability, Empowerment (formerly Napa Thrives), has announced Jancis Robinson, MW will be a marquee speaker at their April event series. Press Release via Wine Industry Advisor
She joins Mimi Casteel (Hope Well Wine), Michael Silacci (Opus One Winery), and Maryam Ahmed (Diversity in Wine Leadership Forum).