Carbon footprint of winemaking

 

Source: https://www.decanter.com/magazine/climate-change-rethinking-your-drinking-467605/

Viticulture is not always an environmentally friendly proposition. There’s been more focus recently on making wine production less energy intensive, sustainable and environmentally responsible. There has been a movement to reduce fuel, water and nutrient consumption in the vineyard by introducing sustainable biodynamic practices. In the winery, efforts are underway to reduce fuel and electricity consumption, to find more environmentally friendly packaging, and improve the carbon footprint of transport.

Glass bottles are heavy, take a lot of energy to produce and use a lot a fuel to transport. They are also not recycled or reused as often as they should be. So, many people are looking at alternatives, including natural fibers like hemp, corrugated and paper with food-safe PET liners. That doesn't sound terribly good for the environment either. Yes, they are much lighter than glass and would save a lot of costs on transport. 

Garçon Wines’ Eco Flat bottle is made from recycled PET and their Flaca wine is shipped in a box that is shaped to fit in a letterbox for gift giving. Seems like a lot of waste to me, but at least it's all recyclable. 

My goal will be to make our wine bottles fully reusable, with labels that can be very easily removed. In fact, our production will be small enough to remain local so that we don't ship far and wide, we promote the local economy, and customers return the bottle to our site for refill. Kind of like milk bottles were in my childhood. I like that idea. Of course, it has to be good wine for customers to come back. 

Last rows to tie up

My assistant Ghost surveying the vineyard

Today was as beautiful weatherwise as yesterday was not. Alex was out on the bay with the Oyster Coop spat survey. After visiting his mother and bringing her the paper and mini stollen, Ghost and I ventured into the vineyard to continue the tying up and cleaning up. 

We tackled the Albarino row first. As it turns out, it really needed attention. I think a reason why it did so poorly is that the pink ribbons were attached at the base of the vine, then covered over with the protective plastic wrap which was further sealed with black tape. The pink plastic ribbon inside the sealed protective wrap was rotting the wood. In several places, I had to extract the plastic from the bark. I hope we don't lose more vines. But they are now free of plastic and secured with very flexible and breathable nylon ties.

We then finished the row of Chardonnay vines and tackled the final row of Solaris. I came away with a bag of plastic, making sure to remove all shreds from the land and vines. 

It was starting to get a bit darker just then when Alex arrived back from the survey. I showed him what was happening and we both had a good learning discussion. I hope the vines will recover and are not too stressed. 

I need to go back again the next nice day and walk the rows to see what I missed, as I know there is much I didn't see when I was working intensively to get it done. Brown tape on brown vines is hard to see. I plan to remove all plastic so it doesn't break down into microplastics in the environment. 

Pink plastic ribbon inside protective plastic, tape removed

Pink ribbon cutting into the vines

More badger evidence