Sustainable Winegrowing Practices
Sustainable Winegrowing is defined by the NZ Wine Marketing Board as "...the economical production of
market quality wines and grapes, giving priority to methods that are
the safest possible to the environment and human health. SWNZ is a
programme based on continual improvement." It is essentially an audit
programme that vineyards and wineries voluntarily join, not dissimilar
to other quality improvement programmes like the ISO standards.
What's involved for a winery/vineyard?
There are no specific or strict exacting standards that a winery or vineyard have to reach in order to be accredited as sustainable eg no more than xx tonnes of co2 can be emitted per hectare of plantings. Rather, the operators sign up to audit of their practices and must demonstrate a continual improvement in their practices that impact on the environment (and humans within that environment!). The audit encompasses such practices as:
- Spraying practices (ie pesticides/disease management etc)
- Water use/irrigation
- Fertilisation techniques
- Energy use
- Carbon emissions
- Waste management practices
Over 70% of New Zealand's grape production are currently produced under the Sustainable Winegrowing programme, and the industry goal is to have 100% of grape production in the scheme by 2012.
What does this mean for the consumer?
From our perspective, any programme that a vineyard or winery signs up to involving continual improvement has got to be a good thing for the wine in the bottle. For the industry as a whole, we know the quality of the grapes, and the practices to convert them in to wine will improve year on year across all NZ wines by 2012. It is encouraging to see NZ really leading the world in this initiative which improves the quality of the wine as a whole and has the added benefit of a great marketing ploy for those green-conscious consumers. It is encouraging to see the industry working as a whole to achieve the aim of Keeping NZ Green, and will be interesting to see if other industries (eg farming) follow suit...Sustainable lamb anyone?
