“CO2 is the greatest pollutant and winemakers are releasing it back into the atmosphere, undoing all the good work in the vineyard… We need to figure out how to capture CO2 from fermenters, recover the volatiles, and put them back into the wine.”
Dr Richard Smart
Although he may have a very valid point on the issue of pollution, he will have no doubt have angered many people who have bought into the benefits of producing and consuming organic produce, which Dr Smart believes does nothing to help the environment.
There is little solid evidence to suggest organic produce has a direct positive effect on the health and well-being of its consumers. Despite this, demand for certified organic wines have increased and more and more winemakers are farming using organic principles, even if not going the whole hog and paying for certification.
Whether Dr Smart is right, wrong, or somewhere in between, his main concern is surrounding climate change. As previously reported here, some wine regions are now having to rethink what they grow, as traditional varieties are becoming less reliable in vintages that are showing irregular climate patterns. Bordeaux, he suggested, may have to look at hotter climate varieties indigenous to, for example, Spain, Southern Italy and Greece.
Elsewhere, a Marlborough sustainability consulting company has developed a system to make it easier for wine companies to measure the carbon footprint of their product. Aura Sustainability created the BareFoot carbon-analysis system, which they say makes it easier and cheaper to complete a carbon audit of their product.
Extracts sourced from The Drinks Business. Pictured, Muddy Water is a winery that recently achieved ‘certified’organic’ recognition, but what is their overall environmental impact compared to that of a non-organic winery just down the road?
7 Comments
Surely the good old process of photosynthesis, i.e. using up all that “nasty” CO2 means that vineyards are going to treehugger heaven?
Recovering volatiles and putting them back in? Uh oh, that doesn’t sound too tempting.
And Lar, I think that unless the vine lives forever, it doesn’t really remove carbon from the atmosphere; well, it does for a while, but then releases every single bit of it back into the sky once it dies and decomposes.
I would have thought winemaking to be carbon neutral. A lot of CO2 is produced during production, but the vineyards might cancel this out. Although then you have the emissions involved in transporting it to the other side of the globe. *Off to stroke my imaginary beard*
Agriculture as a whole produces huge CO2 (way more than transport) so assume vineyards are the same, even if they look pretty and there is a sexy product at the end and not some dirty old turnip.
Would ‘agriculture’ not take methane producing cattle into account as well? Surely they’re the key culprits. Just another reason to eat less red meat me thinks, but that’s a debate for another day.
I guess so, but still. Oil-based fertilisers not great either. Don’t you eat meat? I’m down to about 1/3 of what I used to eat after seeing one too many disturbing videos.
Same here. Cut way back. Mainly vegetarian and fish during the week, but I do enjoy good quality, high welfare chicken/red meat at the weekend. It’s the way to go I truly believe.