inspiring social & environmental excellence in high-end brands

Can Wine really be luxury and sustainable?

I've just relocated to California and am interested by the plethora of wineries touting the "sustainability" flag. Most are simply partially green and often have contradictory practices. As the sustainability trifecta includes environment, social/cultural AND economic considerations, if a product touches just one aspect should they be able to say they are "sustainable"?

If wine sector starts incorporating changes such as screw-caps, plastic corks or tetra-pak boxes can they really still be considered luxury? (Not entering into the social/cultural and environmental discussion of real cork which I believe is still the best sustainable option)

Given my experience living/working in Italian, French and Spanish wine areas, I'd love to get some dialogue going with other members.

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Christian Conrad on August 27, 2009 at 6:59pm

I think that wine is like many other products - only partially sustainable. However, where I feel that quality wines have a real edge over other "sustainable" food products is there is traceability. Most higher quality wines are "single origin" , i.e. from a specific vineyard. Try that in many other categories, e.g. coffee - coffee is already seen as "origin" coffee if you can tell which country it comes from.

Back to the wine: I think that the whole supply chain needs to be critically assessed: how is the wine grown from both a social (working conditions, etc) and an environmental perspective? is it organic? (and organic doesn´t always have to be sustainable, non-organic doesn´t per se have to be unsustainable!) water usage? What materials are used? glass, cork, plastic, cardboard (box), glue (for sticker), paper (sticker) ..... then: how is it transported? CO2 impact? .... how is it sold? big chain, small wine shop? direct sale? (distribution) and then: how is it consumed, how is the bottle, cap, cork etc. recycled?