What it means when a winery claims to be eco-friendly

In any conversation about wine and the environment, someone will eventually toss in the word "greenwashing." It's a convenient term to express cynicism about a winery's claim to be farming without herbicides or pesticides. It's also a dig at the lack of transparency in wine marketing.

But transparency is getting better. Certifications such as Regenerative Organic and B Corporation, for example, require companies to measure their environmental impact and set goals for future improvements. These two certifications are not specific to wine, and instead aim to encourage all businesses to be "benefit corporations" by maximizing their contribution to society while minimizing environmental impact. They also give us a glimpse at steps wineries are taking to be gentler on the environment.

Some of these steps may not be readily apparent when we pick up a bottle in a wine store. But there are clues we can look for whether a winery is trying to do right by the environment and address the challenges of climate change.

At Troon Vineyard, a boutique winery in Grants Pass, Ore., general manager Craig Camp used a bottle of wine as a prop as he talked me through the steps the winery takes to minimize its environmental footprint.

"The biggest challenge is always the weight of the bottle, especially with supply shortages," Camp explained. "We found one we really liked that weighed just 400 grams - that's quite light. But it was made in Spain, and it didn't seem like such a bargain in money or carbon footprint to ship air across the ocean. So we found one made in Oregon that weighs 450 grams, and we only have to truck it a few hours down the highway from Portland." (That 450-gram bottle weighs about a pound, and it's still light. The average weight of bottles I recommended through June this year was 505 grams, though I have weighed some that were twice as heavy.)

Increased demand from wineries for lighter bottles will continue to bring average weights down, Camp said. "New technologies can make lighter glass strong enough," he said.

The color of glass is relevant, too. Troon uses clear glass - more readily recyclable - for its white wines and light reds meant for early consumption. They use green glass for reds meant to age a year or two, to protect them from light damage.

Then the labels. "Our labels are tree-free, made from leftovers of sugar production, fibers of sugar cane that normally would be discarded. So you're recycling an agricultural waste product, and saving trees." Troon's labels also note the winery's Demeter biodynamic and Regenerative Organic certifications.

Keep looking up, and you'll notice something's missing. "We don't use capsules," Camp said, "because they don't do anything."

So consider the cork through the clear neck of the bottle. Environmental thought goes into the choice of cork, too. Troon uses Origine by Diam, a stopper made of fragments of natural cork that have been treated to remove any trace of cork taint. Most Diam stoppers are sealed with microplastics. Troon pays a little extra for Origine by Diam, a line sealed with beeswax and a plant-based substance. "When you pull the cork, you may see a little haze on the neck of the bottle," Camp said. "It's perfectly organic and compostable. Slightly more expensive, but worth it."

Troon is a small winery, but its environmental efforts are similar to larger operations. In Italy, Tuscany's Avignonesi winery recently attained B Corp certification to go along with its organic and biodynamic certification from Biodyvin, a rival certification group to the more common Demeter. As part of the B Corp process, Avignonesi published a 2021 Impact Report detailing the winery's environmental impacts.

"We are continuing to reduce our ecological impact, adding more solar panels each year to become energy self-sufficient, and buying new fuel-efficient tractors to reduce our diesel emissions," said Virginie Saverys, Avignonesi's owner. The winery has invested in electric and hybrid vehicles and is eagerly awaiting advances in electric tractors, she told me over Zoom.

Saverys noted that she became a more energy-conscious driver once she bought a hybrid car, and expressed hope her vineyard workers would react the same way. Solar power and energy-efficient vehicles are a sizable investment for any business. But Saverys emphasized that Avignonesi was also sweating the small stuff that you and I might consider in trying to reduce our own environmental impacts.

"We keep challenging ourselves to use less plastic, encourage smokers not to drop their butts in the vineyard, and to use water flasks instead of discarding plastic bottles," she said.

But the main changes are similar to Troon's and other wineries concerned about environmental impact. With its most recent releases, Avignonesi reduced the average weight of its bottles, saving about 40,000 kilograms of glass each vintage.

And on the front labels of those latest releases, a QR code takes consumers to a webpage with information about nutritional values and a list of additives - "In our case, only sulfites," Saverys said. We'll see more of similar information on European wines under new European Union regulations that take effect at the end of 2023, requiring wineries to provide ingredient and nutritional information about their wines.

Avignonesi's QR codes will also link to information about the winery's environmental values and suggestions for how to recycle or "upcycle" the bottle and cork.

"Thanks to covid, everyone knows about QR codes now," she said. As we become more accustomed to using them, perhaps we'll also be more aware of the steps wineries are taking to reduce their environmental impact, and how we can help.