San Francisco, Calif. -- Vineyard companies representing more than 68% of California’s vineyard acres have taken the first step on a path that could lead them to gaining certification for their vineyards through the new Certified California Sustainable Winegrowing program (CCSW), said Bobby Koch, president and CEO of the Wine Institute. Speaking Wednesday at the Merchant Exchange in San Francisco, Koch welcomed several dozen attendees to the program’s official launch, noting that the vineyards, wineries and organizations that completed CCSW’s self-assessment accounted for 62.5% of the state’s 240 million case shipments.

“With two out of three cases and acres in California vouching for sustainability, it’s a really powerful sign that this is not a niche approach. This is a mainstream approach,” said Paul Herman, CEO of HIP Investor, a financial index that analyzes human impact and profit.

Knowing that Wednesday marked the official launch of the program, attendees likely wondered how organizers managed to recruit such a large percentage of the California wine industry so quickly. The answer came from Bill Cooper of Cooper-Garrod Estate Vineyards, who recalled that the Sustainable Winegrowing committee first met in June 2001 and has, over the years, constructed a third-party certification program around a 227-point assessment tool.

To be eligible for CCSW, vineyards and wineries must meet a list of 58 criteria outlined in the Code of Sustainable Winegrowing Practices Self-Assessment Workbook. (Access the 58 prerequisites here: http://www.sustainablewinegrowing.org/docs/CCSW-Certified_Pre-requisites.pdf.) The cornerstone of the program, the workbook contains 227 best practices for winegrowing, and participants rate themselves on a scale of one to four for each of those 227 criteria. (Examples include things like shoot density, vineyard layout and vehicle maintenance products.)

“Going through those 227 questions, you are going to learn how to improve your business. You’re going to have guidance,” Cooper said. “And quite frankly, the people who participate are going to perform better than the people who don’t.”

Cooper said that considering the different criteria allowed him to evaluate which environmental practices were most applicable to his business, as opposed to a blanket-approach certification program.

Verified by outside auditors
After completing the self-assessment, which is done annually, winegrowers and winemakers develop individual action plans to implement the changes they’ve decided to tackle. Third-party auditors review the self-assessment and action plans, helping guide participants on their paths to improvement.

“Nothing is ever static; what we’re trying to do as vineyard managers and winemakers is improve the process,” said Neil Roberts of Roberts Vineyard Management near Paso Robles, one of the certification participants to sit on a panel and field questions about the program. “This program gives us all the tools in the toolbox to make better decisions about everything we do.” The program requires that certified vineyards and wineries show progress from year to year.

The new program is hardly the first vineyard certification system in the U.S. -- the Lodi and Central Coast regions of California, and Oregon are three regions that have developed their own.

Chris Savage of E. & J. Gallo Winery noted that the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance CSWA is working with other sustainability programs to develop memorandums of understanding, so that participating vineyards and wineries won’t have to duplicate work for multiple organizations. (See Cliff Ohmart's Vineyard View column from the January issue for more on vineyard certification types and methods.)

Sustainability report
Also Wednesday, Allison Jordan and Dr. Jeff Dlott presented the results of the 2009 Wine Community Sustainability Report. Since 2004, when the last data was released, CSWA participation increased from 813 vineyard organizations to 1,237, and the number of distinct winery organizations climbed from 128 to 329.

Tabulating the results from confidential reports about sustainable practices, CSWA found that the state’s winegrowers and winemakers excelled in the following areas: viticulture, soil management, wine quality and ecosystem management. Areas with the most room for improvement include: energy efficiency, materials handling, waste reduction and environmentally preferred purchasing.

Earlier in the program Herman the founder of HIP Investor, noted that one of the most powerful ways a business can influence the world is through its choice of suppliers. Opting to do business with a company that strives to be sustainable forces the competition to step up their efforts, as well.