Throughout the last fifteen years, a sea change has occurred in the attitudes of wine industry leaders toward environmental responsibility. Vineyards and wineries have adopted a breadth of environmental practices, and many are certified by a myriad of sustainability authentication programs.
In Vines and Values: A Consumer’s Guide to Sustainable Wine, author Sandra E. Taylor shifts the focus to the consumer. She explains that when consumers make purchases that favor environmentally and socially responsible wines, they impact circumstances further down the supply chain. Those purchases can lead to more resilient farming communities, healthier workers, balanced ecosystems, a stronger commitment to social responsibility, and economic vitality for wine producers.
Vines and Values: A Consumer’s Guide to Sustainable Wine offers a deeper understanding of wine and discusses how sustainable practices—organic, biodynamic, natural, and more—are applied in both the vineyard and in the winery. It shares how wine consumers can reduce their individual carbon footprint through wine choices, and it introduces a new sustainability rating system. Wine – WATCH ratings inform consumers where the wine they select fits on a continuum of environmental and social responsibility performance.