Sustainability has been wine’s buzz-word for over a decade. Almost every winery or grower, it seems, claims to be operating sustainably – and it’s a term that’s not always easy to nail down. But without a doubt, this is an area where South Africa has been leading the way for some time.
The country introduced its Integrated Production of Wine (IPW) scheme as long ago as 1998. A commitment to traceability and good agricultural practices in both the vineyard and the winery, it is, perhaps, a base-level commitment. Nonetheless, it put green issues on the table early (95% of all the country’s vineyards are IPW certified) and created an awareness that many in the industry – including all the members of PIWOSA – have since built on and refined further. Indeed, at the time of writing, de Grendel has just been named a World Wildlife Fund Conservation Champion, joining four members who already hold this title.
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Some of The Cape’s wineries’ environmental measures are plain common sense. For instance, it is entirely rational to double down on water collection following several years of drought. Equally, if your country’s energy supplier can’t keep the lights on, harvesting as much solar power as you can is quasi inevitable, with Journey’s End Vineyards, being one of the very first wine farms in the country to convert to solar.
But for most producers this is not the rationale; rather it is
