The journal
What the certifications are worth, what the weather is doing to terroir, who does the picking — and the wines found along the way.
Written by Sandra E. Taylor
Read by subject
Sustainability is usually read as environmental stewardship alone. These posts keep pulling it back to the whole of it — the climate that is rewriting terroir, the people who work the rows, and the market that decides whether any of it pays.
Vines and Values is a guide to winemaking that is environmentally sound, economically viable and socially equitable — with extensive lists of sustainable wineries and wines, many of them under $12.
Sustainability rests on three pillars: people, planet and profit. Growers see climate action as a strategic priority — but many are slow to recognise social justice as a risk factor at all.
5 min read
Too often diversity is thought of as solving a problem, when in fact it should be viewed as a missed opportunity. Black consumers’ collective spending is set to reach $1.7 trillion by 2030 — equal to the projected GDP of Mexico.
4 min read
Only 14% of bonded wineries in California report a woman as lead winemaker, and fewer than 0.1 percent of all winemakers in the US are Black. Diversifying the industry goes well beyond hiring people of color.
5 min read
A liquor license in Western Pennsylvania can cost $250,000. What has grown up in its absence is a bring-your-own-bottle culture that turns out to be the best of both worlds.
3 min read
Addressing the Australian Wine International Technical Conference on diversity, I kept to three themes: unconscious bias, the barriers to entry that mean we are missing talent, and the business case — not simply social justice.
4 min read
Three ingredients combine with a grape variety to influence a wine’s style: the weather, the soil and the topography. Terroir is now being drastically influenced by climate change — and all three are moving.
4 min read
A week in southeastern Sicily with growers certified under SOStain, a symposium in Toronto, and a conference in Adelaide — with the 2014 Grange at the end of it.
3 min read
The industries that produce and bring these two drinkable commodities to market also share important similarities. Coffee on the other hand is produced quite far from its eventual market.
4 min readEverything argued here — what the words on a label mean, what the certifications audit, which producers have earned them — worked through bottle by bottle, with lists by varietal and region.
