This time of year, a vineyard's approach to sustainability is clear

If you've ever wondered whether the vineyards you see are farmed chemically or organically, this is the season to check here in California. In an organic vineyard (or at least, one that doesn't use herbicides) mid-winter should show a carpet of brilliant green between, under, and around the grapevine rows. Something like this, which I took out at Tablas last week:

If instead what you see looks like neat stripes of green and brown, you're looking at vineyard rows where the ground has been sprayed with herbicide. It's harder to tell in the summer, because it's standard practice to remove the weeds under vine rows so they don't interfere with the free passage of wind and light among the ripening clusters. Organically farmed vineyards just do that work mechanically instead of chemically. But at this time of year, when you see a vineyard that looks like this, you know what's happening:

There's no guarantee that a vineyard that isn't using herbicides is farming organically. Plenty of vineyards have moved away from glyphosate and other systemic herbicides but continue to use (or at least hold out the option of using) chemical pesticide or fungicide. But I'm not aware of any vineyards for which the opposite is true. Weed control is the easiest piece of moving to organic viticulture in a place like Paso Robles. If they're not doing that, the chances of them controlling insects or fungal pressures non-chemically is in my experience pretty remote.

As for the wineries who have moved away from glyphosate, even if they're still not ready to certify, good for them! I see lots of evidence that we've made progress in the last decade. It used to be, as I drove out Vineyard Drive toward Tablas Creek each day, that nearly every vineyard I'd drive by would have bare ground under the grapevine rows, even in February when the hillsides are vibrant green. Now, it's more like half. That's a sea change in approach. And it's driven by a growth in understanding in the role of soil in farming. Soil, after all, is more than the grains of mineral and organic matter that make up what we call dirt. One of the most fascinating talks I attended at the recent Tasting Climate Change conference was by Marc-André Selosse PhD, Professor at Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris. He pointed out that in a single gram of healthy soil there are one million bacteria, thousands of species of fungi, hundreds of amoebas, and tens of millions of virus. These microbes are turning rocks and minerals into nutrient building blocks while fungi are doing the same thing with organic matter. Insects and worms are digesting and mixing the layers. All this allows soil to integrate organic matter from surface plants, resulting in soils that have their own healthy ecosystem. Eliminating the plant layer at the surface strips the soil of the building blocks of fertility, decimates the microbial and fungal populations in the soil, and allows for its compaction, further reducing its ability to absorb and retain water. 

I have hope that we'll see more change coming soon to California. The recent announcement by Napa Green, probably California's most influential sustainability certification, that they'll require vineyards to move away from glyphosate if they want to maintain their sustainability certification, has made a major splash in industry groups. Of course, you're probably wondering if a winery that's been using glyphosate should ever have been able to claim certified sustainable status. And that's a fair point. I've made it myself. But that highlights how widespread its use has been, that in order to get wineries into their programs and then move them little by little to more sustainable practices, every one of the 20+ sustainability certifications in California has until now allowed the use of glyphosate.

Will wineries move to other non-glyphosate herbicides? Perhaps. It's still cheaper to spray with herbicide than it is to remove weeds mechanically each year. But that difference is small in a place like Paso Robles, where the rain stops in April or May and once you remove weeds they don't typically regrow. I am hopeful that other certifications will follow Napa Green's lead, and require that their certified sustainable vineyards will be required to take this first step away from chemical farming. And that this step will lead to more wineries moving toward holistic systems like Biodynamic and Regenerative Organic Certified.

Will they? Each February, you'll have a chance to check in and update your report card. Just look for the brown stripes of dirt.