CLIMATE CHANGE: What wine producers are doing in the vineyards ...

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ADAPTATION AND MITIGATION TECHNIQUES CURRENTLY EMPLOYED IN THE VINEYARDS:

 

  • Use a carbon merchant for tree-planting (a fee is paid to plant the amount of trees needed to take out of the air the same amount of CO2 as is emitted by winery)
  • Using less glass in bottles to reduce weight and shipping costs
  • Reduce use of herbicides and fetilizers
  • Abandon glass and use plastic PET bottles or Tetrapak
  • Using photovoltaic and solar panels to generate energy and hot water
  • The introduction of wind farms
  • Complete energy-efficiency audits
  • Winery and warehouse lighting refit – replace incandescent bulbs with fluorescent
  • Replacing old machinery with more energy-efficient models
  • Increased tank insulation
  • Create and use own bio-diesel or ethanol in vehicles and farm equipment
  • Turn animal wastes in methane gas, with a methane digester, for heating
  • Water-management in general
  • Store and use rain-water for irrigation
  • Ship wine in bulk and have it bottled at the destination: re-use bottles
  • Hand-harvest rather than machine-harvest
  • Ensure new buildings are carbon-neutral and retro-fit where possible
  • Employ gravity-fed operations,
  • Engage in organic and biodynamic farming
  • Increase planting density – better land use
  • Reduce tillage and machine harvesting
  • Soil stabilization
  • Canopy management and pruning
  • Trellis modification to ensure aeration
  • Use screening for shade (expensive)
  • Spot spraying and use of pheromones for pest mating disruption
  • Northern Hemisphere can try to adjust slope exposition to northern-facing and not southern
  • Change or ignore local appellation laws
  • Plant warmer-climate grape varieties
  • Reduce irrigation (to mitigate)
  • Increase irrigation (to adapt)
  • Select clones that withstand temperature and drought