California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance

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California Sustainable Winegrowing Program

Benefiting the environment, the community
and high quality grapes and wine.

"The CSWA has been a tremendous benefit to the California winegrowing community."

Steve Schafer

CSWA Board Member - Madera Winegrower

How Sustainable is Your Operation

Do an Online Self-Assessment!

To self-assess your vineyard and/or winery operations using the second edition workbook online, generate your own customized sustainability reports to identify areas of strength and opportunities for improvement, and take advantage of other benefits of participation, sign up for a userID and password. California vintners and winegrape growers can sign up for a userID and password by completing the participant information sheet. To learn more about the online system visit our Online Self-Assessments.

(Only California vintners and growers may self-assess online.)

To find a workshop in your area to assess or reassess your operation and to learn more about specific practices, visit our Workshop Calendar.

Self-Assessment Workshop Webinars now offered!

Participate in a self-assessment workshop via your office or home computer. Webinars are offered on the last Thursday of each month. Visit the Workshop Calendar for more information.

Sustainable Winegrowing Program Certification Update

The California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance has completed the pilot phase of certification development and has tested the draft certification requirements with 18 wineries and vineyards of various sizes in regions throughout the state. The certification program is being developed by the Sustainable Winegrowing Joint Committee, comprised of members of Wine Institute and the California Association of Winegrape Growers (CAWG). The proposed certification program takes a process-oriented approach and adds third-party verification of self-assessment, action planning, and improvement as a voluntary option to the Sustainable Winegrowing Program. Click here to learn more about the certification development and to read Frequently Asked Questions.

Confusion In Wine Carbon Footprint Analysis

A response to the menacing title and erroneous graphic portraying the “Toll of Wine” in the May 2009 issue of National Geographic. The graphic depicts the carbon intensity of shipping wine from various global wine regions to key U.S. cities and bases its data on a seriously flawed, two-year-old working paper that is filled with untested assumptions, has not been peer reviewed, and does not accurately reflect the complexities of greenhouse gas emissions in the wine sector. Research on a science-based Life Cycle Analysis for wine is underway but the graphic, as well as the paper on which it is based, misleads consumers into believing that foreign imports are somehow more environmentally-friendly than California wines. Read More...