This is one of those annoying “devil’s advocate” columns. It seems like everyone I meet in the wine business is talking about sustainability and with good reason. Regional sustainability programs have had great success in bringing the industry together. Given all the attention, however, maybe it is no surprise that some people are starting to have second thoughts.

What Does This Mean?

Sue and I were at a meeting of winemakers and regional wine media when one of the most respected people at the table challenged the group. “I don’t know what ‘sustainable’ means,” he proclaimed.

He was trying to make a point. The “S” word gets thrown around so much and in so many contexts that it doesn’t seem to mean anything in particular anymore. It’s almost a belief or an “-ism” (sustainabl-ism?) in practice, whatever its formal definition.

Sustainability certifications like the Sustainable WA program here in Washington, have specific criteria, but the term “sustainable” itself is very flexible, a fact that one of my university students taught me in his senior thesis, which argued that “sustainable development” was a popular goal precisely because it was ambiguous in practice and could be used to justify all sorts of policies.

Sustainability claims are flexible in wine, too. Sue and I can’t forget a Chilean wine we bought a few years ago that claimed to be “sustainably dry-farmed.” Dry-farmed means no irrigation to me. But, doing a little research, I learned that “sustainably dry-farmed” in this particular case meant that they irrigated the vines, but only when they really needed to. So it could have been called “sustainably irrigated” too. That’s crazy!

Unbearable Heaviness?

I still had this conversation on my mind when I opened up the newest issue of the noteworthy Italian wine journal Civiltà del bere (the civilization of drinking).  Alessandro Torcoli’s editorial addressed “The unbearable heaviness of sustainability” (L’insostenibile pesantezza della sostenibilità). Sustainable viticulture is critically important to the wine industry, Torcoli argues. But there is so much talk, talk, talk, talk, that it becomes a bit boring and unable to support expectations.

Although Torcoli is weary of long discussions about sustainability, he clearly appreciates its importance. He is concerned that wine’s sustainability conversations are so inwardly focused that they don’t make much of an impact on consumers. “It has never happened in the history of oenology,” he writes, “that there has been such a disconnect between the commitment of companies (because being sustainable involves an enormous bureaucratic, financial, organizational effort…) and consumers.”

Unnecessary Heaviness

It is easy to see how consumers could become confused about what sustainable wine means. Sometmes  you only have to pick up the bottle to start to have doubts.

One of Sue’s pet peeves is wineries that broadcast their commitment to sustainability but then undermine the message by using heavy-weight glass bottles. It is not unusual to find bottles that weigh more than the wine itself (750 grams). One recent bottle (a Malbec from Argentina) weighed in at nearly a kilogram on Sue’s digital scale. That’s a lot of weight to haul around and an unnecessary addition to the wine’s carbon footprint. Wine critics are increasingly sensitive to bottle weight. Karen MacNeil will no longer review heavy-weight bottles, for example.

That extra weight just isn’t consistent with a sustainability message at our house. We recently enjoyed Domaine  Bousquet’s Virgen Malbec, a USDA certified organic wine (organic grapes in the vineyard plus organic winemaking practices in the cellar). The bottle weighed in at just 402 grams. It is possible to go even lighter.

Theory vs Practice

Surveys say that wine consumers are willing to pay a premium for sustainable products, but when I tried to find a market link a few years ago, I came away empty-handed. If buyers are really paying more for sustainable wine (and not just giving “aspirational” answers to survey questions), I posited, then sustainably grown grapes should be worth more than conventionally grown grapes. I wasn’t able to find a sustainability premium. This is important for several reasons but perhaps especially because winegrape growers in many parts of the world currently receive economically unsustainable prices for their grapes. A sustainability premium could potentially bring a double benefit.

I couldn’t even verify that the average price of sustainable wine was higher than similar wines because “sustainable” is used in so many ways. There are many certified sustainable programs. Then there are wineries that act sustainably (and say so), but don’t go through certification. Then there is the widespread unregulated common use of the term (see “sustainably dry-farmed” above).

Worn-Out Words?

No wonder Torcoli sighs that “We are (almost) all convinced of the need to think about sustainability, but the word is wearing out.” He’s right. Maybe we need to unpack this term and explain what we are trying to sustain, how, and why.  It might be unrealistic to expect a single word to hold all that information and to convey it persuasively to consumers.

A recent Wall Street Journal article, for example, reported that a UK supermarket chain sold more of its private label chocolate bars, despite raising the price, when it made a specific pledge. The cocoa for the bars only comes from sources that do  not exploit child or slave labor, which is an issue in the cocoa supply chain. This made the more expensive ethically-sourced chocolate bars different from products that make more general sustainability claims or no claims at all.

According to one study cited in the WSJ article, 80 percent of survey takers said they cared about sustainability, but less than seven percent of them actually paid extra for sustainable products. That’s just one survey and the chocolate bars are just one product, but it gives us sonething to think about, doesn’t it?

So what is to be done? More talk? Torcoli concludes, “But the question remains: how can we sustain the unbearable heaviness of sustainability? Making it more rock or sexier, as the Americans would say? Unfortunately, another conference on the subject is needed.”

The wine industry has come a long way on the sustainability front. Now, what’s the next step? That’s the annoying but inevitable question.