Eco-Principled Wineries

"It's about creating an ecosystem. The sheep replace tractors and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save money on fuel and help create healthy soils with the micro-organisms they leave behind in manure."

Jason Haas, partner, Tablas Creek winery, Paso Robles, California 

 

"We find that seasonal integration of sheep during vine dormancy is common, while integration during the growing season is rare. Overall, farmers perceive significantly more benefits than challenges with the integration of sheep into vineyards, particularly reduced mowing (100% of farmers) and herbicide use (66% of farmers). On average, farmers reported 1.3 fewer herbicide applications annually, saving US$56 per hectare. As well, farmers indicated they were doing 2.2 fewer mows annually saving US$64 per hectare. These results suggest that wide-scale adoption of seasonal integration of sheep and viticulture can provide large ecological benefits and higher profitability vis-à-vis conventional viticulture practices; however, further integration of the two systems may provide even greater benefits not currently realized."

SpringerLink: Research for Sustainable Development: Ecological and economic benefits of integrating sheep into viticulture production

 

"We can't use tractors, because old vines aren't in straight rows."

"With mules, we can adapt the work to each individual vine and avoid damaging the roots and shoots."

Olivier Bernard, Domaine de Chevalier, Bordeaux, France

Image Credit: Featherstone Winery

A new direction in viticulture, where wineries around the world are finding it possible to culture their grape stock with the help of the animal and even the insect kingdom. At Tablas Creek winery there are two hundred black-faced Dorper sheep living the life of ... well, Riley ... as they munch their contented way among rows of vines eating the weeds that normally would take specialized mechanical equipment like tractors to do the work that sheep do naturally. And while they're munching away they also do what comes naturally when food goes in one end and waste exits the other; in the process both removing pest vegetation and fertilizing the soil that crops grow in.

This is a new direction in the commitment more vineyards are making to sustainable development through organic and biodynamic viticulture, choosing that route as a preferred alternative to chemicals. In the process they have chosen to partner with furry, feathered, scaled, animals which doing their natural thing also contribute to the health of the wineries; no longer are toxic pesticides and herbicides needed. It's a matter of experimentation and study over which choices work best.

Armadillos  in Bodega Chacra’s vineyards in Patagonia

An experiment that failed the satisfactory level when Yealands estate in New Zealand settled on giant guinea pigs to eat the  weeds until the industrious little pigs were set upon by falcons and hawks. In more successfully sustainable animal/vineyard arrangements armadillos have been employed to make use of their long sticky tongues lapping up aggressive ants that end up doing damage to vines and leaves, at Bodega Chacra in Patagonia on the edge of the central desert in Argentina; with the armadillos in action poisonous ant traps have become redundant.

At Odfjell winery in Chile's Maipo Valley, Norwegian Fjord horses, one of the world's oldest breeds, small, tough and sure-footed on mountainous vineyards, till the soil. Horses are used in vineyards in the Loire Valley and Bordeaux, France. Heritage breed New Zealand Kunekune pigs have proven to be excellent vineyard weed-mowers, used at Oregon's Balanced Earth Farm, in rotation with Scottish highland cattle and sheep. Unlike other pig breeds, the kunekunes will not tear up turf.

Three varieties of non-venomous snakes utilized to restrain the population of destructive rodents at the Chateau Coutet in St.Emilion, instead of seeing the rodents eat the vine roots and dig underground tunnels drying out vineyard soil have worked out well. At Vergenoegd Low wine estate in the Stellenbosch region of South Africa, squads of ducks march to vineyards to forage for white dune snails, an invasive species that specializes in eating buds on spring grapevines.

Poitevin mules make themselves right at home among the oldest vines at Domaine de Chevalier, come spring; they go where tractors cannot with the added bonus that mules don't compact soil, allowing more microbes to flourish in the soil. Another bonus: mules are less high-strung than horses, with greater strength and endurance. Napa wineries make use of peregrine falcons which come at a much reduced cost than draping nets over grape vines to keep aggressive starlings away from sugar-rich, ripe grapes.

Emiliana Vineyards in Chile find chickens essential to battling the vine weevil that eats vine roots and shoots. In Santa Barbara County, Jonata winery uses mobile chicken coops, rolling them from plot to plot where some 60 insect-eating birds go to work while enriching the soil with nitrogen-rich droppings. But the most common of the eco-lawn mowers tend to be easy-to-control sheep, busy from winter through to spring bud break, munching weeds, keeping vines tidy from California to England and beyond.

In Canada, Niagara-on-the-Lake’s Frogpond Farm Organic Winery is the first certified organic winery in Ontario, where the vineyard spurns the use of synthetic or chemical additives and pesticides both in grape growing and wine making. The alternative bug eaters they make good use of as partners-in-eco-system-management include a resident Guinea Fowl flock.

 

Then there is the way vineyard operation at Hinterbrook Estates Winery in Niagara-on-the-Lake using solar power and where nearby Featherstone Estate Winery in Vineland makes use of ‘sheep labour’ to remove grape leaves in the fruiting zone (a process that allows the grape clusters to grow stronger). The winery has named a wine in their sheeps' honour: Black Sheep Riesling.

 

Honey’s sensitive nose will identify infected vines long before the pest can spread / Photo by Michael Housewright