New Zealand is a leader in eco-friendly
wine. The first to establish a national sustainability programme, more than 96 per cent of
vine-growing land here is managed according to specific environmental standards.
The industry has pledged to be carbon neutral by 2050, and more producers are going organic.
Of around 1400 registered growers and wineries, more than 13 per cent are certified organic,
compared to less than one per cent two decades ago.
I've come to the south of the country in the renowned Pinot Noir region of Central Otago,
where almost a quarter of producers are organic,
to see for myself the challenges and rewards of an all-natural harvest.
Rosie! Hi! Nice to see you.
Beautiful property. At Carrick winery they've
transformed semi-arid grazing land into picture-postcard vine terraces.
The vineyard’s been certified organic since 2008.
That means that we're not using any pesticides, herbicides or fungicides in the vineyard
or any synthetic fertilisers either. But going organic isn't easy or cheap.
Here, the dramatic change in land, waste and soil management initially sent costs
soaring and yields plummeting. Now vines are back to their prime, and the deep
beds of fine porous mineral sands below them, no longer leach chemicals into the environment.
Anything going through our soil is going to go into that water and eventually end up in our
community, so it’s really important that we think about what we’re putting onto our land here.
Of 16 wines produced here, four are natural, meaning no filtration, processing,
or standard additives are used to make wines fruitier, fresher and keep for longer.
It's quite cloudy, it’s almost orange in colour.
While some consumers might find this cloudy Riesling hard to swallow…
Mmm, I like it. ….the 100% organic wine tastes fine to me.
But in the early days, getting fellow producers to embrace change wasn’t as easy as it is now.
Duncan. Ah, hello!
Hello lovely to meet you! Passionate organic winemaker Duncan Forsyth has
seen a sea-change in the way vines and the wine they produce are cultivated and processed.
Organics was probably the domain of sandal-wearing
hippies 20 years ago. Now it's just seen as a baseline.
Not content with adopting the usual land, waste, water and renewable energy management,
Duncan found himself at the forefront of a bold tilt at the dirtiest part of wine’s carbon
footprint; the classic glass bottle. Making, transporting and even reusing heavy
glass bottles uses fossil fuels and emits greenhouse gases.
We were the first in New Zealand to start selling wine in a keg. So, it's like a very
small beer keg, it's about 20 litres and holds two and a half cases of wine.
But replacing elegant, visually appealing glass bottles with stubby refillable kegs
proved controversial. I wasn't seen as the most popular person.
It was seen as dumbing down the industry. And I got a number of phone calls with people asking
what I was doing, how dare I? It’s that easy.
But sticking to their guns, or in this case kegs,
is proving profitable and popular, up from one, to 10 percent of total sales.
And far from dumb or downmarket, most of Mount Edward’s kegs go to high-end outlets.
Acclaimed for its pursuit of renewable energy and sustainability, this hotel
bar has seven wines on tap, each one coming directly from nearby vineyards in kegs.
That cuts thousands of ‘wine miles’ bottles of the same product would take via the regular storage,
wholesale and distribution chains spanning the country.
Eliminating transportation costs, it kind of reduces the carbon footprint as well, every little
bit that we can do, to do that, is huge. Wine by the keg isn’t so practical when it comes
to shipping wine to the biggest and most valuable market; individual consumers overseas.
Like all the growers I’m visiting, Blair Walter is embracing lightweight bottles as a way of
reducing the carbon emissions produced in the export of his premium wines.
The thinner bottles are up to 50 per cent lighter than traditional longnecks.
That's 417 grams, you feel how light it is. What goes inside the bottle comes from biodiverse
fields where a range of plants and vine-friendly, pest-eating insects
thrive amongst the grapes. Wastes such as cuttings, cow manure and
even eggshells from the vineyard chickens are mixed into a compost, to feed the vines.
How much better is that than getting your fertilizer and nutrient
for the vineyard from a sack? By growing naturally, recycling organics
and ensuring suppliers use minimal packaging, this entire commercial business produces less
waste than a typical domestic household. So we have a domestic-sized wheelie bin that's
emptied fortnightly and that's the only waste to landfill.
Blair and his fellow organic winemakers maybe leading New Zealand’s charge to sustainability,
but despite all the hard work being done, they’re the first to admit that there
is still a long road ahead. And it’s consumers who will ultimately
drive others to change.