Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/45785
The head of the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance takes a 'directional approach' to sustainable farming By Tom Johnson n 2001, the Wine Institute and the California Association of Winegrape Growers (CAWG) initiated a program designed to use education and voluntary action to change the way California wineries are run. They published the first Code of Sustainable Wine- growing Practices workbook a year later, inviting participants to score themselves from one (least sustain- 60 VINEYARD & WINERY MANAGEMENT NOV - DEC 2011 able) to four (most sustainable) in more than 200 practices. The California Sustainable Wine- growing Alliance (CSWA) was formed as a free-standing organi- zation in 2003. It has conducted more than 3,000 seminars helping wineries and vineyards improve their practices, and claims 1,800 participating vineyards and wineries covering 70% of California's vine- yard acreage and 65% of its wine production. The woman behind it all is CSWA executive director Allison Jordan, a former English teacher who began consulting with CSWA in 2003 while finishing a master's degree in public policy at UC Berke- ley. She became executive director in 2006. V&WM: What is the CSWA defi- nition of "sustainable"? WWW.VWM-ONLINE.COM