When I first reported on wine sustainability for GuildSomm in 2019, one of the greatest challenges was defining the practice in a cohesive, international way. Organic and biodynamic farming were relatively easy to describe, while sustainable encompassed a much wider, less standardized set of ideas. Individual programs developing in New Zealand, California, Chile, and Italy were beginning to account for water and energy use, waste, workers, communities, and even broader issues, such as businesses’ long-term viability. But it was clear that no single global model could account for the climatic, geographic, and cultural realities of every wine region.
Today, regional variation remains, but the vocabulary has changed. Buzzwords include regenerative viticulture, B Corp, carbon accounting, and net-zero roadmaps. An expanding set of regional certifications quantify and certify organic, biodynamic, and sustainable methods.
Notably, measurable standards and metrics for improvement have become central to the conversation, while concern over sustainability as simply marketing jargon has dissipated. Regenerative viticulture has become a central concept over the past seven years. Although there isn’t an official definition of it, regenerative viticulture is best described as a systems-based approach to grapegrowing that seeks to restore soil health and ecological function while improving biodiversity, water retention, and the vineyard’s resilience to climatic stress. Its practices commonly include planting cover crops, reducing or forgoing tillage, building soil organic matter, encouraging biodiversity, reducing dependence on external inputs, and, where appropriate, integrating livestock. The precise combination of these practices varies by site and climate. As the term regenerative viticulture has gained traction, certification has become one way of distinguishing loosely adopted regenerative language from efforts that align with a more defined set of standards and accountability.
One certification built around the approach is Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC). Established in 2017 by the nonprofit Regenerative Organic Alliance (ROA), the certification was designed for agriculture broadly, including food and personal-care ingredients. Today, certified operations range from vineyards to coffee farms, grain and rice production, cotton farms, orchards, and livestock operations.
The framework has three pillars: soil health, animal welfare where applicable, and social fairness. In 2019, the ROA launched its global pilot program across a range of agricultural sectors. Tablas Creek Vineyard, a celebrated Paso Robles winery, joined that pilot as its only winery participant and became the world’s first ROC vineyard in 2020. For Jason Haas, a partner and the second-generation proprietor of Tablas Creek, the certification offered a way to address areas he felt existing certifications did not fully capture. He explains, “ROC brought together the rigor of organic, the whole-farm approach of biodynamic, and the breadth of the best of the sustainability certifications.”
Tablas Creek’s pioneering approach has taken hold in the Paso Robles community. In fact, Paso Robles has emerged as one of the world’s leading regions for ROC wine production, with six wineries farming certified vineyards and producing ROC-certified wines, including Robert Hall Winery. O’Neill Vintners & Distillers owns the estate as well as Ram’s Gate Winery, in Sonoma County, among other brands.
O’Neill began the Robert Hall trial in 2020 with 40 acres (16 hectares) and has since accumulated several years of sensor, soil, grape, and wine data. The strategy has been tested through a multiyear, side-by-side vineyard trial designed to generate evidence that growers can evaluate themselves. The control block is farmed to the standards of Certified California Sustainable Winegrowing, rather than conventionally farmed to an artificially low standard, which makes the comparison especially useful. MW Kryss Speegle, executive vice president of winegrowing for O’Neill, explains, “We wanted real contrast with conventional methods but didn’t want to sandbag the comparison.”
The regenerative blocks have shown cooler canopy and soil temperatures, greater water-holding capacity, less berry dehydration, and generally consistent or increased yields. Speegle says the lower water stress and slightly cooler conditions have also extended the ripening season, helping sugar, acid, flavor, and phenolic maturity align more closely in hot years.
Regenerative farming has become part of a broader company strategy for O’Neill. Much of the company’s fruit comes from contracted growers within Paso Robles, making trackable, repeatable results particularly important if regenerative farming is going to expand beyond estate vineyards.
Speegle explains, “Having that side-by-side trial and being able to show and tell, and to look at the differences over time, is huge.” But she is also careful of the limits of the data. She says, “I suspect that, 10 years in, a bigger, more nuanced story will emerge.”
At Ram’s Gate Winery, in Sonoma County, regenerative certification formalized a progression that was already underway. The estate had eliminated glyphosate, started farming organically and grazing sheep, planted cover crops, and begun more closely evaluating water use before pursuing ROC. Joe Nielsen, the general manager and director of winemaking at Ram’s Gate, had referred to the estate’s approach simply as “beyond organic.” Ram’s Gate completed its organic certification in 2024, and ROC offered a framework encompassing practices that organic certification did not, including broader consideration of water use, composting, and whole-farm management.
Explains Nielsen, “I think the great thing about [ROC] is [that it encourages] really thinking about farming in a holistic way. What it encompasses is not new to people that really care about farming.”
Today, ROC-certified wine-grape growers can be found well beyond California, including in Canada, France, Italy, Austria, and Argentina. Certification requires prior USDA or internationally equivalent organic certification. Producers complete a Regenerative Organic System Plan and undergo an audit for certification; maintaining ROC status requires annual renewal and an annual audit.
A separate organization, the Regenerative Viticulture Foundation (RVF), offers a different approach. The global nonprofit supports regenerative adoption through research, education, and peer-to-peer learning rather than certification. Its One Block Challenge, launched in Paso Robles in January 2025 with 46 growers, was designed to lower the risk of adopting new regenerative practices by inviting participants to apply a core set of methods to just a single vineyard block. Growers establish baseline measures for soil compaction, water infiltration, earthworm populations, and biodiversity, then track vineyard and harvest data through the season while meeting with other participants to compare results. The program has expanded in California through cohorts and field days in Sonoma, Temecula, and Mendocino, as well as farther afield in Texas and the United Kingdom.
Haas says, “I think it’s important that movements have nexuses.” The ability to compare experience, costs, vineyard performance, and wine quality within a region may prove as important to scaling regenerative farming as any consumer-facing claim.
In New Zealand, where sustainable certification was already close to ubiquitous in 2019, the country’s initiatives have only strengthened. New Zealand provides an example of how sustainability programs can evolve once certification is widely established. With 98% of vineyard area certified through Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand (SWNZ), a program led by New Zealand Winegrowers, progress increasingly depends on improved measurement and standards rather than recruiting new winery participants.
Following a major review in 2019 and 2020, SWNZ organized its requirements around climate change, water, waste, plant protection, soil, and people. Emissions reporting and packaging data are now mandatory, and new requirements introduced in 2026 formalize labor and social-responsibility expectations. The program is also reviewing how to incorporate regenerative soil principles into future standards. For Meagan Littlejohn, the program manager for SWNZ, this continual expansion is inherent to the idea of sustainability itself. She explains, “Our understanding of sustainability will always evolve, shaped by research, market demands, and broader social expectations.”
Even within such a mature national sustainability framework, some producers have sought additional verification. The Maori-owned Tiki Wine & Vineyards pursued certified regenerative status through A Greener World (AGW), a nonprofit similar to ROA but with a different set of standards. AGW uses a farm-specific regenerative plan, annual audits, and ongoing measurement to define certification, and organic certification is not required.
According to Royce McKean, a cofounder of Tiki, after years of regenerative work guided by kaitiakitanga, the Maori concept of guardianship of the land for future generations, AGW certification has “given customers and trade partners external assurance, while pushing the company to formalize baselines around soil, water, and biodiversity.”
Today, McKean says, his larger challenge is economic. Sustainability that cannot support the growers and businesses implementing it will struggle to expand beyond committed early adopters. Says McKean, “We need to show that regenerative farming is good business, and we still have a lot of work to do to help demonstrate that.”
Economic viability becomes inseparable from climate resilience in places such as Alentejo, Portugal. The Wines of Alentejo Sustainability Program (WASP) began in 2015 partly in response to the region’s heat and drought conditions, which João Barroso, the sustainability manager for WASP, says are becoming longer, more intense, and more recurrent. The program has expanded its original sustainability framework to include climate change, circularity, and regenerative principles developed with the RVF. Its scope is broad, extending from vineyard and winery practices into packaging, human resources, community engagement, socioeconomic development, and more.
Over the past decade, data supplied by WASP from its third party–certified producers show average reductions of 20% to 30% in water and energy consumption, alongside wider adoption of cover crops, hedgerows, ecological corridors, restored watercourses, and other nature-based practices. Those efficiencies feed a larger objective. Explains Barroso, “It’s all about resilience. It’s all about being able to [continue] making wines for 10 years and longer. And water is a crucial factor.”
In his view, relying on irrigation alone leaves vineyards exposed. Factors such as ground cover, soil biology, water retention, and agroforestry work as a system to moderate climatic stress. He also resists replacing one sustainability vocabulary with another. He explains, “Regenerative farming deserves attention, but as a function of sustainability. Soil regeneration can make a vineyard more resilient while packaging, workers, energy, water, community, and economic viability remain part of the wider sustainability equation.”
Champagne demonstrates why sustainability standards often need to be adapted to regional conditions. The Comité Champagne has set a goal for all vineyards to hold environmental certification by 2030; more than 60% of vineyard area is currently certified. Its own Viticulture Durable en Champagne (VDC) standard includes 99 criteria, 59 specific to Champagne, covering plant protection, fertilization, biodiversity, waste, terroir preservation, and carbon.
Laurent-Perrier’s vineyards have held both VDC and Haute Valeur Environnementale (HVE) certification since 2018. HVE is France’s national environmental certification for agricultural operations. Laurent-Perrier’s partially underground disgorging and packaging facility, Clos Valin, maintains a low natural temperature, reducing the need for mechanical cooling, and the building has extensive windows to bring natural daylight into the working areas. The house operates its own organic wastewater-treatment plant and has invested in Vitibot, an autonomous electric straddle tractor used for mechanical weeding and mowing.
Michelle DeFeo, the president of Laurent-Perrier USA, explains, “It’s better than the other tractors commonly used in Champagne, because there’s more soil compaction if we use those.”
The house has met one of its waste targets outright: zero landfill from winemaking operations. Pomace that was once treated as waste is now sold for use by cosmetics manufacturers. Laurent-Perrier’s pesticide-free standard extends beyond the roughly 11% of vineyards the house owns to the approximately 1,600 growers from which it purchases fruit.
Australia’s size and the enormous climatic variation among its wine regions have resulted in an equally broad response to sustainability and climate change. Australian grapegrowers and wine producers pay specific research and development levies on production, which the Australian government matches, with funding directed toward research and extension priorities identified by the industry. That model has supported at least two decades of work on climate adaptation and mitigation, including research into smoke exposure, water efficiency, vine and rootstock breeding, and the development of Australia’s Wine Future: A Climate Atlas, an online resource. Wine Australia’s national emissions roadmap sets a 42% reduction target for the sector by 2030. The country’s investment in information and technology shows how such a broad goal can become practical.
Sonya Logan, the communications manager for Wine Australia, says, “It’s not that Australian wine regions are necessarily facing unique or dramatically different conditions compared with other wine regions globally. Rather, there is an open and sustained focus on understanding the challenges and supporting innovation in response.”
The climate atlas provides projections through 2100 for every Australian geographical indication, giving growers information that can inform long-term vineyard decisions. Research into improved vine and rootstock material offers another avenue for adaptation, while Wine Australia’s Emissions Reduction Roadmap addresses mitigation across vineyards, wineries, and the supply chain. The concept of sustainability is expanding beyond environmental performance. Sustainable Winegrowing Australia publicly reports on member progress, and Wine Australia has introduced a guide to help wine businesses identify and reduce risks associated with labor exploitation and modern slavery.
Individual wineries across the country are taking unique actions as well. Tahbilk Estate, in Victoria’s Nagambie Lakes region, has combined its carbon-reduction work with revegetation and technology for vineyard yield and soil monitoring. Torbreck Vintners, in the Barossa Valley, and Starrs Reach Vineyard, in South Australia’s Riverland, have used ag-tech to improve water and nutrient management. In McLaren Vale, Richard Leask, the winemaker of Hither & Yon, used a Nuffield Farming Scholarship, supported by Wine Australia, to study regenerative agriculture. He visited growers and researchers across several continents before publishing a report on how regenerative practices could improve soil health, water retention, and resilience in Australian vineyards. At Kaesler Wines, in the Barossa Valley, a cloud-based system that responds to fermentation and ambient conditions has cut refrigeration energy use by 50%. And at Best’s Wines Great Western, in Victoria, Wine Australia has trialed autonomous electric equipment paired with UVC technology for powdery mildew control, with impressive results. Together, these examples show the breadth of Australia’s response as individual regions apply research, measurement, and experimentation according to their own environmental and economic circumstances.
The environmental discussion still represents only part of the sustainability picture. In Tuscany, Matteo Giustiniani, the CEO of Avignonesi, says biodynamics changed the way the estate farms, while becoming a Società Benefit and a Certified B Corporation (B Corp) widened its responsibilities to employees, local communities, consumers, and the environment. Società Benefit is an Italian legal status requiring companies to pursue stated social or environmental benefits alongside profit; B Corp is an international certification based on standards developed by the nonprofit B Lab.
For Avignonesi, accountability is tied to measurable actions. The estate estimates operational emissions of 276.16 tons of CO2 in 2025, compared with an average of 476.98 tons from 2019 through 2023. But Giustiniani is equally interested in the limits of certification; rather, he is most interested in whether a framework provides better data, stronger verification, or a higher standard. He explains, “We are not interested in collecting certifications for their own sake. If it only adds another badge, it is difficult to see the value.”
As originally reported in 2019, Equalitas is an Italian wine-specific sustainability certification built around three pillars: environmental, social, and economic sustainability. Its standards cover areas ranging from viticulture to workers, communities, and economic viability, with performance independently audited and documented. Today, the program has gained more traction throughout the country. Those with certification include Borgogno Wines, in Barolo; Ornellaia and Masseto, in Bolgheri; Tenuta San Leonardo, in Trentino; and Santa Tresa Winery, in Vittoria.
Marilisa Allegrini, the owner of San Polo, in Montalcino, and Poggio al Tesoro, in Bolgheri, points to the value of the formal management system required by certification. The estates now track indicators including employee turnover and investment in training alongside environmental performance. She notes, “The important change was creating a more structured system around them, establishing measurable indicators, collecting and documenting data consistently, formalizing procedures, and identifying areas where performance can continue to improve.” But, she notes, “We have to make sure that the bureaucracy and cost of a certification doesn’t outweigh its benefits.”
Back in Paso Robles, Haas found that the human dimension was one of ROC’s most consequential requirements. Tablas Creek was already paying a living wage and had provided year-round work to its core field crew since 1996, yet ROC’s social-fairness audit prompted team-building work and biweekly full-team meetings with a translator for Spanish-speaking employees. Haas says, “Having better communication meant that we started hearing about issues before they became problems.” Equipment-maintenance costs declined, and longtime employees began bringing family members to the property on weekends to show them their work. The experience broadened Haas’s understanding of what worker welfare could contribute to the vineyard itself.
In Napa Valley, a crisis in farmworker housing has become increasingly important. It has led to overcrowding, long commutes, and affordability problems that affect worker retention and the industry’s access to skilled labor. In response, Napa vineyard owners have assessed themselves per acre to fund farmworker housing, generating more than $7 million for local operations since 2002.
Other models extend the idea further. Frescobaldi, the centuries-old Florentine wine family behind a family-owned group of estates in Tuscany and beyond, has partnered with the island-based Gorgona Agricultural Penal Colony since 2012. Through the project, 81 inmates have worked in the vineyards and restored the island’s dry-stone walls. Currently, there are four incarcerated people participating. Workers are paid, work alongside Frescobaldi agronomists and winemakers through the full production cycle, and receive classroom training. Former participants are offered opportunities to work at Frescobaldi estates after release. Lamberto Frescobaldi, the president of Marchesi Frescobaldi, resists reducing the project to a corporate-responsibility label. He says, “Being involved in Gorgona has had an impact on all of us. I believe that, through this experience, we have all become better people.”
These examples leave the wine trade with a more demanding definition of sustainability than the one we were wrestling with seven years ago. A logo still provides useful shorthand, but the questions behind it have become more important: What, exactly, is being certified? Who verifies the claim? What is measured over time? What evidence shows that conditions have improved? And how does the program address the factors that determine whether a vineyard and its community can continue?
A universal definition that represents regenerative, sustainable, organic, and biodynamic practices remains unlikely. But today, more producers and regional programs can now answer key questions with data, audits, comparative trials, and documented experience. Speegle describes the shift succinctly, noting, “We are all well beyond chasing organic and biodynamic. The reality has shifted to where sustainability is the new baseline. But, depending on where you are in the world, the solution is only as good as the measurable changes you can point to each year.”