Regenerative Viticulture: Sustaining Winemaking for the Future

Winemakers Innovating Sustainably with Regenerative Viticulture

Today we’re more aware than ever of the many ways in which human activity affects the planet we live on; perhaps there has been no more aware generation than this one. It knows the risk we pose to the earth’s climate, by our use (and abuse) of its natural resources. Often, it’s farming and agrobusiness that comes in for some of the heaviest criticism when it comes to the environment – and that includes viticulture too.

But contrary to some outdated ideas, the wine industry is not simply carrying on old and outdated labour and hoping for the best; in fact, it is one of the leading innovators. Producers both large and small are striving for the sustainable, long­term solutions to wine making – some of which are based on generations­old knowledge and understanding, and some of which use up­to­the­minute techniques and technology.

Traditional, Sustainable, or Organic?

Until recently there have been just three main types of viticulture. Traditional, dating back the longest, and which relies on a certain amount of modern herbicides and pesticides as well as fertiliser. This is perhaps the ‘easiest’ or most sure­fire method and brings high yields, but it has its downsides too. Such intensive farming often sees the soil quality deteriorate so that increasing amounts of synthetic fertiliser need to be added to maintain harvests.

Then there is ‘sustainable’ viticulture, which relies less on chemicals but doesn’t have one easy definition and is fairly un­standardised around the world. It often uses less invasive and more natural nutrition and irrigation strategies in an effort to reduce its environmental impact and make it work for the long­term.

Third, we have organic or biodynamic wine growing. Organic methods are characterized by the total ban on synthetic pesticides, fungicides and fertilizers. Some of the winemakers we work with here at BurgundyWine.com use these methods (take the wines of Jean Dauvissat, for example, one of a new generation of winemakers who turned his family’s vineyards organic).

Biodynamic, on the other hand, is a term which denotes a sort of ethos or set of values. To grow biodynamically, you need a deep understanding of not just your crop, but the earth it grows in, and the weather and seasons which affect it. In Burgundy, there are no better exponents of biodynamic wines in Burgundy than Eric de Suremain, and Jean­Claude Rateau. (We have an article dedicated to this topic, which also takes a look at yet another term ­ ‘natural’ wines.)

What is Regenerative Viticulture?

But new methods of farming are being developed all the time, and there is now a fourth type of wine growing, known as regenerative viticulture. There is some overlap here with biodynamic methods, but the key in regenerative growing is that the focus is on using the natural regenerative powers of the soil and everything in it, not just focussing on the grapes which grow in it. This means aiming to have all the good stuff present in your soil, like microbes, worms, roots, insects, even fungi—a whole community of life built around the vine. In turn, these elements are good for the vines themselves, as they make nutrients available to them which are then taken up and into the grapes. It’s symbiotic, its sustainable, and it means the soil is able to be a rich and fertile environment with no external input.

But there are other benefits too. One particularly timely benefit, as society tries ever­harder to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, is that regenerative viticulture allows the land to actually sequester (trap) carbon. After the oceans, soil is the second­largest carbon trap we have, but so often man’s activities disrupt it and release carbon, rather than capturing it.

In regenerative agriculture, you don’t turn the soil or plough it up as you would do in more traditional agriculture. Ploughing, often used for weeding too, is not good for the structure and balance in the soil, and it can actually reduce the amount of usable organic matter that the vines need, when it’s exposed to UV light from the sun.

Instead, the answer for regenerative farmers is either to use animals (sheep or even ducks) to graze the land and keep it in check, or to cover the soil with plants, even around vines, which act as a natural barrier against weeds. All this growing and photosynthesising helps the capture and storage of carbon dioxide, thus offsetting anything produced by animals or farm vehicles, for example.

A Gut Feeling – The Health Benefits of Regenerative Viticulture

One other area that excites proponents of this type of agriculture is the benefit it can have on our gut microbiome. We are only just beginning to understand the pivotal role played by our guts, and the microbes that inhabit it – it has been called our ‘second brain’. Future medicine looks certain to use it to tailor drugs to people (some meds react differently to certain gut bacteria than others) and even help cure mental health problems which have been shown to be directly affected by it. Regenerative agriculture leads to healthier soil, which is vital for human nutrition and our gut microbiomes (and thus our physical and mental health).

Great Growth in New Ways

There’s now a foundation dedicated specifically to regenerative viticulture, whose mission is to help producers to shift away from agriculture based on chemicals and interference, towards biodiverse, sustainable vineyards where the soil is managed in a different way, and left more to its own devices.

More and more countries around the world are adopting regenerative viticulture in their wineries. Spain is a big area of growth, as is the USA. Importantly, some observers think that it may even be built into the procurement policies of retailers, such is the importance that consumers now place on truly sustainable production.

Of course, these methods may not be appropriate or even possible for some producers, but they mark a new point on the path towards ever­more sustainable and natural viticulture. Part of the work of the foundation, and of course the growers and drinkers of wine, is to research ways of making it accessible to more growers, and to keep furthering our understanding of how science and nature can work hand­in­hand with man, not just now, but for the generations to come.

The Domaine de Cromey Vineyard – Looking Backwards and Forwards

At our baronial manor house home in Burgundy – the Domaine de Cromey – we try and follow as closely as we can the principles of sustainable winemaking and regenerative viticulture. The vineyard which we have regenerated and made productive again in recent years takes our property back to its original use – but it is also forward looking. Read more about our approach (and the wines we make) in our article about Minimal Intervention Winemaking at Domaine de Cromey.

And why not stay with us and discover our vineyard, plus all the other fabulous parts of Domaine de Cromey by booking your Burgundy vacation of a lifetime here?

Discover more by going to our blog where you can read about the surprising benefits of low yield wines, and explore everything you need to know about the Chardonnay grape. You can also join our Burgundy Wine Club simply by following this link.