NY Sustainable Program Moves West

 
VineBalance protocols will help Washington juice grape growers transition
 

Geneva, N.Y. -- New York state's standard for sustainable viticulture is coming to Washington state, which will adapt local winegrape protocols for the use of juice grape growers.

VineBalance Sustainable Viticulture, a program developed by Cornell University with funding from the New York Farm Viability Institute, is the sustainable production standard for winegrape growers in the Finger Lakes region and Long Island, as well as National Grape Cooperative growers in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Co-op members own and supply Welch's processing plants across the U.S.
 
Officially launched in 2007, VineBalance enjoys the participation of more than 100 wine and juice grapegrowers in New York. Building on the success of the program, representatives of National Grape recently traveled to Washington and Michigan to support development of sustainable viticulture programs in these states, to help grower transition to practices that will meet buyers' growing interest in sustainable production methods.

National Grape expects to launch a sustainable viticulture program for Washington state growers with the assistance of Washington State University in fall 2009, taking the state's existing VineWise program for winegrape growers as a model for the new juice grape protocols. Just as grapegrowing is radically different in the East from in western North America, juice grape producers have different concerns than their winegrowing counterparts. Since New York, Pennsylvania and Washington juice grape growers all cultivate Concords destined for the juice processing market, adapting the VineBalance program is a logical step for the western growers when transitioning to sustainable growing.

Since Vinewise will be a cornerstone for the new program, Hardenberg said there wouldn't be a compelling reason for winegrape growers to embrace VineBalance. Rather, the two programs will reflect the particular issues and challenges facing each group of growers.
 
Jay Hardenberg, who is spearheading the Washington state initiative for Westfield, N.Y.-based National Grape, told Wines & Vines that the Washington version of VineBalance will focus exclusively on juice grapegrowers. There are more than 300 growers of juice grapes in Washington state with between 10,000 and 12,000 acres of Concord grapes in production.

Backed by the Washington Association of Wine Grape Growers, Vinewise launched in 2005 with the aim of providing a cohesive resource for growers to determine and assess current sustainable viticulture practices against industry standards of sustainability. It has since partnered with Oregon's Low Input Viticulture and Enology program to offer certification of participating vineyards.

Hardenberg said initial meetings regarding the new protocol for National Grape's Washington growers took place at the beginning of March. Although it's still early in the program's development, Hardenberg said it would have its own name to distinguish it from the New York program.

Dr. Tim Martinson, senior extension associate with Cornell University who serves as program leader for VineBalance in New York, said participation there is evenly split between wine and juice grape producers. While juice grape growers see the program as a means of reducing costs and securing access to retail markets, winegrape growers tend to use VineBalance to explain sustainable practices to winery visitors.

Big box retailers such as Wal-Mart are driving the adoption of sustainable practices by juice grape growers, Martinson explained.
"(Growers) are being not forced, but strongly encouraged by the people who buy their products to demonstrate some sort of sustainability program," he said, noting that one presentation at the Unified Wine and Grape Symposium in Sacramento this past January indicated that some retailers are considering scoring suppliers on a sustainability scale. Suppliers wouldn't want to score low, Martinson said, raising the value of a program such as VineBalance among growers.

"But with the small winery segment here in the Finger Lakes and on Long Island, what really drives it is what happens in the tasting rooms," he said. VineBalance helps wineries to tell customers that they're pursuing sustainable practices, and provides a brochure that explains what those practices are.

While some wineries have expressed interest in certification such as LIVE offers, Martinson believes an industry-wide metric in keeping with the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance is the more popular approach among growers. "It sort of indicates a general direction that the industry collectively is moving without saying that, 'Yes, we're going to label this particular product,'" he said.

Moreover, responsiveness to local conditions is a key element of VineBalance and its sister programs. VineBalance's workbook for growers contains 134 questions in eight sections with production protocols, a timeline and worksheets developed specific to growing conditions in New York, Pennsylvania's and Ohio.

"Any certification program has to deal with the climate that you have and the problems that you have," Martinson said. "A sustainable program in the East is never going to look like one in the West."