Celebrate Earth Day on April 22 by drinking green (and red and white)

Fetzer Vineyards has won its share of awards over the past 50 years. Many of them are for sustainability.

Fetzer Wines

[su_dropcap style=”flat”]W[/su_dropcap]hen I think of green, sustainable wineries, I tend to imagine small boutique vineyards, producing maybe a few hundred to a couple thousand cases of wine a year and charging 40 or 50 bucks or more a bottle, if you can find any. I do not think of a winemaker producing 2.75 million cases of modestly priced wines.

That’s how much wine Fetzer Vineyards produced last year, according to the North Bay Business Journal. And sustainability has always been part of their business model. On their website, you’ll find a quote attributed to founder Barney Fetzer: “What’s good for the Earth is good for the grape, and what’s good for the grape is good for the wine.”

As they celebrate their 50th anniversary this year, it’s a view Fetzer continues to take seriously. Since 2005, they’ve publicly reported their greenhouse gas emissions to the Climate Registry. They were the first winery anywhere to do so. And through sustainable farming practices, they’ve eliminated the use of synthetic, fossil fuel-based chemicals in their vineyards. In 2014, they became Zero Waste certified by the U.S. Zero Waste Business Council. Careful water usage is important everywhere, especially in California’s agriculture-driven environment. Fetzer has won awards for water conservation and waste water treatment.

And in 2015, Fetzer became the largest winery in the world to be named a Certified B Corporation. B Corps are for-profit companies certified to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability and transparency.

What impressed us most about all of this is how they’ve managed to scale up these sustainable practices from their beginnings to millions of cases a year. So when we were asked to sample some Fetzer wines, we were happy to do so. We tried three wines.

The 2016 Sundial Chardonnay is aged partially in stainless steel and partially with oak, giving it a bright and balanced fruit-forward style. I’m a fan of Chardonnay—and a fan of oak. The Sundial paired well with some cheese and was also nice on its own. It retails for around $7.99.

We were charmed by the label of the 2016 Flatbed Red, a new blend created to celebrate their 50th anniversary. The wine—and the label—are a nod to the region’s farming roots. A blend of Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Petite Verdot and Teroldego, Flatbed Red is a modern style red, fruit forward and very approachable. It stood up to spicy food and was delicious on its own. It retails for $12.99.

The 2016 Goosefoot Road Monterey County Riesling is a sweet wine fermented in stainless steel tanks to preserve its natural acidity. The result is light and crisp, very drinkable on its own and a great choice for pairing with a pâté or charcuterie plate. It retails for around $10.99.

This Sunday is Earth Day. As we contemplate ways to protect the environment, celebrating (responsibly, of course) with some sustainable wine sounds good to us.

2 thoughts on “Celebrate Earth Day on April 22 by drinking green (and red and white)

  1. Those sound like nice, reasonably priced wines. Haven’t had a Fetzer wine for a while, but I remember them as being rather pleasing. Have to pick up a couple of bottles next time I’m at my wine store. 🙂 Love wine, and it’s always fun to read about it — thanks.

  2. John, we’ve occasionally picked up Fetzer wines over the years. They’re reliable, modestly priced wines that you can find everywhere—in wine shops, grocery stores and even Target. But we had no idea about their sustainability philosophy. That makes them a lot more interesting to us.

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