Anna Clark in Green Wineries Embrace Innovation from the Fields to the Bottle (Green Biz, July 27) takes a look at how California winemakers approach this challenge.

It involves much more than the vineyard.

Sustainable means using bio-fuels for your farm equipment, solar or wind power for the winery's buildings.

Then there is is the issue of packaging.
At this point most wines come in glass bottles. A first step is to use lighter bottles.

Even though at first it looked heretic, more and more wines the world over come with screw caps.

Could it be that the future of wine bottles lies in the adoption of PET (as is the case with Yellow Jersey, pictured here) commonly used for soft drinks?

Besides being lighter, Chaz Miller in Waste Age (2007) wrote that Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) finds a second life on the floors as "half of all polyester carpet made in the United States is made from recycled PET bottles."

Recycling the bottles is one aspect. Lighter packaging is relevant in shipping cost and carbon footprint as most wines travel long distances from the producer to our glass.

Curious about some of the wineries who practice what they preach in California, in addition to her article Anna Clark compiled a list for us all (see below):

Serious thoughts on wine and waste and taste for Green Day # 87

Previously on Green Day:
Croissant Neuf, A Solar Powered Music Fest in Usk (Wales), August 14 to 16