THE VINEYARDS OF TOMORROW:

moving towards a sustainable future, with luck, forward ...

by: JB WANG

Whenever I smell a glass of freshly aerated wine, I’m immediately brought back to my childhood. The days when I was too young to drink so I was only allowed to smell, counting down the days I got to know the taste of that forbidden nectar. Wine’s presence from the beginning of my life mirrors that of recorded human history itself. On a small rise less than 20 miles south of Tbilisi, Georgia, a clutch of round, mud-brick houses shows wine being grown since the dawn of time. The mound is called Gadachrili Gora, and the Stone Age farmers who lived here 8,000 years ago were grape lovers, developing the first form of the drink. But I don’t want to write another history textbook on the origins of wine, nor the origins of my questionable drinking habits. On the contrary, I want to predict the future of wine. The most recent addition to wine’s expansive history is its rising global appeal, with the emergence of new world wines shifting the public perceptions of wine to be less eurocentric. Although this has influenced parts of the business model to change, none have been more so than the prioritisation of sustainability.

The wine industry and I share one thing in common: our ever growing desire to centre sustainability in all our decision making. Nevertheless, the principle of sustainability itself opens up wide debate and significantly affects firms across all their activities. Modern definitions of sustainability focus on its influence on the economy and society, not just the environment alone. Sustainable wine, as a result, refers to wine produced using methods that protect the environment, support social responsibility, and maintain economic viability for future generations. It’s a broad definition, yes, but an important one to have a holistic view of how to make wine more ‘sustainable’

Viticulture and the Winery

The first vineyard I visited was in 2019 with my parents. Located in Baskerville, Australia, I travelled to the outer northeastern rural suburb of Perth. Nearly all of it is under cultivation with viticulture being the main economic activity, and several well-established Swan Valley wineries are based here.

Although my memory was fogged due to jetlag, I distinctly remember the agriculture specialists discussing how climate change has affected the grape and wine community. This was evidenced by the recent changes in grape phenology and harvest dates, which has led to compressed harvests and greater pressure on vineyard and winery infrastructure. The impacts of climate change vary, but I’d argue viticulture is the most vulnerable.

Viticulture is the foundation of winemaking, defined as the activities related to growing and harvesting grapes. It involves selecting grape varieties, planting vineyards, managing vine growth, and ensuring vine health throughout the growing season. The goal is to produce high-quality grapes that take advantage of their unique environment.

Taste

Wine regions considered to have a warm or hot climate for viticulture have daytime temperatures of 17- 22°C throughout the growing season, so mainly warm regions such as Australia, Italy, South America and South Africa.

However, in light of the ever-present climate change, temperatures in wine regions have begun to rise, forcing grapes to adapt to the changing conditions.

Warmer weather means that grapes develop very thick skins as they grow in the blazing sunshine. As skins and pips are what lead to tannins in wine, it makes sense that vino produced in warm and hot regions tends to have strong tannins. When I first started drinking, I found the taste of tannins to be rather bitter. Although I have grown to enjoy the taste, the beauty of wine lies in its versatility, with something being available for everyone. However, nowadays, growers often struggle to retain acidity in grapes and keep their wines tasting fresh rather than stewed, shapeless, or flabby. No variety in taste, just the same bitter tannins. With that being said, in the winery, steps can be employed to help, like addition of acid and even lowering alcohol levels, a controversial yet common practice in large commercial wineries. Most winemakers prefer to achieve balance in the vineyard, which is increasingly difficult to do if global temperatures don’t continue to rise.

Soil Quality

As stated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the climate is projected to change due to anthropogenic activities, with temperatures expected to continue rising. In fact, higher temperatures and longer drought periods are among the worst anticipated consequences of climate change and are expected to severely impact several agronomic sectors worldwide, especially those in the Mediterranean Basin.

A map showing the longitudinal zones, and their respective climates.
Source: virginwines.co.uk

Solutions

The two longitudinal zones running through the Northern and Southern hemisphere tend to have a temperate climate (green) or a subtropical one ( orange), which both provide optimum temperatures and conditions for grapes to grow healthily. This, known as the ‘wine belt’ will begin to shift as global temperatures rise. The typical climatic conditions of the Mediterranean Basin are foreseen to alter significantly due to climate change, with projections identifying this region as a prominent hot spot. Mediterranean countries are expected to experience substantial temperature rises, extended periods of severe drought, increased levels of ultraviolet radiation, and more frequent extreme weather events.

Back to my first experience in a vineyard, Wine Australia’s R&D investment continues to strengthen these practice changes in the vineyard and provides new knowledge in viticultural strategies for the Australian wine community addressing impacts of a changing climate which will allow informed decisions to be made on future management and investment. Currently, goals surrounding increased irrigation efficiency and modified canopy management practices have been ways of working around climate change. These changes reshape what is possible in viticulture and make sustainability inseparable from resilience in agricultural planning and soil health.

Solutions need to be both practical and measurable, linking farming methods to carbon outcomes. In Spain’s Penedès region, for example, Torres Winery has become a global model for carbon-conscious viticulture. By using initiatives such as reforestation, improved soil management, and regenerative agriculture, the company aims to capture atmospheric CO₂ while reducing emissions across its operations. Key strategies include planting native trees to absorb carbon and prevent soil erosion, applying cover cropping between vineyard rows to enhance soil carbon sequestration, and adopting organic vineyard management to avoid synthetic chemicals that can disrupt soil microbiomes. By combining carbon farming with sustainable vineyard management, Torres has reduced its carbon footprint by 34% since 2008 and targets a 60% reduction by 2030.

Packaging & Transportation

My family specialised in the last mile transportation of wine bottles. I grew up in houses with floors covered with cardboard boxes and bubble wrap. I’d tiptoe around the cold tiles so that I wouldn’t destroy anything.

As a six year old, not even four feet tall, I’d see the stronger people in my family hurl wine bottles onto vans and the sounds of heavy bottles clinking defined my entire childhood.

The wine industry and I are adults now. Gone are the days of single use bubble wrap and bottles heavier than the volume of liquid inside. It’s understood now that sustainability does not end at the vineyard, because packaging and transportation can represent major portions of a wine’s overall environmental footprint.

Wine’s carbon footprint, in a graphic commissioned on behalf of wine producers by the California Wine Institute

As shown in the figure above, glass bottles account for 29% of wine’s overall carbon footprint. These bottles account for nearly half the weight of a case of wine, rather than the wine itself. The current design of wine bottles features a thick, heavy glass casing. Transporting these heavy cases alone contributes around 13% of the environmental footprint. This makes the design of bottles a significant opportunity for emission reduction, provided that changes still preserve the functions bottles must perform, including airtight containment and product presentation. While the term “lightweight” does not have a single official threshold across the industry, many observers consider 450 grams or less per 750-ml bottle to qualify. One illustrative example is switching from an 850-gram bottle to a 530-gram bottle, which demonstrates how reducing weight can lower material usage and emissions along the supply chain.

The weight of the bottle serves two major functions: luxury marketing and airtight containment. The objective of regenerative design is to honour these two objectives whilst still promoting more sustainable product development.

Solutions

To support this approach, regenerative design principles can guide the use of lighter bottles made from recycled materials. The “Helium Mixology Lightweight Bottle“ for instance, uses lightweight half-flint glass that can incorporate up to 75% recycled glass. Because producing bottles from recycled content requires substantially less energy than producing new glass, it can reduce carbon emissions meaningfully. In addition, lighter bottles generally reduce the amount of raw material needed, which helps limit resource depletion and reduces energy demand throughout production and transportation.

At the same time, sustainability requires a shift in the way business models handle by-products and end-of-life waste. The linear economy—sometimes described as the take-make-waste model—extracts resources to create products that eventually become waste and are discarded. After production and transport, there is often no system in place to sustainably manage or repurpose waste from a circular-economy perspective. Managing these by-products through recycling and reuse can reduce disposal costs, create economic opportunities, and protect the environment by limiting the negative impacts of waste. This means not only reducing emissions during production but also building systems that keep materials in use and transform waste streams into resources.

I urge you, in whatever you buy, use or drink, to take into consideration how it was produced. It will give you a sense of interconnectedness as you acknowledge how your actions and spending affect the world around you.

This all goes to show that sustainability is not a trend, but a necessity. 69% of global consumers consider sustainability more important today than two years ago, and 63% of regular wine drinkers are concerned about climate change and want to reduce its impact. The wine industry therefore stands at a crossroads: it can continue business as usual, or it can adopt regenerative and sustainable practices that address environmental, social, and economic realities at the same time. The choice will shape not only the future of wine production but also the health of the land and ecosystems that make winemaking possible.

I mention a lot about the past, present and future of wine sustainability. The goal is not merely to preserve traditions, rather securing the future of an industry that depends on nature’s delicate balance. The vineyards of tomorrow—and the wine culture that grows from them—will be shaped by decisions made today, from soil stewardship and water resilience to lower-carbon packaging and circular systems for waste.

Ultimately, truly sustainable winemaking must be delivered across the entire value chain, because environmental protection, social responsibility, and long-term economic durability cannot be achieved in isolation. If wineries align their operations with ecological limits and measurable targets, they can protect ecosystems while maintaining the quality consumers expect, ensuring the industry endures for generations to come.