Beneficial Business
Blending climate-conscious choices with business realities
April 1, 2025
Oregon Wine Press
A budget isn’t merely numbers on a page– it reflects our priorities. In personal finance, it might mean deciding when to repaint the living room or start saving for a new car. Budgeting assumes a deeper meaning for Oregon’s sustainable wine producers, blending climate-conscious choices with business realities.
Bryan Weil, managing partner and winemaker at Vinovate Custom Wine Services, operating an electric forklift. Photo by Andrea Johnson
As former Irish President Mary Robinson said, “Our budget decisions are choices about the world we want to live in and the legacy we leave behind.” Oregon winemakers wholeheartedly embrace this philosophy by integrating sustainability into their business models. Third-party certifications, such as LIVE, USDA Certified Organic, Demeter Biodynamic Certified and Regenerative Organic Certified, demonstrate convincing environmental stewardship commitments.
Sustainable farming frequently conjures visions of adorable grazing animals managing weeds along with thriving grapevines grown without chemical sprays. But these practices aren’t limited solely to the vineyard. Wineries are businesses– with survival requiring the balance of ideals with economic realities. I explored how Oregon wine producers are turning sustainability into both a practice and profit.
Healthy demand
Little question remains how wine drinkers search for sustainably-produced products. Health and environmental concerns are key drivers in consumers’ food choices– including wine. According to a recent survey by food research firm Tastewise, 74 percent of shoppers are more likely to trust a brand promoting its environmental impact, while 57 percent prefer wines that disclose their carbon emissions.
Younger wine drinkers particularly focus on these issues. While their generations currently account for a smaller segment of overall wine consumption, their significance is expected to increase, influencing wine’s future. Identifying techniques to appeal to them was a recurring theme in Silicon Valley Bank’s 2025 State of the U.S. Wine Industry Report.
Furthermore, their concerns extend to a winery’s social equity commitments and fair governance. They are willing to pay more for products reflecting their values. “Less but better” is a statement often applied to consumers prioritizing the purchase of a more expensive product if it aligns with their convictions.
“The world is hungry for this,” observed Elizabeth Whitlow, founding executive director of the Regenerative Organic Alliance, speaking at February’s Oregon Wine Symposium. Younger demographics are “more and more leaning into these sustainable products,” she added. “They demand integrity. They don’t have any tolerance for greenwashing. They want to see equity. They care about climate.”
Since the 1990s, Doug Tunnell, founder and vintner at Brick House Vineyards & Wine Company, farms organically. Today, his 40-acre vineyard, near Newberg, is certified Demeter Biodynamic. “We believe the younger generation, especially, is aware, awake and paying attention to the way food and wine are produced,” he said. “We take great heart in that.”
What’s the difference?
Winemakers opting to meet the demand for sustainability must bear the financial impact on all facets of their business operations. Each person I spoke with identified three vital motivations: their personal environmental values, confidence in yielding superior wine, and a desire to stand out in the marketplace.
After a culinary career in New York City, Jay Anderson returned to the Walla Walla Valley to run Foundry Vineyards. He has embraced organic farming on his family’s Stonemarker Estate Vineyard, along with crafting Pét-nat wines, as opportunities to stand out in the Walla Walla wine market and also define his winemaking style.
“I want to go this direction with organic winemaking, experimenting with natural fermentations and other techniques because they align with my personal philosophy,” he said. “Also, no one else is doing this in our area ... it’s become a new, differentiating factor for us. So, I looked at it two ways.” Anderson also sources fruit from certified organic or biodynamic vineyard partners.
Native Oregonian Tunnell recalls his boyhood fishing and boating on the Willamette River. He remembers it being more polluted than today. Those memories shaped his commitment to farm responsiblly. “Not only is there an environmental benefit, but I believe the wines are better,” he said. “They are produced more naturally, and have more energy and verve, representing the places the grapes are grown in a true, unadulterated way.”
Down on the farm
Based on data from Green Business Benchmark, a sustainability analytics firm, one-third of the wine industry’s carbon emissions result from farming and winemaking.
Increasing revenues motivate farmers to adopt sustainable practices. Not only do grapes cultivated in certified vineyards command higher prices per ton, but consumers are willing to pay more for these wines.
However, costs differ for the owner converting an established, conventionally-farmed vineyard compared to a newly-planted vineyard developed sustainably from the outset. Transforming an existing plot is a multiyear commitment, reducing yields during the transition. The state of Oregon and federal government offer grants to help offset new equipment investments and increased labor costs.
Craig Camp, Troon Vineyard’s general manager, oversaw the dramatic change from conventional farming of the Applegate Valley property. Under his guidance, Troon is now Oregon’s only winery and farm certified as both Demeter Biodynamic and Regenerative Organic. “We went ‘cold turkey’ in 2017, and were fully into the program the following year,” he reported in a viticulture session at the Oregon Wine Symposium. Vine diseases in the vineyard required replanting, performed in 10-acre sections annually. “The good part was we got to plant what we wanted, how we wanted,” noted Camp.
Converting to sustainable methods leads to a vineyard more in harmony with nature, where grape growing enhances– rather than fights– the local ecosystem and wildlife. “There’s a learning process, too,” Camp said. “As you stop using conventional chemicals, you must find the right balance of organic products for your particular vineyard. That can take a few years.”
It’s certifiable
As of 2019, 52 percent of the country’s Demeter Certified Biodynamic farmland was in Oregon. Between 35 and 40 percent of our state’s planted vineyard acreage has some version of sustainable or organic certification, according to the Oregon Wine Board.
Certification itself requires committing to additional, ongoing expenses beyond changes in the field. Staff time is also needed to track continued compliance and progress toward new annual reporting goals.
“We have always sworn by third-party certification, and I’m sure for some very small brands it can be a little bit expensive,” said Hallie Whyte, managing director of Soter Vineyards. “While it’s not cheap, we believe third-party certification is absolutely necessary. It verifies what we’re doing… and, that we’re actually doing it.”
Tunnell agrees: “The best way to guarantee some ‘truth in advertising,’ if you will, is by holding a certification, submitting to periodic inspections and having the paper trail to prove it. That’s what we’ve done. To me, it just boiled down to allowing for complete transparency, that truth in advertising issue.”
The various certifications listed on the back labels of Oregon wines represent a range of practices and requirements. They become clearer when viewed through the lens of the three “pillars” of agricultural sustainability: environmental, social and economic.
Some certifications begin and end with vineyard practices. Others challenge farmers to aspire toward a more holistic goal, as described in the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, to “create and maintain conditions, under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony, that permit fulfilling the social, economic and other requirements of present and future generations.”
Established in 2017, Regenerative Organic Certification, or ROC, uses organic agricultural certification as a starting point to “build soil health, ensure equity for farm workers, empower farmers and improve animal welfare through a holistic farm-based, brand-driven certification.” ROC is designed to improve a farm’s existing sustainability efforts by encouraging new goals.
“Wine is special. It’s the only product consumers commonly go to where its grown, sit down and want to learn about it,” said Pam Turner, co-owner of Ambar Estate with her husband, Rob Townsend. Their recently planted Dundee Hills site, is the Willamette Valley’s first ROC vineyard.
Speaking at the Oregon Wine Symposium, Turner recounted, “The reason why we went with Regenerative Organic was we really like the science-based approach, and we really appreciated that it’s easy to understand.” Certification is a recurring topic of conversation in Ambar’s tasting room, where visitors are encouraged to learn more. “We are always happy to tell people about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it,” she said.
People power
All three sustainability pillars meet in the lives and work of vineyard stewards. Sustainable vineyard techniques often involve more time-intensive “handwork,” requiring more year-round employees. Fair employment practices and living wages for these workers— along with those in the cellar and tasting room— represent a growing segment of Oregon wine’s commitment to sustainability.
“Most people consider the fair treatment of vineyard stewards part of their overall sustainability,” observed Leigh Bartholomew, director of viticulture at Results Partners, a vineyard management firm overseeing thousands of acres in Oregon and Washington. “Most people don’t feel like you should spray less, yet treat people poorly,” she notes. “I think, in general, the two things go closely hand-in-hand.”
“We spend more money in all the things we do in the vineyard... because we’re focused on quality,” explained Sofía Torres McKay, who, with spouse, Ryan McKay, owns Cramoisi Vineyard. “We want to do it right.”
She views Cramoisi’s sustainable practices as “teachable moments” for the vineyard stewards, who raise questions and engage in discussions in the field. This education motivated her to co-found nonprofit Asociación Hispana de la Industria del Vino en Oregon y Comunidad/Hispanic Association of the Wine Industry in Oregon and Community, or AHIVOY.
The McKays note how people are eager to work at Cramoisi. Using paid time to teach the crew, they say, is “worth it, [not] only in terms of money spent, but also having a safe place for them to work, free of chemicals that will cause issues later on in their lives.”
Whyte recalled, “One of the things Tony [Soter] challenged me with when I was first put in this position was to make it the best place to work in the Valley, if not Oregon.”
Working in California’s wine industry gave Soter a deeper appreciation for sustainable farming practices. A St. Helena vineyard he cultivated for Spottswoode Winery bordered nearby homes, prompting him to consider how “conventional” chemical sprays would impact the neighbors.
“The fence line is not a deer fence, like most vineyards here; it met the backyards of homes,” described Whyte.
Soter, with his late wife, Michelle, were guided by social responsibility starting in 1997, as they planned and planted their first acres of vines in Oregon. They later pursued a “whole farm” vision, resulting in Demeter Biodynamic certification and, most recently, B-Corp certification. Whyte notes that alongside the estate’s 50 vineyard acres, “we have about 200 acres with biodiverse systems: forests we don’t touch, wildflower fields, land for our animals... you name it, we’ve probably got it.”
Details, details
Third-party annual reports also measure continuing improvements. Countless business decisions, consistent with a commitment to improving sustainability, must be made.
Packaging and transportation represent the largest share of a wine company’s carbon footprint. Producers I spoke with use alternate packaging, such as natural or engineered corks, lighter glass bottles or refillable Revino bottles, eliminating capsules around bottle closures and using paper and cardboard certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. Foundry Vineyards even uses branded paper tape to seal shipping boxes.
The design and operation of buildings and facilities require even more decisions. Wastewater treatment, the choice of building materials and energy conservation are some examples.
Vinovate Custom Wine Services, a custom-crush winery in the Dundee Hills, supplies grape-to-bottle services for both still and sparkling wines. The new 24,000-square-foot facility is solar-powered, collects rainwater for various onsite purposes and uses electric trucks, forklifts and pallet jacks. These align with co-owner Rob Townsend’s goal: “To help bring the industry in the right direction around farming and winemaking, and ultimately help Oregon develop a more diverse, renewable and sustainable industry.”
Supply and demand
Sustainable agriculture entails a more complex business proposition than simply adding sheep to graze a vineyard’s cover crop. Incorporating the three pillars of environmental, social and economic sustainability into a business plan has transformative implications.
Remaining in business, however, is crucial as well. “If you aren’t financially sustainable, then it doesn’t matter how many animals you have,” says Whyte.
While consumer demand and pricing remain powerful incentives for overcoming challenges, the sustainable vintners I met choose this path because they believe it produces better wine while respecting their ethics.
“It’s not easy to always do the right thing, especially financially,” concludes Whyte after 15 years working at Soter. “But if Tony’s taught me one thing, it is [that it’s] absolutely worth sticking to your values in terms of who you want to support and how you support them ... if you don’t do that, then the rest of your business doesn’t hold nearly as much value to consumers or yourself.”