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November 7, 2024
Grgich Hills Estate
One of the main resistances to phasing out Roundup is increased labor and equipment costs. With rising supply chain costs, the costs of herbicides and fertilizers have risen dramatically, so phaseout can offset increased labor costs. In addition, leaders like Grgich Hills Estate, a Napa Green member, have shown that regenerative organic farming can be cost-effective. Join us to learn from regional growers, and sample their wines.
November 22, 2024
Beringer Vineyards - Fermentation Room
Join us for a rare opportunity to spend a full day in a small group training with Nikki Silvestri, CEO of Soil & Shadow (background below). We have secured a matching grant so tickets are half the normal cost and value. Your ticket includes a delicious, catered family-style lunch.
We look forward to hosting you
April 29 – May 1, 2025 and May 6 – 8, 2025After much consideration, we've decided to organize the RISE Climate & Wine Symposium every other year. The next RISE will be May 2025. However, in the meantime we are planning several targeted workshops.
Each of the other five event day topics all contribute to climate action. So what is this “Regenerative” buzzword? These are win-win practices like cover crops, compost, reduced tillage, animal grazing, reduced fertilizer and pesticide use, planting hedgerows, preserving and restoring riparian and forest habitat, which increase soil health, water and nutrient retention, biodiversity, and vineyard resilience to drought and increasing high heat days.
We can’t have environmental or economic sustainability without social sustainability. Over time the equity element has been sidelined, and increasingly sustainability has become synonymous solely with environmental stewardship. In fact, real sustainability is about caring for the health and resilience of nature and environment, the health and resilience of employees and community, all of which contributes to the success and longevity of businesses.
More and more we want to turn to nature as an ally; this means using cover crops that attract beneficial insects that eat the nasty bugs we don’t want in the vineyard, or even releasing vineyard-friendly insects like ladybugs. This also includes putting up bluebird and owl boxes and raptor perches, to help with bugs, rodents, and scare away unwelcome birds that eat the grapes, like starlings.
Unfortunately, wine cannot flow directly from the barrel to your glass. It takes a lot of materials and packaging to get that elegant wine bottle to your table. Just like at home, we want to make sure wineries and vineyards are recycling and composting everything they can. Wineries have significant purchasing power and can green their supply chain and shift to environmentally preferable products.
Water is gold in California, where we continue to face increasingly frequent and intense droughts tied to our changing climate. Learn more about Water Efficiency & Savings with an emphasis on the connections between water, energy, and the bottom line.
Making wine is actually quite energy intensive. It takes a lot of refrigeration to cool, ferment, and age wines. A lot of hot water to sanitize tanks, barrels, and bottling lines. Energy efficiency is one of the quickest ways to cut the bottom line.
Napa THRIVES is a series of six half-day, tightly focused events organized around the Six Pillars of Sustainable Winegrowing Leadership.
Napa THRIVES is a series of six half-day, tightly focused events organized around the Six Pillars of Sustainable Winegrowing Leadership.
Napa THRIVES is a series of six half-day, tightly focused events organized around the Six Pillars of Sustainable Winegrowing Leadership.
Napa THRIVES is a series of six half-day, tightly focused events organized around the Six Pillars of Sustainable Winegrowing Leadership.
Napa THRIVES is a series of six half-day, tightly focused events organized around the Six Pillars of Sustainable Winegrowing Leadership.
Napa THRIVES is a series of six half-day, tightly focused events organized around the Six Pillars of Sustainable Winegrowing Leadership.
Join us for a special roundtable workshop with award-winning journalist Elin McCoy, global wine critic for Bloomberg News and US editor for the podcast The Wine Conversation, with listeners in 95 countries. Elin will sit down with a small group of Napa Green members (max 25 guests) and share her insights on the types of stories and pitches most likely to engage the media. In particular, she'll focus on stories related to sustainable winegrowing, climate action, and social equity. Elin will speak and answer questions for about an hour. Then we'll break into small groups to develop a story pitch, and come back together to present and get Elin's feedback and input. This is a rare opportunity to get ideas and inspiration from a leading wine journalist.
One of the most critical agricultural concerns with our changing climate, and more frequent & intense weather extremes, is precipitation and water availability. The good news is opportunities abound to optimize irrigation efficiency, and implement regenerative practices that improve soil health, water infiltration, and retention. Join us for The Future of Water, with highlights including a keynote from Peter Gleick, one of the world's leading water experts, and Mimi Casteel, not only a viticulturist and winemaker, but also a forest ecologist with a vision for water resiliency.
Stop by Earth Day Napa to try some Napa Green certified wines, generously donated by our members, from the Napa Green team. All proceeds benefit EECNC’s Field Trip Bus Grant Program and the Darcy Aston Scholarship.
Join Clif Family and Napa Green for an international Street Food Napa Valley menu from the Clif Family Bruschetteria Food Truck. Vibrant flavors, warm hospitality, and live music on the patio from 4:00-7:00 PM. During this time, Clif Family will donate 20% of all revenue from wine and food sales to support Napa Green's impactful work.
On average 40-60% of a vineyard and winery's carbon footprint is from packaging and distribution alone. Join us to explore climate smart, sustainable glass, closures, the future of reusable glass, alternative packaging. Hear case studies. Learn what is truly recyclable, and new opportunities to recycle film wrap and label backing. Since 2020, climate smart marketed CPG products have doubled in sales to $3.4 billion. Wine bottles and packaging can be leveraged to meet rising consumer demand for climate smart products.
See and learn the technique for a conservation/low-smoke burn. The Clean Burn Company and Napachar will run their BurnBoss air curtain burner and flame-capped kiln/ring-of-fire system for processing spent vines, fire fuel thinning, and other wood waste. All three of these techniques/technologies can be used to develop biochar. Michael Sippiora from Treasury Wine Estates will present the results of a recent vineyard biochar application research project.
Hear from vineyard leads at Inglenook, Grgich, and Spottswoode about herbicide-alternatives to weed management, and the benefits for soil health. See equipment and demos of Clemens, Pellenc, Calderoni, Fischer Twister, and a french plow. Come with questions!
Eligible for 3 hours of CEUs.
After heat extremes in 2020 and 2022, and atmospheric rivers early last year, 2023 turned out to be an ideal vintage, with Napa Valley winemakers thrilled about the quality of the wines. Please join us for a special salon conversation, moderated by Andrea Robinson MS. Cathy Corison, Owner & Winemaker at Corison, Matt Brain, Winemaker at Alpha Omega, and Morgan Twain-Peterson MW, Owner & Winemaker at Bedrock Wine Co. will join in conversation around navigating and adapting to climate swings and weather weirding from one vintage to the next.
Sheep grazing offers numerous benefits in the vineyard when implemented properly. Join us for a field day in partnership with Napa Valley Grapegrowers to discuss how to best utilize sheep grazing to achieve your goals in the vineyard, as well as how to employ grazing animals to manage woodlands for fire fuel reduction or post-fire recovery. With Christian Cain of Perennial Grazing, Jaime Irwin of Kaos Grazing, Sarah Keiser with Wild Oat Hollow and Tommy Fenster with UC Davis, Gaudin Lab
Over snacks and wine, we heard from Anna Brittain, Napa Green Executive Director, and the Napa Green team about recent program updates. There was a panel with Ivo Jeramaz, Vice President of Vineyards & Production at Grgich Hills Estates and Steve Matthiasson, of Matthiasson Winery and Premiere Vit, talking about herbicide-free farming, approaches, costs/benefit and ROI.
Join Napa Green and certified members from Alpha Omega, Domaine Chandon, Grgich Hills Estate, Inglenook, Rombauer Vineyards, Spottswoode Estate Vineyard & Winery, St. Supéry Estate Vineyards & Winery, Trefethen Family Vineyards, and Trois Noix (in collaboration with Matthiasson) to get a preview of PNV wines from vintners committed to leadership in sustainability and climate action in the Napa Valley. Connect with the Napa Green team to learn more about this leading certification and its importance to the marketplace and consumers. Limited to 85 guests.
Exploring what Regenerative Farming Systems can teach us about Regenerative Social Systems. Soil and Shadow works with C-Suite executives, leaders and teams to build the relational and professional development skills for high performance, diversity, equity and inclusion.
This morning workshop at Seavey Vineyard discussing their approach to proactive forest management and stewardship of the woodlands.
In the world of regenerative agriculture, third party certifications matter. These endorsements can demonstrate your commitment to sustainability. But what should you look for in a certification?
This workshop covered the hows and whys of soil sampling. Nick Madden from Vineyard Soil Technologies explained the soil health principles we can learn from our soil test results.
What does it mean to be Napa Green Certified and how can it help you engage guests and differentiate your brand? Learn this and more in our Napa Green Ambassador program.
Raymond Baltar with the Sonoma Biochar Initiative and the Sonoma Ecology Center lead a demonstration of the conservation/low-smoke burn technique as well as a flame-cap kiln. The Clean Burn Company also demonstrated the AirBurners’ BurnBoss air curtain technology.
Watch this workshop recording to learn about soil sampling methods and values, compost production, biochar application, using sheep in the vineyard, as well as soil sensing and tracking technologies and other tools that assist with soil health, water retention and nutrient retention.
Have you heard about the Water Board’s adoption of the WINERY WASTE DISCHARGE REQUIREMENTS and wondering what this means for your facility? Watch this workshop recording to understand the requirements and proactive steps to take NOW to be prepared for compliance.
Watch the recorded workshop where we discuss All Things Bottle Sustainability, from ways to Lighten Up your glass, glass reuse and recycling, closures, cork, and more.
From irrigation pumps to winery lighting, to the company’s fleet, mechanization in the vineyard, energy used for packaging production and transportation, no matter to what stage of wine production you may look at, energy consumption and management is at the core of the problem as well as the solution
Speakers and discussion cover:
- Lighter weight glass
- Environmental benefits of cork
- Packaging alternatives to eliminate Styrofoam
- Both local and innovative opportunities for “green” purchasing.
Watch this three-part workshop to explore the opportunity of climate friendly farming – implementing regenerative practices that store more carbon in soil, increase soil health, and enhance the resilience of vineyards to drought and heat stress.
Certified sustainable wineries and businesses are committed to continuing improvement in caring for the health of nature and the health of employees and community, which enhances the health and longevity of the businesses themselves. Join us to explore how three wineries put their bold sustainability words into action.