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Liz Thach, MW | Decanter
Napa Regeneration, Innovation, Sustainability, Empowerment (RISE), is a six-event symposium organised around the six pillars of sustainable wine growing leadership held each spring in the Napa Valley. This spring one session in particular looked at ways the Napa wine industry could become more inclusive.
When most people think of sustainability, protecting the environment comes immediately to mind. However, another part of sustainability – the social side focusing on employees and the community – is often overlooked. Yet, at a recent Napa RISE seminar, speakers emphasised that this aspect of sustainability is the most essential.
‘It is an uncomfortable topic to discuss,’ stated keynote speaker Maryam Ahmed, CEO of Maryam + Company and co-founder of the Diversity in Wine Leadership Forum. ‘However, this aspect of sustainability, which focuses on social justice, diversity and inclusion, is the most important.’
Napa RISE co-founder and seminar speaker Martin Reyes MW, added: ‘No other pillar in RISE (water, energy, soil health, packaging, climate action) has justice or fairness as such an overt part of its essential tenets. When we consider social sustainability, we deal with people, and with that come the eggshells.
‘Most of us are still learning. It’s not perfect, But that shouldn’t stop us from trying and admitting we have a long way to go.’
Ahmed and Reyes led a session that highlighted five steps that wineries and wine-related businesses could take towards a more inclusive Napa wine industry. And even though some people are nervous about making mistakes, most speakers urged that wine businesses just get started.
The beginning of the seminar addressed the need for wine executives to step forward and address DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) issues in their companies. Tod Mostero, director of viticulture and winemaking at Dominus Estate in Napa Valley, compared the need to promote diversity in the workforce to that of promoting biodiversity in the vineyard. He explained how leaders could set JEDI (justice, equity, diversity and inclusion) goals in their wine businesses.
C. Mondavi & Family CEO David Brown described how DEI infuses the culture at Charles Krug winery. ‘From recruiting practices to pay and benefits, promotions, and all other aspects of employment at Charles Krug winery, an environment of equity is of the utmost importance,’ said Brown. He also described how the winery is a majority women-owned business and that he was promoted to the CEO position internally.
More and more wine businesses are incorporating diversity training into their strategy. For example, Charles Krug offers inclusive leadership and unconscious bias training. Both empower employees to act and lead in uncomfortable situations with expanded confidence and empathy.
Training tasting room employees on how to handle ‘micro-aggressions’ from customers, as well as not to deliver ‘micro-aggressions’ to customers, is also becoming increasingly important. Stevie Stacionis, the owner of Bay Grape Wine shops, described how she trains and mentors her employees on dealing with these subtle slights that are often delivered unintentionally but negatively impact those who hold marginalised identities.
Nufo Solorio, vice president of operations for Silverado Farming, explained how important it is to provide vineyard workers with all types of training, including soil health, mathematics, computer literacy, leadership and English.
Another great way to promote more diversity in the wine industry is to support scholarship efforts for under-represented populations to go on a wine immersion experience or to take part in wine education. This exposes elements of the wine industry to those who have not historically had access to opportunities and can lead to longer term diversity in the industry.
The Roots Fund is a non-profit organisation that sends scholarship recipients to visit wine regions in France and California. It also offers other educational scholarships. Its mission is ‘to nourish and enrich the lives of communities of colour in the wine industry’.
Field Blends, operated by Maryam + Company, is another wine tour business that offers scholarships for diverse candidates and, to date, has conducted tours to New York and Washington wine regions.
Some wine businesses are establishing apprenticeship programmes for Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC) and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender (LGBT) candidates to encourage more workforce diversity. One example is Silver Oak, which partnered with the Veraison Project to recruit for the programme.
After reviewing a pool of applicants, Tahlia Suggs and Courtney Guntz-Summers were selected to complete a year-long apprenticeship. They worked in all aspects of the winery, including customer relations, tasting room and cellar operations, as well as the vineyard.
Silver Oak apprenticeship co-creator, Veronica Jauregui, stated: ‘Tahlia and Courtney have made a profound impact at Silver Oak. We hope they are the first of many to go forth and make the wine industry a more inclusive and diverse space.’
After the apprenticeship, Guntz-Summers summarised: ‘I have fallen in love with the challenge and camaraderie of the industry.’ Suggs reported that the experience ‘has allowed barriers to be broken down within the wine industry to allow access to the BIPOC community’.
Progressive wine businesses are also actively recruiting under-represented employees and ensuring they have a mentor – whether another employee or a manager – to help them feel comfortable within the company culture. Likewise, these businesses use metrics to track the percentage of diverse new hires, maintain retention metrics and conduct exit interviews.
‘During orientation, we provide optional reporting on gender, and identity to track diversity,’ reported Stacionis of Bay Grape Wine. ‘In this way, we can track our DEI progress and have seen increases in all categories.’
Stacionis concluded her presentation with an encouraging statement. ‘It’s really easy to talk about DEI, but walking the walk is much more difficult and terrifying. By being here today, I hope to encourage someone else to start their own walk or even a quiet crawl.’
About Napa Green: The Napa Green 501c3 is a global leader in sustainable winegrowing, setting the highest bar for sustainability and climate action in the wine industry. Napa Green facilitates whole system soil to bottle certification for wineries and vineyards, and provides the expertise, boots-on-the-ground support, and resources to continually improve. Learn more at https://napagreen.org/participating-members/.
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Let’s keep the momentum going!
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Congratulations to Napa Green Certified @cliffamily for winning the RISE Leadership Award for Supply Chain & Waste Management Excellence!
Clif Family attended our first conference & committed to reducing their bottle weight and waste. They set upon an inspiring journey to change their packaging based on their outdoors loving and mountaineering inspired founders. They were able to..
• lighten the weight of a case of their wine by almost 8 lbs!
• reduce their carbon output by 42 metric tons!
• institute fully recyclable, bio based shippers that keep wine cool!
• eliminate all foils!
• eliminate all plastic & metal moving fully to renewable cork enclosures!
Their customers responded with absolute enthusiasm.
“This story is not just about wine packaging or supply chain decisions. It’s about how we do business. It’s leading with values. It’s about remembering that the best way to climb higher.. is to carry less.” - Sarah Richmond, Clif Family Winery.
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Uniquely, Napa Green isn’t just a roadmap of leading practices. Napa Green provides an expert, boots-on-the-ground consulting team that develops:
✅ Regenerative Carbon Farm Plans (to enhance soil health, biodiversity, resilience, and carbon storage)
✅ Irrigation Distribution Uniformity Assessments (to maximize water efficiency)
✅ Integrated Resource Assessments (to reduce energy, water, waste and emissions in production)
✅ Action Plans for continuing improvement (tailored to the opportunities and goals of each vineyard or winery)
Additionally, we support soil sampling and analysis, provide resource assistance, run practical training and education workshops throughout the year, and provide valuable, hands-on guidance in meeting your climate action goals.
✅ Napa Green members implement over 120 best practices in both the Vineyard and Winery. This Earth Month, learn about 21 of them with “21 Days, 21 Ways” counting down to Earth Day.
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Napa Green’s vineyard team is trained to develop regenerative, whole-farm Carbon Farm Plans (CFPs). These plans review all of the current beneficial practices that are increasing soil and ecosystem health and storing carbon, and identify additional opportunities to regenerate the soil and vineyard ecosystem and simultaneously maximize carbon capture in a given property. Each vineyard’s goal is to become carbon neutral (or negative) and increase the resilience of vineyards, businesses, and our community.
✅ Napa Green members implement over 120 best practices in both the Vineyard and Winery. This Earth Month, learn about 21 of them with “21 Days, 21 Ways” counting down to Earth Day.
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Clear pathways for employee advancement are essential for a thriving workforce and driving success. They boost retention, job satisfaction, productivity, and attract top talent. Napa Green Certified members develop pathways for growth, discussing career goals and progress with employees during reviews.
✅ Napa Green members implement over 120 best practices in both the Vineyard and Winery. This Earth Month, learn about 21 of them with “21 Days, 21 Ways” counting down to Earth Day.
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Forests are not only our largest terrestrial carbon sink, they are also home to 80% of the world’s on-land diversity. We need healthy forests, which means a balanced density of native trees and plants. Healthy forests experience lower intensity fires with less tree mortality, meaning higher carbon retention and ecosystem function.
✅ Napa Green members implement over 120 best practices in both the Vineyard and Winery. This Earth Month, learn about 21 of them with “21 Days, 21 Ways” counting down to Earth Day.
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Napa Green Certified Wineries benefit from an on-site Integrated Resource Assessment (IRA) led by our experienced engineers and winemakers. This IRA evaluates resource metrics, monitors progress, and identifies areas for improvement to increase efficiency and save $$$.
✅ Napa Green members implement over 120 best practices in both the Vineyard and Winery. This Earth Month, learn about 21 of them with “21 Days, 21 Ways” counting down to Earth Day.
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#21days21ways #earthmonth #earthday #climateaction #climatesmart #sustainablewine #regenerativeag #environmentalleadership #wineindustry #winebusiness
