Reserving the right

Sustainable farming is for those growers who assiduously watch the safety video on aeroplanes in case the variant of the 737 they are on is unaccountably slightly different from all the others. You need to know where your nearest exit is, especially if it is just behind you. The looser rules around sustainable farming encourage you to be as organic as possible until the muck hits the spreader and you only have chemical resources to support you. 

It is very easy for me to dismiss the sustainable route as a half-hearted attempt to behave better towards the environment and vineyard - therefore wine - quality. I, after all am not a farmer with all the risks and pressures that occupation affords. Many people use sustainability as a stepping stone along the road to quality, while others simply don't occupy a segment of the market that will permit them to do that.

Sustainability means not spraying chemicals around willy-nilly in a systemic attempt to kill every organism that isn't a vine and this can involve all sorts of good measures like the planting of wild flower meadows to increase biodiversity, the use of sexual confusion as insect control and where appropriate the installation of raptor boxes to discourage small, fruit-loving mammals. /CW 26/08/15