Certified California Sustainable Winegrowing Wineries Support Taste of the Nation Event to End Hunger on April 29

SAN FRANCISCO – Nine California wineries, recently certified by the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance (CSWA), will support efforts to end childhood hunger at Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation event in San Francisco at AT&T Park on Thursday April 29.  Top restaurant chefs will join the participating wineries and mixologists to showcase the Bay Area’s outstanding wine and food.  Event and ticket information is at http://strength.org/sanfrancisco.

Certified wineries participating in this year’s Taste of the Nation San Francisco event include: Clos LaChance Wines, Concannon Vineyard, Cooper-Garrod Estate Vineyards, Frei Brothers Winery, Goldeneye Winery, The Hess Collection, Honig Vineyard & Winery, J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines, and Rodney Strong Wine Estates.  The wineries will be represented together at the tasting to share information about certified sustainable winegrowing with the consumers, chefs, sommeliers and beverage directors in attendance.

Charitable contributions are part of the wine industry’s commitment to social responsibility as well as environmental stewardship.  These certified wineries are reflective of the multitude of California wineries that collectively make an estimated $102 million in charitable contributions each year.

CSWA, established by Wine Institute and the California Association of Winegrape Growers in 2002 to promote sustainable winegrowing statewide, added its new certification to the program in January of 2010.  Open to all California wineries and vineyards as a voluntary option, Certified California Sustainable Winegrowing requires applicants to undergo a third-party audit to verify their “process of continuous improvement” in increasingly adopting sustainable winegrowing practices.  They must meet 58 prerequisite criteria to be eligible for the program, assess winery and/or vineyard operations, create and implement an annual action plan and show improvement over time.  To date, 17 companies have received the new certification for some or all of their vineyards and winery operations, and now many more wineries and vineyards are in the process of seeking certification.

To date, 1,566 vineyard and winery organizations representing 68.1 percent of California’s 526,000 wine acres and 62.5 percent of the state’s 240 million case shipments have evaluated their vineyards and wineries with CSWA’s Code of Sustainable Winegrowing Practices Self-Assessment Workbook.  The Code serves as the basis for the new voluntary certification component of the program, and continues to serve as an educational tool for wineries and vineyards throughout the state who do not wish to pursue certification.

CSWA represents the only industry worldwide to measure and publicly report on the adoption of sustainable practices.  To view its 2009 report, see:

www.sustainablewinegrowing.org/sustainabilityreports.php.  To view press clips about the introduction of Certified California Sustainable Winegrowing, see:  http://www.sustainablewinegrowing.org/cswa_compilation.php.

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