Sustainable wine tours are getting better than ever

It may be a liquid treat, but wine might not be the first thing that comes to mind about a sustainable dinner. Yet some people are taking wine sustainability very seriously.

More and more wine lovers and winemakers are increasingly aware of the impacts of climate change on wine production globally. Changes in flavors, water shortages, and rising temperatures are just some of the concerns.

These challenges have given winemakers an incentive to rethink old traditions and engage in new agricultural practices. And as wine producers are going through a transition from merely organic concerns to more holistic sustainable practices, wine tour operators are also rethinking how to interact with wine owners.

Unlike the typical wine tour which focuses on the drink and its flavors, sustainable wine tours are about everything that happens around wine and how it connects to nature and people.

Wine tours across Spain, Chile and South Africa are famous for communicating environmental issues and spreading knowledge about sustainable agriculture. Tours operators in Spain emphasize the importance of not only growing grapes sustainably but also learning about the fruit responsibly. So quite often you’ll be invited for a bike trip rather than a luxury car ride so you can better explore the raw nature of local landscapes.

Meanwhile, in Chile you might soon have a hard time finding any wine practices that infringe on nature as the Association of Chilean Wines recently announced a complete National Sustainability Code for the industry, including sustainable wine tourism.

The operators of Sustainable Vine Wine Tours in California, U.S., have also decided that only learning about sustainable wine is not enough. Taking a broader perspective, the company works only with sustainable vendors, provides classes on the benefits of sustainable agriculture, and donates part of its profit to environmental NGOs. Recently, the company has also complemented its fleet with Tesla X SUVs running on locally generated solar energy.

“I wanted to highlight those that were farming lighter on the land and help them tell their unique stories, all while being a sustainable business,” the founder, Bryan Hope, notes. “Sustainability is a core component to who we are, not just as a business but also as individuals.”