Climate Talks by Porto Protocol

n this Climate Talk we will debate the why and the how of internalizing climate change in your wine business: Where do you start? how does this materialize into a balance sheet? What are the fundamental changes this decision will bring into the modus operandi of the business? What barriers may you encounter? What opportunities arise from it? What are the risks? How does it affect your relationship with your stakeholders, from employees to providers? How do you address it and communicate it? How do you pass it on to your consumers? We will seek to present practical approaches to these questions by players from the industry worldwide that have decided to address climate emergency in a proactive fashion.  

GUESTS 

 JASON HAAS . USA - Partner and General Manager at Tablas Creek -https://tablascreek.com/​  

 ANTÓNIO LUÍS CERDEIRA. PT - CEO at Soalheiro- https://www.soalheiro.com/en/home​  

 JOAN ESTEVE. SPAIN – Manager at Raimat -  http://raimat.com/es/raimat​   

HOST: 

 Marta Mendonça – Manager at The Porto Protocol Foundation (Portugal) - https://www.portoprotocol.com/about-us/​  

You can find more about each other here: https://www.portoprotocol.com/the-business-sense-of-internalizing-climate-change-ii/

In this Climate Talk we will discuss the various issues around the glass bottle, the element that contributes the most to the carbon footprint of wine.   As we bring to the table various stakeholders from the wine value chain, we will try to understand how producers, trade and consumers are perceiving and addressing this elephant in the room.  

HOST

• Martin R. Reyes MW, Owner of Reyes Wine Group 

GUESTS 

• Jancis Robinson MW - Wine Critic, Journalist, Writer and Founder of Jancisrobinson.com 

• Charles Bieler - Owner at Bieler Wines and Co-Founder of the Gotham Project 

• Laura Varpasuo - Sustainability Manager at Alko (Finland’s Alcohol Monopoly)

In this Climate Talk we will explore the tools, the challenges, barriers, benefits and insights in general from various players of the wine value chain that have experienced this process of addressing the Carbon footprint in the wine value chain.

We will bring to the table the importance of small steps with big environmental and financial impact, that can be adopted by anyone, even before measuring their emissions.

We will listen to different players and producers from various geographies on how they addressed their carbon emission reduction and the process they went through.

In this Climate Talk we will approach this topic from a solutions perspective, rather than a controversial one. As the title suggests, it is not about glyphosate, but about building on possibilites of a wine world beyond it.

We will explore how wine producers are and can phase out the use of chemical pesticides in different regions, as well as the benefits and the challenges encountered. We will explore different solutions and approaches, starting with nature-based ones and forward.

In this Climate Talk we will debate the why and the how of internalizing climate change in your wine business: Where do you start? how does this materialize into a balance sheet? What are the fundamental changes this decision will bring into the modus operandi of the business? What barriers may you encounter? What opportunities arise from it? What are the risks? How does it affect your relationship with your stakeholders, from employees to providers? How do you address it and communicate it? How do you pass it on to your consumers? We will seek to present practical approaches to these questions by players from the industry worldwide that have decided to address climate emergency in a proactive fashion.

GUESTS  Beth Novak Milliken - President and CEO at Spottswoode Winery (Napa Valley, US) - https://spottswoode.com/visit-us/ João Roquette – CEO at Esporão (Alentejo, Portugal) - https://www.esporao.com/en/ Mathilde Boulachin – CEO and Owner of Pierre Chavin (Béziers, France) https://www.pierre-chavin.com/en/about-us/HOST: Marta Mendonça – Manager at The Porto Protocol Foundation (Portugal) - https://www.portoprotocol.com/about-us/

In this Climate Talk we will explore the impacts of climate trends in vines and wines across the world, and which are the long-term solutions producers such consider adapting their vineyards. For this talk we count with producers from different parts of the world that are already leading the way regarding the research on the behavior of grapevines clones and studying the role of rootstocks as an adaptation measure to deal with climate impacts. We will explore the solutions that are being tested and their results and reveal some of the directions pointed by latest researches.

Soils are filled with life. In fact, 80% of life on earth is in the soil Its organic matter forms the basis of soil health and fertility, and therefore food production. Furthermore, soils are a natural carbon sink.

So ultimately, changes in land use and soil can either accelerate or slow down climate change, promote or degrade its biodiversity. The answer might lie in preserving and restoring key ecosystems and letting nature capture carbon from the atmosphere.

And though Viticulture is a small part of the agricultural chain, soil is key to the establishment of a vineyard and wine brands speak directly to its consumer.

Regenerative Agriculture is the word of the moment as the solution to soil management and climate change. By definition, it is “a system of farming principles and practices that increases biodiversity, enriches soils, improves watersheds, and enhances ecosystem services. It aims to capture carbon in soil and aboveground biomass, reversing current global trends of atmospheric accumulation.”

In this Climate Talk we will explore the role of soils in fighting climate change for vines and wines across the world, and the importance of enhancing its health trough regenerative practices.

A changing climate leads to changes in the frequency, intensity, spatial extent, duration and timing of extreme weather and climate events (EWE). These are the words of the IPCC. Per se, these EWE do not prove the existence of global warming, but it is a given fact that climate change exaggerates them.

Reality, as we speak, is a reflection of this and of the current climate crisis: a few years ago, South Africa faced a period of severe water shortage in the Western Cape region. In 2017, the exact place where the Douro River is born, Picos de Urbíon, dried up. This year, in Germany, ice wine harvest failed for the first time due to a warm winter. A year ago, Australia was on fire, with an unrepairable and unprecedented loss for its ecosystems, let alone lives and businesses. As we speak, California, Oregon and Washington are being devastated by wildfires that preceded record heatwaves, followed by storms that ignited the fires. In Maryland, tornados were followed by hurricanes and then frost. Again, countless producers are still unsure about whether they will be able to save their harvest from smoke taint, and many have lost their vintage altogether.

Why? What are the causes? What are the impacts? How can we prepare our vineyards, our operation, ourselves, reduce the impacts and minimize the losses?

This Climate Talk will address these questions by gathering producers and scientists from different parts of the world that have experienced these EWE’s. They will share their knowledge, experience, different realities, and above all the ideas and practices implemented to tackle this reality. In a conversation starting with a scientific data approach, we will try to understand how can science help producers to predict, adapt and decide which are the best options available to deal with ewe, and how can they do this in a very practical manner.

Host:

João Santos . Professor at the Physics Department of UTAD (University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro) . Portugal

Guests:

Thos Climate talk will address the perspectives on certifying standards for sustainability in the wine industry, by bringing together experts from different regions around the world. They will share the developing process of the tool used as well as the key topics and structure of each. We will explore the advantages for the wine industry to embrace this path towards (certified) sustainability, the benefits of joining a recognized sustainable standard, as well as the differences in their scope across different regions and realities.

Host:

Guests:

Francisco Mateus . Chairman at the Alentejo Regional Winegrowing Commission (CVRA) . Portugal

Allison Jordan . Vice President, Environmental Affairs for Wine Institute and Executive Director of the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance.  USA

Patricio Parra . Managing Director of the R & D Consortium Vinos de Chile . Chile

In a multifunctional agricultural system, that has characterized our viticulture for centuries, biodiversity provides important ecological services that underpin vineyard health, productivity, quality and resilience. In the last decades, vineyard expansion and intensification are compromising the diversity and abundance of service-providing organisms, due to landscape homogenization, loss of key structures such as stone walls and hedgerows, high mechanization (including frequent tilling), and/or overuse of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides. 

The wine industry relies on nature, so we need to enhance and preserve the Eco services that nature provides, such as carbon storage, natural control of undesirable organisms, self-regulation and reliance on the natural balance that biodiversity provides. On the other hand, and in line with the European Green Deal, the European Commission adopted a comprehensive new Biodiversity Strategy to bring nature back into our lives and a Farm to Fork Strategy for a fair, healthy and environmentally friendly food system. These two strategies are mutually reinforcing, bringing together nature, farmers, businesses and consumers for jointly working towards a competitively sustainable future.

This Climate Talk will address how farmers are managing biodiversity in their vines and how they can benefit from the balance provided by it. For that purpose, in this conversation we will bring together, producers from different parts of the world to talk about their experience on how they are enhancing the role of biodiversity in their vines. They will share the solutions they have been implementing and the impacts on their grapes and wines, and how these practices are aligned with their challenge of adapting to climate change. In this debate, we will also explore the importance of international and national strategies and the role of each partner in achieving the goals set.

Host: 

Guests: