All our practices have proven to expose and accentuate our unique terroir at Roanoke Vineyards. In order to unleash terroir, you first have to identify it and believe in it. I was a skeptic for years about terroir, but once found, it has become intoxicating (pun intended). It's elusive and difficult to harness, but the gentler you are in the vineyard, and with the grapes, and the more you trust your intuition as to your decisions intended to present terroir, the more it will take hold and be expressed in your wines.
"It won't be easy or simple, but for the long-term economic and environmental viability of our winegrowing regions, we need to prioritize sustainability," says Sam Filler, executive director of the New York Wine & Grape Foundation (NYWGF). "But that doesn't just mean viticultural practices, although we do ultimately want to reduce our reliance on agrochemicals. It also means encouraging biodiversity around vineyards, creating environmentally responsible packaging, reducing energy output and thinking about the welfare of workers in the vineyard and the communities around our vineyards."
We want our community to think local and drink local, and for that, we need to do our part in keeping the area safe, beautiful, and healthy. All of these tactics for sustainability are anchored in the betterment of our crops, air, soil, and water. With that, we ask people to consider buying locally sourced sustainable products to do their part.
Sustainability makes us pay more attention to details both large and small. When you pay more attention to what you’re doing, you typically achieve better results. I believe that since we’ve been in the program our groundwater is cleaner, our vines are healthier, our workers are happier, and our wines are more delicious.
“Will [climate change] be good for wine? That’s a real question,” she said. “Because we started much cooler than the West Coast, it’s [a warming climate] gotten us to the point where we’re producing better wine. It’s complicated. We know how to grow grapes much better than we used to. We have better rootstocks, disease control information is better. It’s a great confluence of events happening here now, and we’re capitalizing on that.”
Long Island Sustainable Winegrowers (LISW) program was established in 2012, by a group of growers banding together to provide leadership for sustainable growing practices on Long Island. The group believed that a certification standard would create a win-win opportunity for the industry. Eco-conscious consumers would be able to support participating vineyards and the industry would abide by consistent environmentally sound practices.
Long Island Sustainable Winegrowing is the first program of its kind on the Eastern seaboard. It provides a blueprint for engaging an independent community of small farmers in a challenging growing region where rain falls frequently while the grapes are on the vine. Today, more than 50% of Long Island’s vineyards are part of the program.
The New York Wine & Grape Foundation today announces the launch of the first Long Island Sustainable Winegrowing (LISW) online training program, the Sustainable Wine Professional Course. As only sustainable certification program for winegrowers in the Eastern United States, the new online curriculum is part of a stakeholder engagement initiative to inform and certify winery tasting room and hospitality staff.
If the vines must be treated with pesticides, we want to use the least toxic pesticides. This is because we live on our farm and I do not want my family and especially my grandchildren to be exposed to unnecessary toxicity. Because we also have workers who work in the vineyards and because we have neighbors who border our vineyards. We want the least toxic pesticides whether they are considered "conventional" or " organic".
LISW, PO Box 30, Cutchogue, NY 11935 P: 631-734-7537
