Q&A

Shaping the future

JOÃO BARROSO, THE MASTERMIND BEHIND ALENTEJO’S SUSTAINABILITY PROGRAMME, EXPLAINS TO ANDREW CATCHPOLE WHY THE DO HAS TAKEN A LEADING ROLE AMONG EUROPEAN WINE REGIONS

Could you explain the thinking behind the programme? This programme started being thought of and designed around 2013 for a very simple reason. Alentejo exports a lot and there were a lot of markets – gatekeepers, monopolies, distributors – that would ask sustainability questions of the region which it could not answer. But other regions or countries could, such as Chile, California, South Africa, Australia or New Zealand. So the New World of wine has had, for some decades, programmes that are very detailed and very strong and that allowed them to have this competitive advantage in market. So that was obviously one of the reasons that made us boost the previous activities in Alentejo to a stronger programme.

Hand in hand with that were the issues of sustainability per se, and climate change, because Alentejo is a very vulnerable region with regard to climate change and everything we can do to boost the resilience of the vineyards will be very welcome. So in 2015 we launched – it took us two years to understand what we were going to do.

Why Chile and California, specifically? We decided it would be silly to reinvent the wheel, as there are a lot of good programmes around, such as Chile or California, so why not just pick and choose what is interesting for us? But obviously giving it our own flavour for our own needs and capacities, and then go for it. We have a really good relationship with California and Chile and these places are quite similar to Alentejo climatically, in terms of high temperature in summer, diseases and pests, etc, so we used their models for inspiration. Who is it open to and what do winemakers and growers have to do to join, and sustain membership? This is a voluntary and free project and the sustainability programme offers different avenues. In Alentejo we have around 1,800 viticulturist and 200 cellars. That’s the general universe. In the programme, in our universe, we have over 500 members, of which around 400 will be viticulturist and some 100 are cellars, accounting for around half the vineyard area in Alentejo, but this is still growing, with those enrolled not necessarily sustainable, but working towards greater sustainability.

Why is it such a long process to set up such a programme? I’m an environmental engineer by trade, I’m not from the world of wine, and I’m an expert in sustainability. One thing that for me is very important is the awareness of greenwashing and the fight against greenwashing. This was important when we launched this programme and also explains why the certification took so long, having only started in 2020.

And this is why, in 2022, we only have 10 certified producers. Because everything was built in a way that means we can guarantee the whole chain of production, from grape to wine, all the raw material that goes into the process is within the parameters that we established as sustainable and is deemed eligible for certification. We hope to have 20 by the end of the year.

Around 2016, we thought: “OK, this is going well, producers are making these changes, everybody’s sharing a lot of information, which is really rewarding. But what about the competitive advantage in the market that [the producers] can have as some kind of manifestation of all the efforts put in?” So we partnered with four certification bodies – SGS, the biggest consulting group in the area of certification, Bureau Veritas, Certis and Kiwa Sativa – and these four organisations, on partnership with us, built up the documentation that would be required to deliver the certifications. It took three years, but this will help with recognition in the markets for the producers in the programme.

What are the most obvious benefits? This is a programme very much oriented to efficiency improvements, resource saving, cost saving, financial saving and boosting of resilience, the regeneration of the system. And it’s very cross sectional. The programme looks at the aspects that it needs to look at in terms of environmental characteristics, but then also looks at labour, community, social development, socio-economic development, and then the base of all of this is the economic feasibility of doing whatever you need to maintain the sales and process of production.

What support do you offer? We do a lot of training; awareness for viticulturalists and producers on sustainability, water management, energy, waste, climate change, and sustainable development from the perspective of the vineyard. I also tell them, like it or not, you need money to drive all of this forward. And well-trained people to carry out the work. But when you make those investments you will also see returns – at the community and worker level, in the health of the soils and vines, the quality of the wines, and commercially.