One Day Late for Earth Day

I'm a pretty green guy — never owned a car, ride my bike to work, buy organic produce, drink mostly natural wines, blah blah blah — but even I'm a bit startled by how Jim Loire is going on an absolute tear over the use of chemical weedkillers in the Loire (see here, here, and here, to name just a few) and compares such weedkillers to Agent Orange. Really, he puts Alice Feiring to shame — a compliment, by the way.

But what's most startling is this post wherein it's noted that when it comes to "wine regions using herbicides as the only mean of weed management (in percentage of the whole area)," the Loire is actually worse than Bordeaux. So many of the higher-profile Loire wines we get here in the States (Huet, Puzelat, Joly, Domaine St. Nicolas, Clos Roche Blanche, the list goes on) are made naturally that I never would have guessed...

On a related note, I'll point you toward Dr. Vino's latest update on the carbon footprint of wine as it travels from point to point. I don't swallow the conclusions whole because A) he makes no attempt to determine what percentage of wine shipped from California is delivered via more efficient, green-friendly train vs. the assumed truck and B) makes no attempt to include ground transport in Europe, just an assumed boat ride from Bordeaux. Nevertheless, his work is valuable as a starting point for thinking about how wine drinkers can consider their footprint.

Moving away from wine entirely, I wish I'd known sooner about Nike Grind, a pretty cool recycling initiative that turns shoes into track and playground surfaces. I'll be taking my worn sneakers in for recycling soon!

By all means, though, lay into me for refusing to buy green-friendly boxed wine. Ain't gonna happen.