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February 2007
Fair Trade Wine Makes Its US Debut
 If your Valentine’s Day plans include romance over a bottle of wine, here’s something to consider before you pop the cork.
Most of the wine produced in the Global South and sold in the US comes from vineyards where growers are paid poverty wages for their work and are exposed to dangerous pesticides
But there is good news, for the first time Fair Trade certified wine is available to consumers in the US.
Why Fair Trade?
Like other Fair Trade products, buying Fair Trade wine ensures that the producers were paid a living wage and that the grapes were grown using environmentally sustainable practices. Etica, a member of the Fair Trade Federation and Green America's Green Business Network™, currently sells Fair Trade wine to retailers and restaurants in Minnesota.
According to Etica co-founder, Tiffany Thompson, “grape farmers and workers in developing countries are dependant on low incomes that often do not cover labor and production costs. The Fair Trade system allows farmers to become more sheltered from the effects of suppressed, unpredictable, and distorted world prices.”
Thompson is no newcomer to Fair Trade. She is a former volunteer at the Fairtrade Foundation, the UK’s equivalent to Transfair USA. “The key component to Fair Trade is sustainability, especially in agriculture. Grapes are an agricultural commodity. It is these grapes that come from small farms and are nurtured and harvested by workers that we are concerned with when we are talking about Fair Trade. Because the wineries are cooperatives, the communities get to benefit from the consistent price of grapes and the premium attached to the price of the bottle.”
Environmental Benefits
Environmental considerations are made throughout the process, from the planting of the vine to the treatment of the wine, explains Thompson. “Etica wines are produced with organically grown grapes. From the dry Curico Valley of Chile to the Cederberg Mountains of South Africa, our farms are located in climates that are not susceptible to a lot of fungus or microorganisms that require a lot of pesticides. Sulphur, a natural substance, is sprayed on the grapes once or twice a year to control bugs. A lot of wineries who spray six times a year with dangerous chemicals.”
Fair Trade is also about building long-term trade relationships with transparency and public accountability. Worker-elected committees decide together how the Fair Trade premiums will be spent. Full-time farm workers are taught Fair Trade principles, how the system works and where the wine is being sold. “Fair Trade is not just about the increased wages and premiums,” says Thompson, “it is also about equality, respect and education. Workers are much more involved in daily decision-making so that they can develop skills that will help them succeed in the future.”
Availability and Standards
Fair Trade wine has been available in Europe for several years. The Fairtrade Labeling Organization (FLO), located in Bonn, Germany, developed Fair Trade standards for vineyards in South Africa in October of 2003. In the following years they expanded to include vineyards in Chile and Argentina. The blue and green label from FLO means that the wine meets internationally recognized standards for fair trade.
The standards take into consideration the social, economic and environmental development of the producers. www.fairtrade.net Transfair USA, the only third-party certifier of Fair Trade products in the US, does not currently have a program for Fair Trade wine. According to a Transfair representative, they expect to add wine in the next few years, but flowers and cotton will most likely come first. Although the Fair Trade Federation is not a certifier of products, they do have an intensive approval process for member businesses in their trade association.
--Sarah Mertz
Resources
While Fair Trade wine is still not widely available in the U.S., there are two ways you can get your hands on a bottle:
Etica’s eight varieties of red and white wines include a merlot, pinotage, classique blanc, grenache and chenin blanc. They are competitively priced at around $9 to $13 a bottle. Visit www.eticafairtrade.com for more information (Etica wines will be available to order online at the beginning of February. For shipping information visit www.france44.com. Etica can only ship to states that allow wine to be mailed.)
Melania and Taborga, FLO-certified Chilean wines, have the distinction of being the first Fair Trade wines in the U.S. They are now available at Wild Oats stores in Fl, NC, VA, MD, CT, ME, OH, IN, AL and OR. In the next month or so they will be in GA, PA, IL, TX, MO, TN, AZ, NM, NV, CA and WA. For more information on how to find the wine, visit www.melaniawines.com.
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