All the Way
LIVE in Oregon

By Tim Patterson

In fits and starts, with zigs and zags, under more banners than there are berries in a cluster, the wine industry in the United States is steadily adopting the goals and practices of sustainable agriculture. Some of this motion is motivated by sheer concern for the earth; some by the calculation that every pass not taken through a vineyard is a pass not paid for; and some no doubt by a desire to make local environmental activists shut up.

The Oregon LIVE program—the acronym stands for Low Input Viticulture and Enology—shares features with efforts underway in many other areas. Growers in Lodi and on the Central Coast, among others, are pursuing many of the same objectives and applying the same “cafeteria” logic of awarding points for certain practices and taking them away for others. But LIVE stands out by being a statewide initiative, and by its connections to a global certifying body, the International Organization for Biological Control (IOBC).

Officially launched only in 1999, LIVE has had considerable initial success. Thirty vineyards and wineries have been certified, including such Oregon notables as Ponzi Vineyard, Amity Vineyards, King Estate Winery, Bethel Heights Vineyard, Benton Lane Winery, Sokol-Blosser Winery, Henry Estate Winery, Willamette Valley Vineyards, Witness Tree Vineyard and Willakenzie Estate. Another 40 or so growers are somewhere in the inspection and certification pipeline. LIVE membership accounts for about 25% of Oregon’s 10,000 planted acres.

The program also has its critics and non-participants, both those on the “right,” who fault the program for being unrealistic and too restrictive, and those on the “left,” who follow instead the organic or biodynamic path. The program’s viability also has a great deal to do with the distinctive history and context of Oregon winegrowing.

Oregon Culture Leans Towards Concern for the Environment
Oregon agriculture, and the state as a whole, has had a “green” thread running through it for decades. “It’s a lot of what Oregon is about,” says Al MacDonald, LIVE’s president. “People move here to get away from corporate farming. Oregonians tend to have a sense of concern for the environment. Farming is mostly done by small family-owned organizations, which fits in with that kind of thinking.”

A corollary is that the Oregon winegrape industry has never had the kind of antagonistic relationship with environmentalists and other community activists that has characterized some California regions. At the same time, because of its cooler climate and other factors, Oregon has been largely spared from the vineyard pests that have convulsed California and invited chemical solutions, for example, phylloxera and Pierce’s Disease.

Ted Casteel, partner and vineyard manager at Bethel Heights, headed the research committee of the Oregon Wine Advisory Board that wrote the first draft of what became the LIVE guidelines. (Casteel and his brother Terry were also largely responsible for an earlier Oregon Grape Growers Guide, used by many startup growers in the 1980s.) Casteel says that by the ’90s, many Oregon growers “had sustainable attitudes in our farming. But we decided we wouldn’t stay that way without a more systematic approach.”

Some fresh ideas came by way of Dr. Carmo Vasconcelos, a Portuguese-born, Swiss-trained viticulturalist on the Oregon State University faculty. Vasconcelos encouraged Oregon growers to look at the integrated production programs gaining popularity in Europe. European growers often had no choice but to change their practices, she warned, citing the example of vineyards so heavily saturated with copper sulfate from decades of downy mildew treatments that they could not be replanted. Vasconcelos has ended up as the technical adviser to LIVE.

Useful information also came by way of the experience in New Zealand, reported back to Oregonians by David Jordan, an OSU-trained viticulturalist who returned to his native country and shared what he learned. Draft guidelines were prepared in 1997, tried out for two years, and formalized in 1999. In April 2001, Oregon LIVE was certified by the IOBC, the first agriculture program outside Europe to gain that status.

What attracted LIVE’s interest was that affiliation with the IOBC would give objective, defined meaning to the often-slippery term “sustainable.” “There are no national standards for sustainable agriculture in the U.S.,” says MacDonald, a self-taught grape grower who now teaches in the two-year viticulture and winemaking program at Chemeketa Community College in Salem. “The IOBC was founded in the 1940s and has been certifying in Europe for years. We thought if we could meet an international standard, the highest in the world, that would be a good way to go.”

Participating growers pay a small fee to apply for membership and modest annual dues. The program’s liftoff has been aided by funds from the Oregon Wine Advisory Board and a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. MacDonald presides over LIVE’s seven-member board of directors.

Guidelines and Practices in LIVE
LIVE proponents point to several themes that run through the detail of the guidelines. One is an insistence on testing, for moisture levels, the presence of disease, etc. before taking action. Encouraging quality in fruit and wines is another major concern, along with the economic viability of producers. Participating growers are required to attend initial and ongoing training sessions. For a particular wine to receive a LIVE endorsement, it must not only be made from LIVE-certified grapes, but pass muster with a tasting panel of LIVE winemakers (who look for flaws, not a particular style).

Required practices begin with several designed to promote biodiversity. At least 5% of vineyard land must be set aside as “ecological compensation areas,” free of pesticide and fertilizer applications and rich in botanicals that create habitats for natural organisms. Buffers have to be established around streams and wetlands, and cover crops are mandatory over winter. Several requirements ensure that analysis and testing are performed: soil testing before planting, periodic soil and tissue analysis, analysis of fertilizers and compost obtained from external sources for heavy metals and other contaminants, and annual calibration of spraying equipment.

Soils with organic content below 1% need planning and action to remedy the problem. All organic matter, including winery pressings, must be recycled, though prunings can be burned if necessary for controlling pests. A final group of requirements concern administration, record keeping and participation in informational sessions.

Prohibited practices include any use of Diquat, Paraquat and any herbicide that lasts in the soil for more than 90 days; limits on annual and individual applications of sulfur, copper and botryticides; no use of poison baits or pesticides that harm predatory mites; and a ban on chemical soil disinfection.

Irrigation guidelines prohibit the application of more than 20 inches of water per year, and prohibit irrigation entirely on mature vines (over three years old) except under drought conditions or when plant physiology demonstrates a need for water. LIVE adherents see the irrigation controls as both a way to limit resource usage and an aid in avoiding over-cropping and promoting quality.

In between the requirements and prohibitions are a number of “ecological options” with a sliding point scale. Alternate row mowing, for example, brings 10 points for partial use, 20 for comprehensive, and 0 points if not done at all. The greater the botanical diversity in cover crops, the more points. Herbicide use on more than 50% of the vineyard floor is prohibited; use on 25-49% gets 10 points deducted; smaller percentages get positive points, with 20 for no herbicide use at all. Alongside the limits on botryticide applications, points can be gained for high percentages of cluster exposure in the fruit zone and low-density canopy management.

Similarly scored guidelines include options on weed control methods, non-polluting pest control (e.g., traps and raptors), and reductions in the use of sulfur, DMIs and nitrogen. Points can be gained for using registered soaps and oils, alternating fundamentally different control methods to limit the development of resistance, adding organic matter, and identifying untreated check plots for comparison with areas treated with micronutrients.

(The complete set of guidelines, along with brief explanations of their rationale, can be viewed on or downloaded from the LIVE website, liveinc.org.)

A passing grade is 50% of the 400 points available. Participating growers provide tracking paperwork and undergo two annual independent inspections before receiving LIVE certification. To date, only two candidate members have failed inspections and they decided to drop out of the program.

In its short existence, the program has already made some small adjustments in the guidelines, some to remain in synch with the IOBC’s own periodic reviews, some in response to member sentiment. In at least one case, LIVE growers decided to tighten a requirement, making herbicide residues in the vineyard a prohibition, not just a loss in points. LIVE also keeps its policies in line with the Salmon Safe program (a non-profit organization devoted to preserving watersheds), and LIVE certification automatically gains Salmon Safe recognition as well.

The guidelines also include an “escape clause” that can be exercised if a grower is faced with an unexpected and potentially catastrophic threat—a phylloxera outbreak, for example, or a sharpshooter invasion. In such cases—none has come up so far—the grower can work out a temporary solution with the university extension service, based on careful diagnosis of the problem and done in keeping with the overall sustainable practices vision.

For LIVE supporters, the 60 or so practices covered in the guidelines and scoresheet don’t appear burdensome, but rather pull together a sensible set of best practices. “What we like most.” says Bethel Heights’ Casteel, “is that it doesn’t have much absolute stuff, but sets a direction, rewards good practices with points. It’s dynamic and flexible from year to year.” Casteel also stresses the program’s value in training growers over time: “LIVE is pretty inclusive, it brings people along, educates them to see the farm as a totality, not just a set of individual practices.”

Biodiversity, Beneficials and Realistic Goals
Susan Sokol-Blosser acknowledges that her vineyards and winery needed only small changes in what they were already doing to gain LIVE certification. “But once we got into it,” she says, “and started looking at the vineyard through the eyes of LIVE, we saw a lot more things we could be doing, especially in biodiversity. For example, we had previously used a single grass cover crop, and we’re now looking at a combination of grasses and wildflowers as well as bringing in beneficial insects.” Sokol-Blosser also thinks that while LIVE takes a step toward organic farming, its goals are more realistic. “I don’t think most farms are able to go from chemical to organic just like that.”

Jim Bernau, founder of Willamette Valley Vineyards, admits that he did a lot of things when he first planted in 1983 that make him shudder now. “When I started, pre-emergents were in vogue, and now we know how dangerous they are. I confess I used them when I started. The extended life of those chemicals in the soil and the ground water has a clear, demonstrated effect on life forms, and they migrate into the water supply. At the time, we didn’t know that, and of course, that’s one of the standards of LIVE, prohibiting the use of those chemicals, and with good reason.”

Bernau also notes that it’s only in the last half century that farmers have come to think that sustainable techniques are difficult or risky. “If you use your head, it’s not hard to do, having biodiversity in the vineyard is a very practical, economical, sensible way to farm. One might regard it as an enlightened approach, but our forefathers knew it all very well.”

Many of LIVE’s biggest names are among the pinot noir and pinot gris producers in the Willamette Valley, but the membership overall is spread fairly proportionately among Oregon’s growing regions. Kurt and Laura Lotspeich have been growing Bordeaux varieties in the smaller and less established Rogue River area since 1990. While he started using many organic techniques from the start, Kurt said that “organic seemed very restrictive. If I get something I can’t take care of, it could destroy my crop.”

LIVE has allowed him to learn more, and doesn’t strike him as all that restrictive. “It’s basically just test first to make sure you know why you’re doing it,” he says. Lotspeich is proud of having received some of the highest scores in the state on the LIVE point scale.
Growers who have stayed outside the program, on the other hand, cite a variety of reasons: a perceived lack of flexibility, fear that it would be more costly, a distaste for rules and scoresheets and inspections, and resistance to more paperwork. By far the largest concern is that any set of hard and fast rules can be unduly restrictive in some circumstances.

Alan Holstein has been growing grapes in Oregon since 1980 for Argyle Winery. He also farms for other producers, and the 400 acres he oversees make him one of Oregon’s largest growers. “Growing grapes is about a balance that is constantly changing,” he says. “You can’t paint yourself in a corner, you need flexibility.” And while “everyone wants sustainability, it depends on your definition.” LIVE’s definition, he thinks, is “dogma.”

Profitability Versus Sustainability
Holstein says his operation was among the first to introduce cover crops, to pull leaves for exposure, and to reduce the amount of pesticides used. But reducing pesticides, he says, “ is different from saying you’re never going to do it.” He encourages the use of cover crops, but doesn’t require it, and also feels that in some cases irrigation is a necessary tool, for example for prolonging the life of own-rooted vineyards. Holstein is also “not sure they’ve integrated the issue of the profitability of wineries. You could spend $35 on Roundup, or $350 on hand tilling; which is more sustainable?”

Al McMurray, a Rogue River grower and head of the local chapter of the Oregon Winegrowers Association, echoes the concern about the bottom line. “My take is it isn’t going to put an extra dollar in anybody’s pocket,” he says. “I’m not willing to take the hit just to say I’m in the LIVE program.” McMurray also argues that growers like him with experience in tree fruit farming have concluded that low-input and IPM programs just don’t work for those crops, making them wary about vineyard applications.

On the economic issues, LIVE adherents counter by emphasizing long-run viability over short-run costs. “You might make really good wine now, and be farming the hell out of the soil, and in five years you may not make great wine,” says Susan Sokol-Blosser. “Sustainability has to do with keeping things going.” Jim Bernau uses a more graphic analogy to highlight external costs: “Certainly it’s cheaper to dump your garbage across the fence on your neighbor’s land, but that’s not going to work very long, for your neighbor or yourself.”

A smaller number of growers remain outside LIVE because for them it’s too flexible, allowing practices that go against the grain of organic farming. Doug Tunnell’s Brick House Vineyards have been certified organic since 1990, with the winery itself certified last year. Tunnell has no real quarrel with LIVE. “For those who choose not to pursue organic, LIVE offers a tremendous opportunity to reduce chemical dependency. I think it’s a wonderful way to go. Fundamentally, I think we get better grapes by not using chemicals. All the LIVE people can gain is quality.” Tunnell, whose vineyards would probably qualify for LIVE certification, says he has no time for any more paperwork.

Most LIVE members feel that the all-organic route might be too risky. But Carmo Vasconcelos is among those who point out that by itself, the organic approach is only negatively defined, with no inherent commitment to quality. In LIVE, she says, “there are irrigation limits and also limitations on copper, which is a poison, but still a natural organic compound.” Sokol-Blosser notes that large-scale corporate organic farming can still promote monoculture, not biodiversity.

Whether LIVE certification will have any payoff in wine marketing is still a matter for speculation. Wines approved by the tasting are allowed but not required to carry the LIVE logo on their back labels. Sokol-Blosser notes that the cost and trouble of label re-design can be daunting. Al MacDonald and others think that having internationally certified credentials could help Oregon wineries gain access to some European markets. Bethel Heights’ Casteel (whose 1999 Pinot Noir was the first LIVE certified bottle) thinks it could help in certain domestic markets, such as high-end restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area that are moving their entire menus toward sustainable and organic products.

At Willamette Valley Vineyards, Jim Bernau heads a publicly-owned company and is responsible to stockholders for how the business is run. “People who are involved as shareholders are also devoted Oregonians,” he says, “with a keen interest in protecting the environment and in high quality and safe wines for customers. Our shareholders are not purely short-term return oriented.” Over the next few years, Bernau also thinks that Oregon and California wineries would be well advised to make the most of their environmental credentials, “since there’s no way on earth we can compete with producers in Chile and Argentina on price.”

But everyone agrees that marketing is not the real reason they’re involved: “We’re doing it because it’s the right thing to do,” says Casteel. “The challenge,” he says, “will be to sustain this over time. To stay excited, stay engaged.”

(More information can be obtained from the LIVE website, liveinc.org; by writing LIVE at P. O. Box 102, Veneta, Oregon 97487; or by calling 541-935-4333.)