The Gift Exchange

Here is an interesting fact about any wine gifts from Oregon that you might send: Oregon wineries have been both cutting costs and improving their green practices by using sheep as mowers in the vineyards.

The contemporary term for the practice is “targeted grazing,” which means that the sheep are trained to only eat the grass and other weeds that spring up between the trellises. How are the sheep not tempted by the tender grape leaves? Some stockmen train sheep to associate grape vines and leaves with nausea by giving them lithium chloride by mouth before they reach the vineyards. Other wineries choose to use grazing animals while the vines are dormant.

Not only are sheep better for the environment than traditional gasoline-powered mowing methods, but they also cause less compaction of the dirt and their waste provides nutrients that enrich the soil. With biodiversity as such a buzzword in the wine industry, people are wondering if sheep are being used now, what’s next? Chickens, maybe. One Oregon winemaker is experimenting with fowl, planting sorghum between the rows. I’ll keep you posted on his success and any other forward-thinking green practices in the wine world. In the meantime, cheers to going green!

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