“Nature in a bottle”

“…In pursuit of perfect grapes – or at least the most salable ones – and bargain real estate, specialty growers are heading into more remote and wild areas. There they are damaging or out-and-out destroying the very habitats whose qualities they so obsessively seek.

…New technologies, new tastes, and new economic pressures have made uplands increasingly attractive to grape growers. And unlike lowland areas, which had often been cleared decades before for other, less glamorous kinds of agriculture, the new vineyards are often built on wildlands: oak woodlands, redwood forest, riparian habitat, and chaparral.

Their conversion to a grape monoculture brings with it a cluster of environmental problems, says Merenlender, including increased soil erosion, habitat fragmentation, native species destruction, wildlife migration blockage, the drawing down of water resources to hydrate vines, and, of course, habitat loss.”