Let me explain and forgive me if you’ve heard some of this before.
Three or so years ago, we realised we needed to do much more to help our grape growers adapt their farming practices to the hammering they’re getting from ever-worsening extreme weather – drought, deluge, fast-changing threats from pests and diseases, vine-destroying hail in summer, all sorts. It sounds a bit sensationalist, but the reality for many is if they don’t adapt to the changing climate, they’ll struggle to continue making the wines we know and love. A surprising number are already throwing in the proverbial towel – a tide I’m sure we all want to try and stem.
So, we set up my favourite thing in the whole world, a Climate and Nature Programme. This is a £65,000 annually replenished fund that our growers can apply for – seed funding to help them transition to more nature-friendly farming practices (less synthetic chemical use, better soil health, more mixed farming, more life) or do conservation and restoration projects in the unproductive spaces of their vineyards and estates.
When we launched the programme, we honestly didn’t know what kind of response we’d get. But boy, were we pleased. Our growers and producers from all over the world set aside their secateurs and jumped at the chance to apply.
Amongst many other things, in our first year (2024) we supported the planting of more than 400 fruit, nut and olive trees; 1,700 flowering plants; and around three miles of hedgerows (made up of 2,800 hedgerow plants, shrubs and trees) in vineyards around the world – as well as the rewilding of 1,400m² of farmland in South Africa. It’s truly astounding what a little bit of financial support and some encouragement can do to get things that may otherwise not have happened off the ground!
Year 2 (2025) somehow feels even bigger, and nature is getting even greater bang for our buck. For the class of 2025 we selected 13 winners, from nine different countries, with projects as wide ranging as:
- bringing chickens and ducks into the vineyard for natural weevil and snail control – reducing pesticide use
- establishing onsite organic composting operations – to replace synthetic fertilisers
- expanding agroforestry programmes (planting trees and hedgerows in and around the vineyards) – to provide habitats for natural predators and add nutrition to the soil
- rewilding tracts of land in South Africa – by ‘bringing back’ the endangered fynbos
- creating organic living mulches and wildflower meadows between the vineyard rows – to improve soil health and reduce the need for synthetic fertilisers
- supporting growers to transition away from ploughing – to protecting soil health, reduce erosion and retain more water
All these projects have similar goals: to help growers adapt to the myriad climate challenges they’re facing, accelerate the movement towards regenerative viticulture and play our part in trying to reverse nature loss and remove additional carbon from the atmosphere.
We know it’s a drop in the global ocean, but it’s a start – and we’re already hatching plans for how to bring in more funding into the programme, support more trials and share the learnings.
Many of the winners are small-to-medium-sized family-owned producers (including a couple of Society own-label suppliers) and we’re chuffed to bits supporting these trailblazers, who I’m sure will inspire many others to follow suit.
Find out more about the 13 winning projects we selected to support in 2025 below and keep coming back to hear how they are getting on:
Winners of the 2025 Climate and Nature Programme
Bodem Bodegas (Aragón, Spain)
Boden Bodegas is like an oasis of life in a region where bare soils and liberal herbicide use are the norm, where neighbours think you’re a bad farmer if they see one weed on your farm. Louis Geirnaerdt, the energetic and inspiring owner of Bodem Bodegas, is on a mission to change that outdated mindset. Support from the Climate and Nature programme will help his team transition even faster to regenerative viticulture so they can demonstrate to their neighbours how farming with nature instead of against it can be more profitable and produce even better wine. It will help fund new natural composting systems, the planting of a range of crops between the vine rows to provide natural sun protection and nutrients for the soil, and the use of a ‘direct seeder’ so they don’t need to plough, a practice that damages the soil. This project is about leadership, showing the way to more natural, profitable and resilient farming. View the wines
Silvano Bolmida (Piedmont, Italy)
Silvano Bolmida, who makes our Exhibition Barolo, has an infectious and endless passion for healthy living soils; once he starts talking about it, he’s unlikely to come up for air for a very long time. His vision of a vineyard is ‘not merely a collection of vines but rather a complex ecosystem comprising various species working in harmony.’ Together with his wife, son and daughter, their dream is ‘to leave the land in better condition for future generations than how we found it.’ With the funds from the Climate and Nature Programme, the Bolmida family will be increasing the diversity and complexity of plants – and therefore life – in their vineyard ecosystem, which in turn will make it more resilient to climatic pressures. This is a two-pronged initiative which involves firstly establishing an organic, living mulch in the vineyards via cover cropping with thirteen species, and rolling these plants with a new mulching roller; and secondly planting native forest trees in the areas adjacent to the vineyards. View the wines
Alain Brumont (Madiran, SW France)
Over more than two decades, Alain has been transforming his estate, nestled at the foothills of the French Pyrenees, into a forest-like ecosystem. Vines are creepers, have been living in blissful harmony with trees for millennia and Alain has been steadily bringing that natural partnership back into his vineyards (what we now call agroforestry). Support over three years from the Climate and Nature Programme will help Alain and his family continue and expand their mission. It will support the planting of over 340m of trees and hedge plants, laid out in rows through the vineyard, which will give the vines natural nutrients, shade and moisture in the increasingly hot summer, whilst also providing habitats for predators on pest control. A simple, thriving ecosystem that works naturally, with minimal human intervention. View the wines
Château Thieuley (Bordeaux, France)
If David Attenborough had a vineyard, it would surely look like Château Thieuley. Sisters Sylvie and Marie Courselle took the estate over from their late father and are a powerhouse for the natural world. ‘Our grandfather had trees in the vineyard, our father took them out (as that was the wisdom of the time) and we are now putting them back in’. Support from the Climate and Nature Programme will help Sylvie and Marie in their life’s work to bring nature into their vineyard by planting more than 1km of hedgerows and 150 olive trees. Together this will create corridors between existing woods, ponds and orchards, ensuring continuous shelter and forage for wildlife, as well as helping the estate increase their production of olive oil, improving their financial resilience in tough times. View the wines
Felton Road (Central Otago, New Zealand)
If there was a Top Gun for environmental leadership in the wine industry, Felton Road would, without a shadow of a doubt, be on it. Nigel Greening and his family are literally doing it all, running their estate with a philosophy of true care for the land, the climate, their people and future generations. Seriously inspiring stuff. Funding from the Climate and Nature Programme will support just one small part of Felton Road’s many many nature projects, which is to restore native trees, shrubs and plants on public land around their vineyard. This restored area, of around 3ha, will serve as a carbon sink, provide habitats and food (flowers, berries, nectar) for a host of wildlife (birds, insects, bees and lizards). Additionally, the biochar created from the invasive plants will be spread on the vineyard to boost soil health. Felton Road are proper pioneers, and we’re honoured to be part of their journey. View the wines
Geyerhof (Kremstal, Austria)
Maria and Josef (above), the latest custodians of the 23 ha Geyerhof farm, are young, smart, dynamic and determined to lead the way on regenerative farming in Austria. The estate has been in the family for 14 generations, and they have recently taken it over from Josef’s parents. It has been organic since the mid-1980s, but this has never been viewed as the end of the road. Maria and Josef want a mixed, financially resilient and regenerating farm that they can hand down to the next generation and we have no doubt this power couple will achieve it. Funding from the Climate and Nature Programme is small, it is simply to help them purchase a side discharge mower. It may not sound like a lot, but it will be the only one of its kind in Austria and will be used to replace tilling as a way to manage grass, weeds and crops. Mowing will create a layer of mulch under the vines that will stop weeds, keep the soil cool and reduce soil erosion – with never a drop of herbicide in sight. View the wines
Neudorf (Nelson, New Zealand)
Neudorf’s viticulturist Stefan Brockley aspires to take the estate’s viticulture to ‘the next level’, having fine-tuned their organic practices: ‘We do not wish to simply ‘dip our toes’ into the world of regenerative farming. We want to dive in and be an example of what can be achieved in a short space of time.’ Via the Climate and Nature Programme, The Wine Society is co-funding the purchase of a no-till seed drill and a crimp roller, the use of which will significantly reduce soil disturbance and thus protect soil life. In conjunction with this, Stefan will be incorporating cover crops and establishing a biochar operation; his goal is to be able to move away from buying organic fertilisers and to increase the soil’s water-holding capacity with biochar applications. As the regional rep for Organic Winegrowers NZ, Stefan speaks of the responsibility he feels ‘to help drive positive change in our local farming practices.’ He plans that Neudorf’s new equipment will be shared with local, small organic producers. View the wines
Rustenberg (Stellenbosch, South Africa)
This is the smallest project the Climate and Nature Programme will be supporting in 2025, but one of our favourites – as it involves no less than 100 Indian Runner Ducks. Like many farms in the area, Rustenberg are plagued by snails and mealybugs that eat and damage the vines. Rather than killing them with harmful synthetic sprays, a common practice on conventional farms, Tessa Van Zyl (the viticulturalist) and team prefer to work with nature to control these pests. Their initial foray into this approach, using a small flock of 21 ducks, has shown it can work. They are now looking to scale the approach up with an additional 100 ducks to see, over time, what impact it can have in keeping pest numbers down, reducing the use of pesticides and improving soil health from the duck manure. Look out on our socials for videos from the ‘duck cam’. View the wines
Simonsig (Stellenbosch, South Africa)
The Cape Floral Region is one of the most richly diverse parts of the world in terms of numbers of different plant species and endemism, but is threatened by agriculture and industry. At third-generation family producer, Simonsig, cellarmaster Michael Malan and viticulturist Nicole Pelzer are excited to begin a multi-year landscape-scale biodiversity restoration project which will give space for the native Fynbos and Renosterveld vegetation to thrive on the estate. Three years of funding from the Climate and Nature Programme will enable Simonsig to 'bring back the fynbos', through the development a 2.5ha fynbos block on land formerly planted to vines and through the creation of wildlife corridors between vineyard blocks. By removing invasive species and reintroducing indigenous – and endemic – vegetation, they will be providing new habitats for birds, insects and other species and building biodiversity in the vineyards. As members of the Bottelary Hills Renosterveld Conservancy (in partnership with CapeNature), Simonsig will share learnings and encourage collaboration with other growers in the region. We firmly believe that a vineyard buzzing with life will make better wine and are delighted to partner with the makers of our Exhibition Cap Classique on this project. View the wines
South by South West (Margaret River, Western Australia)
The Climate and Nature Programme is helping the two-woman powerhouse behind South by South West, Liv and Mij, complete what Liv calls one of their ‘dream or unicorn type projects’ – building a custom-made mobile chicken trailer to introduce chickens to their vineyards. A project that as a small producer with a limited budget they would not have been able to achieve otherwise. Using chickens to help manage (in other words gobble up) weevils, the major vineyard pest in Western Australia, will hopefully enable them to reduce the usage of pesticides. Integrating animals into the viticultural operation in this way is an important tenet of regenerative viticulture which enables a holistic approach to pest management that in turn brings other natural benefits, and this is at the heart of SXSW’s viticultural philosophy. In addition to designing and constructing (and subsequently putting into action) the mobile chicken trailer, Liv and Mij will be implementing a tailored cover cropping programme and planting native trees and shrubs in and around their vineyards. View the wines
Vadio (Bairrada, Portugal)
Luís Patrão and Eduarda Dias of Vadio have a vision that how they farm their 10ha of vines can serve as a model for ecological transition in the Bairrada region in Portugal. After achieving organic certification in 2024, they are now resolutely on the path towards regenerative viticulture, managing their vineyards with a more holistic and nature-focused approach. The Climate and Nature Programme is providing them with funds to plant 50 native trees and 100 native shrubs as well as 30 olive trees, to sow 5ha of vines with inter-row multispecies cover crops, and to create new habitats for wildlife (including building a seasonal pond). Luís explains that they want to be a catalyst for change in Barraida and plan to host local workshops to inspire their neighbours (there are around 150 small farmers growing grapes locally). View the wines
Vanguardist (South Australia)
The common name for Acmena Smithii – Lilly Pillies – is one we can’t help but love, and these are the principle native plants which Michael J. Corbett of Vanguardist will be planting along the field margins of his Rende Vineyard in Blewitt Springs (a vineyard which comprises Grenache and Syrah over 55 years’ old, as well as younger own-rooted plantings). With the Climate and Nature Programme's support over three years, Michael’s project will create a ‘shelterbelt’ with the planting of 1.1km of native vegetation (incorporating six different species, mainly Lilly Pillies, in particular the ‘Firescreen’ variety) to support wildlife movement, while also providing a filter for chemical spray drift and disease transfer from neighbouring farms. Michael sees his role as a steward of the land and this work as creating a living legacy: ‘this project represents more than just planting trees – it's a long-term investment in the ecological health and sustainability of our vineyard and region.’ View the wines
Villa Melnik (Bulgaria)
Villa Melnik is the first producer in Eastern Europe that the Climate and Nature Programme has funded, and we’re excited to play a part in the detailed three-part initiative they have already embarked on to strengthen their estate’s resilience to climate change. With the aim of reducing reliance on fertilisers, The Wine Society’s funding will help Villa Melnik to build a closed-loop system by creating two composting fields. These will make use of the organic waste from the winery and vineyards – grape marc, pomace and pruning cuttings – and convert it into natural, slow-release nutrition for the vines. As Villa Melnik’s vineyards are based on sandy soils with low levels of organic matter, they will strongly benefit from slow-release nutrients, improved soil structure, increased carbon content and microbial activity, and the associated greater water holding capacity provided by the compost. View the wines
