A quest for conservation viticulture – part 1

Stuart Bewley of Alder Springs in Mendocino, California

Inspired by a book calling for a soil-based agricultural revolution, Samantha Cole-Johnson went to visit exponents in Napa Valley and Mendocino. Next week – Sonoma.

In July 2020, I finished David Montgomery’s Growing a Revolution: Bringing our Soil Back to Life (W W Norton, 2018) and, like many who have read an incredibly well-written and convincing book, I was hyped up. The opening sentence reads, ‘What if I told you there was a relatively simple, cost-effective way to help feed the world, reduce pollution, pull carbon from the atmosphere, protect biodiversity, and make farmers more money?’ – 286 pages...