Long Island Sustainable Winegrowing

About Long Island Sustainable Winegrowing

For almost 40 years, Long Island vineyards have worked hard to develop unique and safe practices for producing quality wine grapes. East End vineyards and wineries have grown to create our own definition of sustainability that is based on our role as stewards of the rich agricultural heritage of the North Fork of Long Island. Just like the English settlers who started farming on Long Island in 1640, and the Native-Americans 10,000 years before that, we are ensuring the sustained agricultural use of these lands for many more generations. The viability of local vineyards is dependent on our ability to steward our land in a way that allows it to stay healthy and productive into the future. We see our vineyards as a holistic ecological system and we strive to develop viticultural practices that produce the highest quality fruit possible, while also being sensitive to the environment and financially viable over time. This system is kept in balance through a series of vineyard "best practices," finely tuned over the past 40 years. Long Island Sustainable Winegrowers believe that vineyards should work in harmony with our natural world leaving the land we steward in better condition than when we found it, building a community between vineyards, workers and the land. Long Island Sustainable Winegrowing is a is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization that provides education and certification for Long Island vineyards. LISW uses international standards of sustainable practices in quality wine-grape production that have been refined for the northeast utilized through the VineBalance Workbook. These practices are based on an independent 3rd-party-verified checklist system consisting of recommended and prohibited practices and materials, thoughtful planning and numerous ecological options.