Question: Are there any Fair Trade wines?? I know we have organic wines but what is the labor situation like? It is unjust that the minimum wage requirement does not apply to Farm Workers in the U.S. It would be great to support a Fair Trade wine this holiday season! I would try to make my own but that might be scary. Lisa.
Answer: Yes, there are indeed a couple fair trade wines:
Etica, a fair trade company that’s a member of Co-op America and Fair Trade Federation, offers wines from South Africa, Chile and Argentina. I tried the Carménère a while back –
Neu Direction, Sam’s Club’s new brand of fair trade certified wine, is a 100% Malbec produced by a co-op in Argentina. (via change.org) A bottle will run you about $10.
For more socio-eco-conscious drinking tips, here’s my post on happy hour with green-tinted glasses.
Update, 12/11/08: Thanks to TransFair USA’s newsletter, I learned about a few more fair trade wines:
Stellar Live a Little. This South African wine’s available at co-ops and some Whole Foods and other chain supermarkets.
Wandering Grape. Target’s now selling two types of fair trade wine by Origin Wine — The Malbec Merlot from Argentina and Cabernet Sauvignon from South Africa.
Fair Hills. Also from Origin Wines, the Fair Hill label includes four different fair trade wines: Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec from Argentina, and Chardonnay and Merlot from South Africa.
Update, 3/13/09: I tried some organic, fair trade wines, bought at Whole Foods
Good info. It’s great to know to be able to buy fair trade brands of wines. But fair trade is generally applied to imported products, right? Is there any similar certification to make sure workers in the U.S. are also paid fairly? It would be great to be able to buy local as well as fair (and also organic and cruelty free, too!), especially for those who live in California since there are so many wineries in the state. I don’t know of a comprehensive way to find out whether grape pickers are fairly paid or not, but UFW does have this page up that shows some wine labels (that use grapes picked by UFW workers:
http://www.ufw.org/_page.php?menu=organizing&inc=orga_label.html
note: several of the labels listed go to a single winery; also, some of the wineries linked to have labels besides the ones listed, which possibly do not use UFW worker picked grapes.
Comment by jennyw — December 2, 2008 @ 10:53 am
Yes, fair trade has to do with imports. Thanks for the UFW page! interesting!
Comment by Siel — December 3, 2008 @ 5:54 pm