Sustainable Stories Your Visitors Love

As a SIP Certified winegrower, your daily practices embody the 7 Values of the program: Social Responsibility, Water Management, Safe Pest Management, Energy Efficiency, Habitat, Business, and Always Evolving.

Now that you have used the worksheet to identify your own Sustainable Story, we’re going to give you some guidance on how to incorporate it into multiple levels of your brand’s messaging, starting with your website.

SIP Tip: if you haven’t already, gather your team and complete the worksheet to write your unique Sustainable Story!

Worksheet for Print | Worksheet for Electronic Filling

Share your Sustainable Story on your Website

Your website is the hub for your brand’s core information: location, history, shop, and more. It’s where people come to learn more about what you have to offer and why they should support your business.

By highlighting your dedication to sustainability, you create a deeper connection with your website visitors. When your visitors read about the conscious care that goes into producing your wines, they can feel good about supporting a system of winemaking that helps protect the people and the planet.

Here are two easy places to share your Sustainable Story on your website.

Dedicate a Page to Sustainability

Put your commitment to sustainability front and center by dedicating an entire page to your certification!

Here are three great examples of how brands have included sustainability on their website.

1) WaterFire has added SIP Certified right to their home page's main navigation! This section exhibits eye-catching photos and tells visitors what their certification means.

2) Cambria looks at sustainability not as a checklist, but as a way of being. Their Keeping it Real – 100% Certified Sustainable page offers six specific sustainable metrics so visitors know what sustainability really looks like.

3) Laetitia Vineyard & Winery goes a step further by embedding a video on their Sustainability page. During his 2-minute narration, Eric Hickey, Senior Winemaker and General Manager, tells visitors a quick story about the history of the vineyard, and gives a few examples of sustainable practices that are used today.

Blog Posts

1) Ancient Peaks has created an easy-to-find category for all things Sustainability on their extensive blog page. Complete with a downloadable Sustainability in Practice at Ancient Peaks Winery sheet, this post gives a sampling of six sustainability initiatives that embody their love for the land.

2) Just Enough Wines recently made a blog post highlighting how they source grapes grown through Sustainable Winegrowing Practices. When readers see Just Enough Wines on the shelf, they’ll remember that sustainability is one of their core values.

3) Hope Family Wines uses their blog to help educate visitors on what sustainability means.! A read through their blog post, Sustainable Wine vs Organic Wine, explains how both programs support a system of winegrowing that helps the planet.

Next Time: Water Management at Shale Oak

If you followed along with us on social media through the month of April, you saw the 7 stories that make up our first round of Sustainable Stories from SIP Certified Members. And if you didn’t, stay tuned! We will be sharing one Sustainable Story per month through the Marketing Tips Newsletter for the next six months.

In the next Marketing Tip, learn about one of the responsible Water Management practices Shale Oak Winery does to address one of California’s biggest sustainability concerns.

Until then, be sure to complete the worksheet so you’re prepared to implement the tips to come!