Rooted Together: Celebrating Sustainable Napa Valley Wineries and the 2026 California Green Medal Winners

This spring we got news we are still smiling about: Clif Family Winery & Farm won the 2026 California Green Medal Sustainable Winegrowing Environment Award. The medal recognizes the work happening across our 281-acre property in Napa Valley: regenerative farming, renewable energy, habitat for the wildlife that shares the land with us, and a commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2030.

We are proud of it. We also know that sustainable winegrowing in California has never been a solo act. It takes farmers, winemakers, hospitality teams, and certifying bodies all pulling in the same direction. So before we talk about ourselves, we want to introduce the other wineries doing this work alongside us, and explain what the certifications on sustainable wine labels actually mean.

The California Green Medal Sustainable Winegrowing Leadership Awards are presented each spring by the Wine Institute, the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance, and partner organizations during Down to Earth Month. Four medals are given out, each honoring a different pillar of responsible winegrowing: Leader, Environment, Community, and Business.

This year's honorees show how different the work can look from one winery to the next:

Recognized for leadership across all three pillars of sustainability: environment, community, and business. 

That is us. Honored for regenerative farming, renewable energy, biodiversity, and our net-zero-by-2030 commitment. 

Recognized for decades of support for employees, neighbors, and the Sierra foothills community.

They work with organically farmed fruit, dropped foil capsules back in 2005, and have kept more than 216,000 bottles out of the waste stream with a reusable wine-on-tap keg program.

The four of us could hardly be more different in geography, size, and business model, which is sort of the point. There is no single way to grow grapes and make wine responsibly in California, and the medal exists to prove it.

If you have ever squinted at a wine label wondering what "Napa Green" or "Certified Sustainable" actually means, here is the short version. California has one of the most rigorous (and admittedly overlapping) sets of sustainability programs in the wine world, and roughly 54% of the state's winegrape acres are certified to at least one of them. A quick map of the major programs, and some of the wineries shaping them:

A Napa Valley-specific climate action program, Napa Green certifies vineyards and wineries from soil to bottle. Its standards cover climate action, regenerative agriculture, and social equity. Our vineyards are Napa Green Vineyards certified, alongside many of our neighbors in the valley.

SIP Certified (Sustainability in Practice) is a statewide program with deep roots on California's Central Coast. It covers habitat and water conservation, energy efficiency, pest management, economic stability, and human resources.

Run by the California Land Stewardship Institute, Fish Friendly Farming certifies vineyards in Napa, Sonoma, and the broader North Coast for practices that protect salmon and steelhead habitat under the federal Endangered Species Act.

CCOF certifies vineyards farmed without synthetic fertilizers or harmful pesticides. Our 90 acres of estate vineyards and 10 acres of orchards and olive groves are CCOF certified organic.

Demeter USA certifies biodynamic farms, which treat the vineyard as a self-contained living ecosystem. California pioneers include Frey Vineyards in Mendocino (the first certified biodynamic winery in the U.S.), Benziger Family Winery in Sonoma, and Tablas Creek Vineyard in Paso Robles.

B Corp certification looks past the vineyard at how a company treats its workers, community, customers, and the environment. In Napa Valley, Clif Family shares the designation with Spottswoode Estate Vineyard & Winery and Trois Noix. Elsewhere in California, Bonterra Organic Estates, Cartograph Wines, River Road Family Vineyards, and O'Neill Vintners and Distillers are B Corps too.

Each program answers a different question. Organic asks what you do not put on the land. Biodynamic asks how the whole farm works as a living system. Napa Green asks how you manage water, energy, and people. Fish Friendly Farming asks how your creek behaves downstream. B Corp asks how you treat everyone who works with you.

Most sustainable Napa Valley wineries, and the broader California sustainable winegrowing community, do not sit inside just one of these frames. The best work happens where they overlap, and each season the bar moves a little higher because of it.

For Clif Family, the Green Medal arrived the same month we released our first sustainability report, Good Grows Here: Clif Family's 5 Bottom Lines. It is our most honest accounting yet of what is working, what is not, and where we are headed: net zero emissions by 2030, continued investment in regenerative practices like no-till cultivation, perennial cover crops, and sheep grazing, and the preservation of more than 250 acres of natural habitat across our property.

Mostly, though, the award reminds us that we are part of something bigger than our own fence lines. To St. Supéry, Ironstone, Hobo, and every grower, vintner, and certifying organization quietly raising the bar across California: thank you. The wine is better for it, and so is the land.