Integrated wine production, sustainable viticulture, biodynamics, certified organically grown grapes, environmentally sustainable farming, biodiversity and wine initiative. A whole raft of terms which add up to taking a positive stance on thinking before reaching for the can of chemicals and realising that the Cape's vineyard is just part of its diverse make up.

But it's also a raft of confusion for many consumers and appreciation of the benefits of all the above is unlikely to increase until the wine in the bottle, the result of the above practices, reaches a level of consistency.

In an effort to create more awareness about the many green initiatives, but particularly wine made from organically grown grapes and environmentally sustainable farming, Wine magazine with Nedbank as sponsor, have just announced the results of the first Nedbank Green Wine Awards. There were two parts to the competition; one was the best wine from organically grown grapes, the other an award for best environmental practices.

Some 15 producers entered the latter event, which was judged by Inge Kotze, manager of the Biodiversity ad Wine Initiative; Lourens van Schoor of Euroscientific, audit body of the Integrated Production of Wine and Tom McLaughlin, responsible for getting Woolworths to follow good business practices. The aim of this award is `to promote and encourage responsible environmental practices towards achieving farming and winemaking that is both focused on excellence and sustainable over time,' as the awards booklet informs and continues, `Producers were required to show either certification of conformance to IPW (with a 60% rating in an external audit conducted during the past three years) or relevant organic certification, together with a comprehensive motivation for their entry.'

The winner was the Rawbone-Viljoen's Elgin property, Oak Valley, well-known for its pure, cool-climate range, especially sauvignon blanc and pinot noir; Waverley Hills Organic Wines, between Wolseley and Ceres was a close runner up. Oak Valley has no organic certification, so couldn't participate in the wine awards' section of the event, Waverley Hills was one of 19 producers with organic certification who did.

As one of the judges, and being familiar with several of the Cape's organic wines, I anticipated we'd be presented with the spectrum from excellent to, as James Halliday so aptly puts it, 'dpim' (don't put in mouth). My expectations were well met; the 51 entries from 19 producers indeed ranged across those quality levels. They included not only the anticipated white and red still wines but a couple of bubblies, two desserts and a Cape Ruby Port style.

Deciding on a winner was left until we'd seen the final ratings; happily a white, the Lazanou Organic Vineyards Chenin Blanc 2008 and a red, Laibach The Ladybird Red 2007, were the only wines to rate four stars, so provided a neat answer to the question.

But back to the quality issues. I'm sure many winelovers are put off buying wine made from organically grown grapes, as the perception about quality isn't good. This isn't the fault of the organic growing method, but more often shortcomings in the cellar.

Joseph Lazarus, owner of Lazanou with his partner, Candice Stephanou (hence the name) suggested to me that a similar line up of wines made from non-organic grapes would arrive at similar results. To an extent, I disagreed with him, as the red wines in particular showed a disturbing amount of oxidation (the oldest was a 2001, but the majority came from the 2006, 07 and 08 vintages, many of which are already in a state of deterioration), possibly due to a lower sulphur regime in the cellar in an attempt to keep the winemaking as `green` as possible.

It's significant that in Wine magazine's poll which asked `Would you pay an extra R10 to buy wine made from organic grapes?' 68% of respondents said no. Winelovers will never be concerned that it takes extra work, and thus with extra cost, to grow the grapes without pesticides, unless quality in the bottle is spot on.

This is a laudable exercise on the part of both Nedbank, who have supported the Biodiversity and Wine Initiative via their Green Trust since its inception, and Wine magazine.

Hopefully next year's competition will draw an increased entry and give winelovers cause to be more enthusiastic about buying any wine made with green thoughts in mind.