Life Cycle Assessment in the wine sector: A review on inventory phase

The application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in the wine sector has received a particular attention in the last years. The inventory phase represents an important and sometimes critical issue for LCA analysts. This paper presents a systematic review of LCA studies (over the last 10 years) in the wine sector in order to analyze the aspects related to the inventory data by focusing on temporal, geographical and technological issues. Furthermore, the role of wine products classifications has been analyzed. The final goal was to highlight the best practices to support researchers approaching LCA in the wine sector while carrying out the inventory phase. The final number of reviewed papers was 37. Results showed an evident heterogeneity of data used in the Life Cycle Inventory (LCI). In particular, it emerged that the temporal aspects were treated in 78% of cases, while the others did not mention the reference year of the data. The specific geographical location was indicated for 97% of the studies, but with various levels of detail (e.g., town, region); most of the collected studies refer to European wines with designation of origin whose productions can be an expression of larger or smaller area. Moreover, many studies use secondary data, especially to assess electricity consumption, while the list and specifications of the pesticides and fertilizers used in the agricultural phase were reported only in a few cases. This study shows the need of specific international guidelines to orientate the LCA practitioners in the wine sector. In this direction, the best practice in wine LCA studies regards the detailing and contextualization of the inputs in all phases of wine production, from viticulture to the wine-making process, to distribution (e.g., detailing the typology of products, the inputs like fertilizers and pesticide, the production cycle).