O’Neill Vintners & Distillers Earns Regenerative Organic Certification

O’Neill Vint­ners & Dis­tillers, a B Corp Cer­ti­fied com­pa­ny and leader in the wine indus­try, has achieved the pres­ti­gious Regen­er­a­tive Organ­ic Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for its Paso Rob­les estate vine­yard at Robert Hall Winery.

Regen­er­a­tive Organ­ic Certified®(ROC) sets the high­est stan­dard for agri­cul­ture, com­bin­ing USDA Organ­ic cer­ti­fi­ca­tion with bench­marks for soil health, ani­mal wel­fare, and social fair­ness. Over­seen by the non­prof­it Regen­er­a­tive Organ­ic Alliance, ROC rep­re­sents a trans­for­ma­tive approach to farm­ing that pri­or­i­tizes ecosys­tem restora­tion and com­mu­ni­ty well-being.

For Jeff O’Neill, Founder & CEO of O’Neill Vint­ners & Dis­tillers, the achieve­ment is a sig­nif­i­cant one, but still marks only the begin­ning. ​“Our mis­sion is to con­tin­ue scal­ing these prac­tices glob­al­ly, regen­er­at­ing vine­yards and mak­ing sus­tain­able wines acces­si­ble and available.”

The 140-acre Paso Rob­les vine­yard prop­er­ty rep­re­sents a liv­ing case study for the wine com­mu­ni­ty. In 2020, O’Neill launched a com­par­a­tive tri­al to explore the effects of regen­er­a­tive organ­ic farm­ing along­side con­ven­tion­al sus­tain­able prac­tices. The tri­al aimed to pro­vide open and trans­par­ent insights into the impacts on soil health, water reten­tion, car­bon seques­tra­tion, yield, and wine qual­i­ty — offer­ing grow­ers and the com­mu­ni­ty a roadmap for con­vert­ing to regen­er­a­tive organ­ic practices.

“Earn­ing the ROC des­ig­na­tion is a mon­u­men­tal achieve­ment for O’Neill and a sig­nif­i­cant step in our com­mit­ment to regen­er­at­ing our vine­yards of tomor­row,” said Caine Thomp­son, Head of Sus­tain­abil­i­ty for O’Neill Vint­ners & Dis­tillers. ​“This sets a strong foun­da­tion to expand regen­er­a­tive organ­ic farm­ing prac­tices across more of our estate vine­yards, enabling us to regen­er­ate and restore our ecosys­tems and com­mu­ni­ties, while engag­ing with indus­try to embrace and accel­er­ate this crit­i­cal move­ment.” Fur­ther com­ments are in this video.

O’Neill’s lead­er­ship extends beyond the vine­yard. Thomp­son, a glob­al board mem­ber of the Regen­er­a­tive Viti­cul­ture Foun­da­tion (RVF), col­lab­o­rates with inter­na­tion­al experts to accel­er­ate the adop­tion of regen­er­a­tive viti­cul­ture prac­tices at scale. Stephen Cronk, Chair­man of the Regen­er­a­tive Viti­cul­ture Foun­da­tion, laud­ed O’Neill’s trans­for­ma­tive impact, ​“O’Neill’s lead­er­ship in regen­er­a­tive farm­ing at scale is noth­ing short of ground­break­ing. Its com­mit­ment and trans­par­ent data shar­ing demon­strates that regen­er­a­tive farm­ing is not only fea­si­ble but offers a scal­able solu­tion to mit­i­gate cli­mate change and restore ecosys­tems globally.”

This cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is the lat­est in a long list of sus­tain­abil­i­ty-focused achieve­ments by the team at O’Neill Vint­ners & Dis­tillers. Since 2021, O’Neill has earned the Green Medal Leader Award from the Cal­i­for­nia Wine Insti­tute, has become a Cer­ti­fied B Cor­po­ra­tion, earned TRUE Zero Waste cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, and accom­plished CCOF organ­ic cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in its vine­yards in Paso Rob­les and Ram’s Gate Win­ery in Sono­ma. O’Neill not only joins an exclu­sive group of pio­neers but also sig­nals a seis­mic shift in how wine can be pro­duced — with trans­paren­cy, envi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship, and long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty at its core. As the regen­er­a­tive organ­ic move­ment gains momen­tum, O’Neill Vint­ners & Dis­tillers stands as a bea­con for what’s pos­si­ble when inno­va­tion meets bold action.