‘Tis the season to hop in the car and drive over the river and through the woods to visit with family, right? That’s what my family does, anyway. And while driving for days doesn’t thrill me, hanging out with the family and watching my children run around with their cousins does.

We’re not a family of lushes, I swear, but it does seem like these gatherings tend to include a lot of good food and—often, if we’re lucky—a bottle of wine or two. (Hey, depending on which family members show up, that wine may be necessary….) Of course I have a preference when it comes to types of wine; I’m actually allergic to red, so I will always opt for white. But is my chosen wine green?

I’d never thought about it before. Until recently, that is—when I ran across this piece titled Think Globally, Drink Locally and Stop being such a Snob!

A little over a year ago a couple of really smart guys did a study about what goes into a bottle of wine’s carbon footprint. Turns out that the vineyard itself is actually carbon neutral and depending upon fertilizer choice and harvesting techniques can actually go negative (if you believed Ronald Reagan in the 80’s you aren’t going to get that point). The biggest contributors to the production of CO2 in the manufacture of a bottle of wine are the packaging and the shipping.

Bottom line: Drink local wines, whenever you can. Barring that, opt for the wines with shorter journeys to your locale.

It’s not just great advice for a small step to take towards being greener, it may just be my favorite iddy biddy step so far. I mean, who doesn’t want a reason to feel good about a glass of wine…?