(Munchies) - We all know about sustainable food by now. While it would be great to keep guzzling the planet’s edible delights like it’s our last living day, it’s getting increasingly difficult to ignore the facts. Maybe we’re not reflecting this in our eating habits just yet (we’re slow learners and, let’s face it, pretty greedy) but in the back of our minds, most of us know it’s time to start reining it in.

But what about wine? Do grapes and vineyards really need to be pulled into the fight for sustainability? Conscience and all that “green” stuff seems to fly in the face of the luxurious joy proffered by a spectacular bottle of chardonnay.

Bouillabaisse, which opens next month in London’s undeniably luxurious Mayfair, would disagree. Founded by nobu’s former director of operations Kurt Zdesar, the restaurant is taking a stand against waste with a menu of sustainable “coastal cuisine.”

So far, so dining trend du jour, but what’s interesting is the fact that the restaurant is intent on bringing not just sustainable seafood to the West End, but wine too.

“All wines will be from bona fide wine estates and not repackaged bulk wine with private labels,” says Bouillabaisse’s Barry McCaughley. “We have painstakingly sourced top-quality wine from authentic, conscious, quality-obsessed winemakers, which is easier said than done at the price-sensitive end of the list.”

Far from turning their market off, McCaughley thinks top-end food and booze spenders favour restaurants with a sense of environmental responsibility. In the fine dining market, “sustainability, organic, and seasonal are almost expected,” he says.

But what exactly makes a wine sustainable? Sloshing about in the proverbial cask you have the terms “sustainable,” “biodynamic,” “organic,” and “natural”; all supposedly great for the planet but difficult to make sense of.

Part of this stems from the fact that sustainable wine is largely unregulated and as yet has no global standard. It’s loosely defined as wine grown with an awareness of preservative and pesticide use, and in an economically and ecologically responsible manner.

Sustainable wine producers also consider bottling sources and the impact of farming to land surrounding vineyards. It’s complete cycle production, with every stage of the winemaking journey accounted for. A Melbourne biochemist has even worked out how to turn wine waste into biofuel.