Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a reference methodology to evaluate environmental impacts along supply chains of products. Planetary boundaries (PBs) were developed to define the safe operating space (SOS) for humanity. So far, no study has investigated whether wine production and consumption result in crossing the planetary boundary of climate change and no SOS has been calculated for wine production in Greece. Our study applies an LCA according to the European Product footprint environmental category rules to calculate the climate change score of a bottle of 0.75 L of Greek red organic wine in 2021 and 2026, and also applies planetary boundaries to investigate whether the climate change boundary is exceeded. The latter employed the calculation of a SOS based on four partitioning methods: grandfathering principle, economic value, agricultural land area use, and calorific content. The LCA results showed that wine is a carbon emitter. The 2021, 2026-Low yield, and 2026-High yield systems resulted in positive climate change scores between 0.69–1.14 kg CO₂ eq.bottle wine⁻¹. The PBs revealed that carbon emissions of wine production in 2021 exceeded all four SOSs, while carbon emissions of expected wine production in 2026 remained within the SOS of grandfathering, economic value and agricultural land area use partitionings, but exceeded the SOS of the caloric content partitioning. The PB method can be complementary to LCA results in terms of providing context to decision-makers in business and public policy on whether red organic wine production and consumption remain within ecological constraints on human development.

The largest wine producers globally are located in Southern Europe and climate is a major factor in wine production. The European Union aims to complement the consumer's choice for wine with information about environmental sustainability. The carbon footprint is a worldwide-standardized indicator that both wine producers and consumers perceive as the most important environmental indicator. So far, environmental life cycle assessment studies show variability in the system boundaries design and functional unit selection, and review papers do not include life cycle inventory data, and consider vineyards in various locations worldwide. This study aimed to investigate what are the key factors affecting the carbon footprint of red and white wine production in South European countries with the same climatic conditions, and benchmark both wine types. The results showed that the carbon footprints of white and red wines are comparable. The average carbon footprints were 1.02, 1.25, and 1.62 CO₂ eq. bottle of wine ⁻¹ for organic red wine, conventional red wine, and conventional white wine, respectively. The viticulture, winemaking, and packaging stages affect greatly the carbon footprint. Diesel consumption at the viticulture stage, electricity consumption at the viticulture and winemaking stages, and glass production at the packaging stage are the largest contributors to the carbon footprint. Wine consumption stage was omitted from most studies, even though it can increase the carbon footprint by 5%. Our results suggest that consumers should choose (conventional or organic) red wine that is produced locally.