Sustainability in the Winery

How do we ensure sustainability in our winery operations?

1.  Design for Sustainability

A key component is in designing sustainability at the beginning.  When we moved from Ladysmith to our new location in Cowichan Bay, we had a chance to incorporate some neat ideas into our winery building.  We use a tankless water heater, as we use hot water infrequently, but when we use it, we use a lot.  We also keep our building heat on only minimally during the winter.  During the coldest spells, we kept the heat on at 7 degrees Celcius; but, in milder conditions, we turn it off altogether and let the temperature hover just above freezing.  This reduces the energy required to keep the building warm, but also helps with the cold stabilization of the wines.  Our energy requirement is kept minimal, and the entire winery building is fed from a tiny 60 amp circuit. 

2. Operating for sustainability

Our best practices are to use as few chemicals in our winemaking as possible.  By hand-harvesting our grapes and maintaining very high quality standards, we have very few chemical interventions in our winemaking.  The low pH wines made from Vancouver Island grapes have the added bonus of requiring much less sulphites to maintain an adequate level of protection over the wines.  Our red wines are fined only with egg whites, and the whites with bentonite (clay).  Both natural materials.  By maintaining high quality standards in our fruit, we don’t typically need to use chemicals in our fining.  This reduces the impact on the environment and improves the quality of the wines.

We also recycle wastes from the winery, and the organic waste from the winery is reused in the vineyard.  We initially purchased all reconditioned barrels, which extend the life of barrels by an extra 50%.  When our first barrels are finally no longer suitable for storing wine we intend to turn them into planters and reuse them that way.

Three years ago, we looked into a new closure called Zork.  We are the first ones to use this in Western Canada and one of the reasons is for the sustainability factor.  This is recyclable and reusable.  This also has an air permeability designed in it for the benefits of aging wines.  Zork is the best of the cork and screwtops.  You don’t need a corkcrew to open, yet it does have the traditional pop.  It also seals tight and easy to use; however, the Zork is designed with a layer of air permeability, which is a very important part for the winemaker.  We find this a superior product.   We tested it with some of our fruit wines and rose.  We are now doing our complete line with the Zork, including a possibility of a sparkling closure that reseals to keep the bubbles!  Look for it in stores.  Other wineries are now inquiring about this closure as well.