Harnessing Natural Energy
Summer sunlight is abundant in Virginia, and wineries like Hark Vineyards, Sunset Hills Vineyard, Glass House Winery, and Knight’s Gambit Vineyard are capturing the light to solar-power their business.
Fifty-Third Winery and Walsh Family Wines went further and became LEED certified through the U.S. Green Building Council. Pearmund Cellars and Barrel Oak Winery run their HVAC systems with geothermal, which uses 25-50% less energy.
At Northern Virginia’s Maggie Malick Wine Caves, winemaker Maggie Malick and her husband Mark pour their wines from inside a man-made wine cave. The cave helps them reduce their carbon footprint by maintaining a constant cool temperature year-round for their wines. Of course, there’s also the coolness factor of sipping albariño beneath four feet of earth and grass.
Sustainable Packaging Usage
Several Virginia wineries are making strides in sustainable ways to hold their wines. According to Washington Post wine writer Dave McIntyre, how wines are packaged is a big part of their environmental impact.
“Glass accounts for about sixty percent of wine’s carbon footprint, mostly through the production and transport of empty and full bottles,” McIntyre said.
He and others in wine media are leading the call for wineries to ditch their heavy bottles and do what Hark Vineyards and Barrel Oak Winery are doing—going light with eco-glass bottles, which are twenty-five percent lighter than the standard.
At Bluestone Vineyard in the Shenandoah Valley, customers can spend twelve dollars to refill a growler. If preferred, guests can buy an assortment of Lee Hartman’s wine in cans. Hartman says the easily-recyclable cans are popular for camping, hiking, and music festivals.
“They’re also less of a commitment than cracking into a bottle twice their size. And, no corkscrew,” Hartman said.
Farther up the Valley, Muse Vineyards has also jumped into canned wine. Their social media posts proudly declare “You CAN take it everywhere,” picturing the cans next to swimming pools and on mountaintops. Muse’s cans are 250-ml—a “nice, generous single pour,” according to owner Sally Muse.
Michael Shaps Wineworks in Charlottesville was the first to sell its wines in boxes and also pours from the tap for growlers, carafes, or by the glass at their Wineworks Extended location.
Glass House Winery in Free Union wins the prize for the most creative use of empties; when the county stopped recycling glass, then-owner Jeff Sanders used nearly twenty thousand bottles to build an entire tasting and events building. It’s now a must-see attraction for wine fans from all over.
At Chateau Merrillanne, they’ve switched from the “what-do-I-do-with-this-now” cardboard wine carriers to reusable bags customers can take to the grocery store.
The challenges around growing and crafting good wine won’t change anytime soon, but neither will the commitment of these and other wineries around the state to keep investing in solutions that help them make wine in a way that also helps the planet.
