Sustainability
A word much overused but we wanted to explain what we believe sustainability means for our business.
Firstly any business has to be sustainable financially, all the green or climate friendly measures deployed will come to naught without financial sustainability.
Our Approach to Sustainability
In life you never stop learning and the need to adapt to constantly make your impression on the planet lighter. We are not an organic or bio-dynamic vineyard, we can’t from a financial sustainability perspective see how in the UK climate we could maintain a viable business through following those guidelines. We can see the benefit of adapting how we operate to incorporate aspects of good practice to help reduce our impact on the planet.
Chemicals
- Insecticides – we have never used any on our site.
- Herbicides – we stopped using them in 2018 moving to manual intervine tilling and mowing
- Fungicides – we do use them; we take specialist agronomist advice to ensure we have the ability to use applications from the organic sector if they have a proven benefit alongside more conventional treatments sometimes replacing them completely
- Spraying – we are conscious of the location we occupy and beyond not only abiding by the relevant regulations we also seek to spray at even more optional times based on weather data and to use lower doses where possible as part of our pest management plan
Packaging
- Bottles, all that are used are widely recyclable, still wine bottles are eco bottles
- Closures, we use stelvin and cork both of which can be recycled
- Labels, our labels are fully recyclable being paper based
- Boxes, we only use carboard made from approved source material and Paul will try and get at least 3 turns out of a cardboard box where possible
Energy
- We use 100% green energy suppliers for single phase electricity on site
- We have plans to move to solar with a storage capability
- 3 phase electricity when used remains being provided by a generator
Transport
- Our carriers for our wine have green transport plans and are moving towards a greener transport future
- Our local deliveries are currently made using a petrol vehicle but will move to an EV later
- Our tractors use diesel and until we have better availability for bio diesel we will have to continue to operate in this manner
Wine and Apple Juice Making
- Our winery uses a green energy source
- All pressing waste from grapes and apples are returned to the food chain via a dairy herd or pig unit
- We use water to run our apple presses on a closed loop thereby reducing water waste
We have more to do and this list will be updated further, we are founder members of the WineGB sustainability group and we will in time move towards the full sustainability standard that is being developed
