Established in 1994, Marnier Lapostolle, a family-owned winery in Chile, practices sustainability in several ways throughout their organic vineyard, including overall energy conservation and carbon emissions reduction. The winery also earned a CarbonNeutral delivery certification by CarbonNeutral Company.
Marnier Lapostolle Winery composts approximately 700 tons of grape skins and stems per year, saves and reuses water and bottles their wines in lighter bottles. Utilizing lighter bottles saves over 300 tons of glass from being transported per year.
Lapostolle’s vineyards are also biodynamic and self-sustaining. Artificial fertilizers, chemical pesticides, herbicides, plant growth regulators and genetically-modified organisms are nowhere to be found on the farm.
If your green thumb gives these green practices two thumbs up, purchase a bottle of Lapostolle Cuvée Alexandre Cabernet Sauvignon 2009. It’s available at Total Wine and More in Tampa (totalwine.com).
For more information, visit www.lapostolle.com.
Have you "herd" how some sheep are green? At least, that rings true at Concannon Vineyards in Livermore, California.
Established in 1883 by James Concannon, this vineyard houses a herd of over twenty sheep, which play a crucial role in Concannon Vineyard’s sustainability programs. These Concannon Olde English Babydoll Southdown Sheep are a pertinent part of the vineyard’s organic vegetation management.
- Concannon Vineyards
- Spanky the sheep
Not only are these miniature sheep cute, but they handle many important tasks, such as controlling weed growth and underbrush and saving energy by reducing tractor use and tilling. Their two-foot stature allows them to crawl easily under vineyard drop lines, so they cover more territory as a result. They also “fertilize” the vineyard when nature calls. Their canine supervisors (two livestock dogs) helped raise the herd, and protect them on the vineyard.
Concannon Vineyards, a Napa Valley winery, earned organic certification in 2010, and strives to protect vineyards from urban development.
For more information, visit www.concannonvineyard.com.
