SUS­TAIN­ABIL­I­TY

As an estate win­ery, we believe that a long term view is nec­es­sary and that true sus­tain­abil­i­ty is an evo­lu­tion, not an end­point. Our suc­cess­ful future endeav­ors all depend on how we treat our land, peo­ple and com­mu­ni­ty. Scroll down to read about our sus­tain­abil­i­ty ini­tia­tives, from Water Effi­cien­cy to Community.

Energy Efficiency

If there is one thing we have an abun­dance of here in Paso Rob­les, it’s sun­shine. The major­i­ty of our tast­ing room, restau­rant, winer­ies and wells have been pow­ered by solar ener­gy since 2015. We also offer cus­tomers and staff solar-pow­ered elec­tric car charg­ing. All of our build­ings are extreme­ly ener­gy effi­cient and designed with insu­la­tion, nat­ur­al light, scal­able sys­tems, and grav­i­ty-flow wine­mak­ing to reduce elec­tric­i­ty use.

Water Efficiency & Recapture

Our water mot­to is: reduce use, recap­ture rain­wa­ter and recy­cle waste­water. To reduce use, we deficit irri­gate the vine­yard, use water-effi­cient pres­sure wash­ers and appli­ances and inten­sive­ly mon­i­tor vine­yard irrigation.

To recap­ture rain­wa­ter, we have an indus­try-lead­ing rain­fall cap­ture sys­tem that allows us to cap­ture extra water off the win­ery roof and tast­ing room land­scap­ing dur­ing Win­ter storms. This also helps us mit­i­gate ero­sion on the prop­er­ty. We then store the rain­wa­ter in ponds and draw from those reserves first dur­ing the hot sum­mer months.

We also recy­cle our waste­water to use for vine­yard irri­ga­tion. Each time we wash a tank or a bar­rel in the win­ery, the water runoff is col­lect­ed through floor drains, pumped through a con­struct­ed wet­lands habi­tat to clean it, then stored in a pond. This closed-loop sys­tem means that we are also very mind­ful of the clean­ing prod­ucts we use – and opt for soft clean­ers that are safe for our team and the ducks in the final stor­age pond.

Sustainable Farming

We are ded­i­cat­ed to improv­ing our soil health. We graze sheep in the Spring, apply organ­ic fer­til­iz­er in the Sum­mer and have a robust on-site com­post pro­gram. We are able to com­post 100% of our stems and pomace (left­over grape skins) and oth­er shrubbery/​tree limbs from our prop­er­ty. The com­post is spread in the vine­yard, and made into com­post teas we apply under the vines. We do not use her­bi­cides, poi­son baits or syn­thet­ic fungi­cides. We also keep wildlife cor­ri­dors in the vine­yard, which house every­thing from red-tailed hawks to great horned owls, snakes, skunks, coy­otes, ducks and more. We also have bees on site to encour­age pol­li­na­tion in our Chef’s Garden.

Community & Employee Development

We donate over $200k annu­al­ly through a linked foun­da­tion to orga­ni­za­tions that address equal­i­ty, envi­ron­men­tal and edu­ca­tion access issues. We cook and deliv­er a month­ly meal to the Echo Home­less Shel­ter, part­ner with Must! Char­i­ties, sup­port local radio and sup­port the SIP Schol­ar­ship for first-gen­er­a­tion col­lege stu­dents. For our employ­ees, we have an edu­ca­tion fund, offer com­pre­hen­sive health insur­ance, run a match­ing 401(k) pro­gram, and offer com­pet­i­tive salaries. Each employ­ee can also par­tic­i­pate in our annu­al ​“Giv­ing Pro­gram” where they choose a char­i­ty for us to make a $2,000 dona­tion to in their name and will match any addi­tion­al funds they donate directly.

Third-Party Certifications

In 2023 we were award­ed the Cal­i­for­nia Green Medal Sus­tain­able Wine­grow­ing Lead­er­ship Award for Busi­ness. This award rec­og­nizes busi­ness­es for their advanced sus­tain­abil­i­ty prac­tices and inno­va­tion based on a com­pre­hen­sive judg­ing process focused on both sus­tain­able viti­cul­ture and winemaking.

Our winer­ies, tast­ing room and restau­rant are cer­ti­fied Sil­ver in the ​“Lead­er­ship in Ener­gy and Envi­ron­men­tal Design” pro­gram. LEED is the ​“glob­al­ly rec­og­nized stan­dard for the design, con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion of high-per­for­mance green build­ings and neigh­bor­hoods.” This cer­ti­fi­ca­tion speaks to the way our build­ings are built: fea­tures like motion-acti­vat­ed lights, night-air cool­ing and our on-site water recla­ma­tion sys­tem are all factors.

Our winer­ies and vine­yards are SIP Cer­ti­fied. If you think of LEED as a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for how our build­ings are con­struct­ed; SIP (“Sus­tain­abil­i­ty in Prac­tice”) is a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for how we oper­ate. We could have the most envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly build­ing around and it would be a moot point if we left on all of our lights and opened up our water taps. The SIP Win­ery Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion includes a third-par­ty audit that mon­i­tors our resource use and oper­at­ing plans to ensure that we are being sus­tain­able in our prac­tices. In 2016 we became the first win­ery to achieve this certification.