We doen’t take our role as vineyard custodians lightly. Everything we do is with the thought of future generations, and leaving our land in a better place than when we first took ownership.

Sustainability is of great importance to the longevity of this family business. We’re future-proofing our vineyard in a responsible manner, with improved efficiencies and better growing outcomes for the next generations.

Here are some of the ways in which we’re trying to be more sustainable:

• Improved rainfall catchments with the installation of almost half a million litres of rainwater tanks, to complient our dam supply.
• Our use of solar power for the past decade and carbon offset program is equivalent to planting 27 trees a month.
• Computerised soil moisture probes sync to our viticulture team’s phones, allowing us to better determine location and duration of irrigation required.
• We use of dip-fed irrigation for precise control over vine watering and undertake regular vine walks to check for vine stress and irrigation efficiencies or problems.
• We apply straw mulch under vines to improve moisture retention, lower soil temps, reduce vine stress, reduce weeds and create good habitats for micro-organisms and worms to thrive in.
• We grow mid-row grasses to lower soil temperatures  and improve organic matter in our soils.
• Working alongside an agronomist, our team measure and critically examine soil nutrient levels to determine how to nurture optimal growth, fight diseases,  and improve quality using natural remedies first and foremost.
• Manure and compost are used as natural nutrient sources to improve organic soil matter and targeted liquid soil and vine nutrients are applied via drip irrigation.
• Healthy levels of beneficial bugs and insects are maintained to help with natural control of unwanted species.
• The addition of extra foliage wires on certain varietals helps to build higher canopies and protect grapes from sunburn, reduce heat stress and reduce water consumption.
• We also apply an all natural clay sunscreen to our white grapes to protect them from sunburn and heat stress, which simply washes off prior to harvest.
• We have replaced much of our labour-intensive bird netting with solar powered laser deterrents.
• The addition of our onsite winery and bottling plant has removed a substantial volume of cartage foremerly required when sending grapes to wineries after harvest, and dry goods and finished wine to and from bottling plants at every bottling.

Our sustainability efforts don’t end in the vineyard. We have recently changed over half of our bottles to lighter glass, reduced the volume of packaging and moved to a more recycled board for our cartons.

We will continue to investigate ways to improve our business operations, to lessen our impact on local and global environments.