We hope that you will buy our wines because you love great wine, and feel good about drinking them because we do our part to tread lightly and buy local. Our passion for local, organic, and green are not in place for marketing reasons, rather because we think a healthy local economy is important and because we typically prefer the goods and services provided by individuals and small companies. Also, it is simply easier to shop responsibly when we are closer to the source. Each time we are faced with a purchasing decision we research the options with wine-quality, environmental impact, and local impact at the top of our priority list. We welcome suggestions from customers who are also passionate about these issues.
• We have chosen to use natural cork for our wines both because it promotes the development in age-worthy wines and because it is a renewable resource. A recent study [1] concluded that “CO2 emissions resulting from the life cycle of a screw cap are 24 times higher than those from a natural cork stopper, while a plastic stopper is responsible for 10 times more CO2 than a natural cork.” An interesting wine-closure carbon calculator can be found here
• We chose Greener Printers as our label printer because they offer 100% recycled (30% PCW) label stock and print with soy based inks.
• Our banners are printed on fabric and are not only 100% PCW (made from recycling plastic water bottles) but also recyclable.
• Our grapes are 100% Colorado Grown. To date we have not been able to find a supplier for certified organic, or biodynamic, grapes in Colorado. There are a few folks in CO growing organically, but they tend to use rather than sell their harvest. We are certainly interested in contracting with growers who are organic, biodynamic, and even transitional. The Colorado Association of Viticulture and Enology organization held a meeting on the subject in the spring of 2008. With luck and persistence we hope to find organic growers within the next few seasons.
• After pressing the wine off of the skins we are left with several truckloads of organic material called “pomace”. We compost this material with the good folks at Boulder’s Center for Hard to Recycle Materials.
• Settembre Cellars is a home-based winery. Last year when our 28 year old furnace and air-conditioners gave up we replaced them with a new 90% efficient furnace and 14 seer AC.
• Slow Food is an international organization that was “founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life”. The Slow Food motto is “good, clean, fair foods”. We first became aware of Slow Food during a trip to Italy in 2004 and joined our local "convivium" that same year.
In our minds, it is hard to claim that a luxury product such as wine is truly green. After all, it would be better for the earth if we consumed tap water. Wine has a rich history of existing in the time before climate-change, landfills, and green buzz. We believe there is a place for wineries going forward through the climate crisis, and hope that we can truly be part of the solution.
[1] Wine Business Monthly. “Cork’s Green Credentials Presented in Study”. April, 2009. Page 100.
