Megan Witherspoon, who heads up Wine Conscience, just posted a fantastic write-up on our sustainability practices and how they are largely generational.  By ‘generational’ I mean that being responsible winegrowers and land stewards today is key to the future of our next generation.

We feel that doing things like generating clean solar power, restoring native wildlife habitat, and using our water resources efficiently are all steps in the right direction.

Read Megan’s post “Sustainability as a Family Tradition” here!

Also, check out Megan’s follow up post on Lodi’s green winegrowing program, Lodi Rules for Sustainable Winegrowing.

Here’s a video of Aaron speaking at the Generations on the Land Symposium at Texas A&M last October.  Hosted by the Sand County Foundation, the landowner symposium featured over 11 Leopold Conservation Award Winning farming families (us in 2006!) who shared their philosophies of responsible land management and conservation.

Check out the video:

For more on our sustainability efforts, see here and here!

We have been following the Viognier from December 2nd, when the wine finished fermentation, before it headed into barrels, and way before aging. But one important part that isn’t winemaking, is its package!

The Viognier has a similar design to its Generations Tier sibling, the Petit Verdot Petite Sirah, only the picture is unique to the Viognier vineyard. We racked our brains thinking of something that reminds us of the vineyard and then it came to us… our vineyard has an owl nesting box on the edge of the property. When we are in the vineyard there is always a chance of catching the owl coming and going!

And we have also printed the label using 30% Post Consumer Recycled Paper. We talk about post consumer a ton around here, and it is simply paper stock that has a portion of consumer items that would otherwise have been disposed of as waste. These include office paper, cardboard, aluminum cans, plastics and metals.

With the label and wine complete and bottling scheduled in a few weeks (stay tuned for a few pictures!), we are excited to have our first ever Viognier in bottle ready to drink for the summer!

The release date and first taste outside the winery walls? The Wine Club’s Summer Selection!