Re-cycling

Re-cycling?... Sorted!

At the beginning of the year I wrote an entry in our blog about 'Green Issues' (the Environment) and how we work hard in our vineyards to be as ecologically friendly as possible. This is, of course, only half the story, as this work continues inside the Bodega too (albeit that the effects of this are much more difficult to quantify). Whilst we have no official accreditation, we are extremely pro-active on many different environmental fronts.

Angela is probably the most obsessive person I know when it comes to re-cycling ,and so it goes without saying that we have re-cycling bins throughout the bodega, and for every type of material - wood, glass, metal, paper, plastic and organics. Bottles that we open in the cellar for tastings (or even drinking at home) are carefully washed and re-filled at bottling (although these are not re-used for customer orders). Even our cardboard cartons are re-cycled if they are not too dirty or damaged.

The bottling line is probably the greatest generator of waste materials. The packing materials from bottles, corks, capsules etc are carefully separated (mostly cardboard and plastics) and then taken to the local re-cycling centre the following day.

In order to reduce our carbon footprint as much as possible, we now use different ordering patterns for our ‘dry goods’, which in turn reduces the number of deliveries that we require. For example, bottles are now taken in full truck loads, and corks in full pallets (giving us enough materials to bottle three of our 9,000 litre tanks). As you can easily calculate, this reduces the number of deliveries to us by 66%. Cartons, capsules and labels are ordered in a similar way, with savings of between 50 and 66%.

So hopefully you can see that, in our own humble way, we do try make a contribution to preserve our environment.

Footnote: Please also note that our Albariño is suitable for vegetarians as we do not use any meat derived products during handling or vinification.