A recent ABC piece discusses the rise of sustainability in the wine industry, from production methods to power sources. Currently, at least four wineries in California and Oregon have attained LEED certification for their facilities, with more than a dozen currently going through the certification process. This includes California’s Cade winery, which expects to achieve LEED-Gold certification later this year. Wineries that are already Gold-certified include Stoller Vineyards in Dayton, Oregon, and Hall, in California’s Napa Valley, the article said.

The certified facilities each demonstrate a variety of sustainable design strategies that blend high technology with traditional production methods. For example, Hall’s facility in the Napa Valley town of St. Helena features radiant flooring, local and recycled building materials, drought-resistant landscaping, and low-flow fixtures that reduce the facility’s water use by 40 percent compared to a conventionally built facility. Additionally, the winery’s acreage in Napa and Sonoma counties are organically farmed and are scheduled to be certified organic within the next year, according to an article about the winery’s LEED certification. Below, a video explores the features that earned Hall a Gold certification.

Meanwhile, at the University of California-Davis, a winery designed for instructional use is currently under construction at the college’s Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science. The university expects the winery will be the first to achieve LEED-Platinum certification; the facility will be entirely solar-powered to boot. Positioning itself as the central authority on sustainability in winemaking, the college is also innovating rainwater harvesting, heat recovery, and water reuse techniques that will help wineries further reduce their ecological footprint, the article said.

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Chris Timmerman
Contributing Writer
Green Education Services
www.greenedu.com