What does this do to the carbon footprint of a wine?
According to a story in Wines & Vines this Tuesday, Flora Springs, the Napa Valley winery owned by the Garvey and Komes families, has installed enough solar panels on a hillside behind their winery to power all of their yearly red wine production. How many solar panels does it take to power a year’s worth of red wine from Flora Springs? 435 SunTech panels at 170w each, that’s how many! That covers over 6,000 square feet; they installed the panels on an elevated platform to allow for shady storage below. Isn’t that clever, now?
Flora Springs takes its sustainability pretty seriously. They’re in the process of getting all of their vineyards certified as organic, which takes 3 years in California. About 70% of the vineyards will be certified organic by 2009. No word if they’re planning to convert the white wine production to solar too, but kudos to Flora Springs! They make great wine, and now there’s a great excuse to drink more of it.