Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Wine Makes Good

Ok, so here's the deal. I love making wine and being in the wine business. But ultimately, I don't want to be just another schmo schlepping wine. Where's the fun in that? I want to make a difference in the world - I think all of us do, in one way or another. But it's a challenge - you grow up, you have kids, and pretty soon you've got financial and time commitments that make it all but impossible to give of yourself. Amazingly, many people still do, which is a real tribute to the human spirit. But for the majority of us, whose paths have led us outside the direct philanthropic arena, and whose careers don't have a lot of cushion in them, it can be very difficult to help realize the changes that are so desperately wanted in the world.

My calling is winemaking. I wouldn't be happy doing anything else. So how could I turn that passion into a force for the greater good? My inspiration came from my friend Scott James, founder of Fair Trade Sports. Like that company, I decided (with Sarah's support) that Eleven Winery will always donate all of its profits to charity, specifically charities that focus on ending the cycle of poverty, in the U.S. and abroad. We anticipate reaching profitability in 2009; until then, we will donate $1,000 annually to World Bicycle Relief, an organization that provides bicycles to communities in Africa (they had a cool segment on the Today Show recently, btw). We will also continue to donate to charity auctions in our hometown and the Seattle area, as we have done since our first year - our contributions in this area totaled $9,000 in 2008, and helped those charities raise even more.

So that's it. I hope that what we have done is to create wines that you not only love and have fun with, but feel really good about drinking. You've earned it - by buying our wines you really are helping to make a difference. We will continue to keep you updated on these efforts as they progress.

If you'd like to know more about how it works to be a company that gives away all of its profits, read this great FAQ put together by Fair Trade Sports.

Cheers!

Matt

Monday, December 1, 2008

Sustainable Christmas Wine

If you're looking for a sustainable Christmas gift, Eleven wines are ideal. We source from vineyards that are sustainably farmed, we use packaging that is wholly recyclable or renewable, and the winery itself is carbon-neutral.

For more sustainable gift ideas check out the Sustainable Bainbridge Holiday Guide.

Making the winery carbon-neutral was easy, since we use so little energy. Being located in the Puget Sound area, having really good insulation is just about all that is needed to maintain the winery at a cool temperature year-round. All of our on-site energy usage is electric, no gas, which in Washington means most of it is from hydro power. We purchased carbon credits to offset our on-site usage as well as all of our driving, including wine deliveries and trucking of grapes. In fact, our entire household is now carbon-neutral, not just the winery. It was very reasonably priced. Find out how you can go carbon-neutral at Native Energy (just one of a plethora of sources of carbon credits).

Many wineries are now using screw-caps or plastic corks to seal their bottles, but we continue to use natural cork. Why? In addition to the fact that a top-quality cork provides just as good a seal as a screw cap (and way better than a plastic cork after the first few years), natural corks are biodegradable, renewable, and (as though that weren't enough) cork farms are old-growth forests, providing habitat for many species of birds and other animals, some of them endangered. Audubon magazine published a brilliant article on this topic, and even went so far as to encourage its members to only drink wines sealed with a cork. It turns out that while there is no shortage of cork (that's a lie promulgated by promoters of synthetic closures to justify their actions), wine corks are the only use of cork that pays enough to keep cork farmers in business. No wine corks, no cork forests. And when they're done being wine corks, the cork can go on to be other things. We save all of our used corks and send them to Korks 4 Kids, which sells them to recyclers and donates the proceeds to children's charities.

The other parts of our package may not save the world, but at least they don't screw it up. Our tin capsules are printed with water-based ink, and the manufacturer will buy them back from you for scrap if you send them in (or send them to us and we'll take care of it - we save all the capsules from bottles we open). The bottles themselves are glass, which is completely natural and recyclable, though even glass is under attack - some wineries are switching to plastic and claiming it's eco-friendly. This is so utterly ludicrous I'm not sure how they can spout this nonsense with a straight face. Like with synthetic closures, the real reason for their shift is to save money (in this case shipping costs, since plastic bottles are lighter than glass). But they're creating mountains of marginally-recyclable garbage and using up non-renewable resources to do it - and ignoring the potential health risks of putting wine into plastic bottles. And finally, our labels are paper, made from trees, which have a well-documented habit of growing back...

We try hard to recycle everything that comes into the winery, in addition to making our package as eco-friendly as possible. More on that in future posts.