Green Wine   

Belgrave Park Winery is now a completely carbon neutral vineyard and winery. This is a rare feat in the wine industry and for small businesses.

Even though wine is a completely natural product, producing wine does cause carbon emissions. We wanted to do our bit for the planet by becoming more green and have now achieved a zero carbon footprint. 

This makes us one of only half a dozen wineries in the whole of Australia to reach this target.

Belgrave Park have implemented a range of carbon-reduction measures including -

• Installing a 3 kilowatt grid-connected solar power system, which not only provides most of our own electricity but feeds back into the grid most of the day

• Using 100% GreenPower renewable energy (this is energy generated entirely from renewable sources) for all other power, and

• Planting over 700 trees on our property.

The carbon-reduction strategy firstly involved an audit of all our existing carbon emissions, using the International Wine Carbon Protocol for CO2 Emissions. This enables a winery to assess its carbon footprint across the total process from the grapevines right through to the bottled wine, and is the protocol adopted by the Winemakers Federation of Australia.

Even though we were already aware of most of our CO2 emitters such as power and fuel, the audit was a surprise in some respects. For example, we had no idea that glass bottles were so energy-intensive in their manufacture. There were also many other small contributors that hadn’t been considered before, such as fertiliser usage, cardboard cartons and even screwcaps, which all added to the total winery footprint.

The audit showed that energy usage, particularly in the winery cooling processes, was the single greatest driver of our existing carbon emissions. 

We have installed a solar power system which provides the winery’s main power. This is also connected to the mains power grid, so when we are producing more power than is being consumed, the surplus is fed back into the mains.

The balance of our electricity needs are provided by 100% renewable GreenPower, which is energy generated from sources like mini hydro, wind power and biomass - all of which produce no net greenhouse gas emissions. 

We have planted over 700 native trees on the property, along with extensive landscaping, which will sequester over 100 tonnes of CO2

We are completely self-sufficient for all our water needs. The winery uses water from our large rainwater storage tanks and there is also a dam for vineyard drip irrigation. 

Drip irrigation is the most efficient means of watering plants as it only applies water directly under each grapevine - there is no runoff or wastage. We monitor soil moisture in the vineyard through the summer growing period and only irrigate when absolutely necessary.