Sustainability
At Cultivar Wine and Caspar Estate, our mission is to provide Environmental Stewardship. We believe it is our responsibility to provide sustainable, earth-friendly, certified organic farming practices. We preserve, protect, and maintain our plant resources for the ecological value of future generations.
Solar Power
Our solar panels provide clean, reliable, and renewable power to our property.
Energy efficiency is critical for everything we do, at Cultivar and Caspar Estate. We’ve invested in a second-generation solar installation that we refer to as “The Solar Grove.” These solar panels provide clean, reliable, and renewable power to our property. During the hot summer months, we can also generate enough power to return energy back to the grid.
Fauna
Creating A Sanctuary For Native Species
Natural inhabitants of the land are central to the growing cycle. We’ve built six perches for Barn Owls and predatory birds to provide rodent control on the property. They eat the voles and the moles that can destroy the vines. The bats on the property also help with pest control.
Honey Bees
The bees pollinate our orchards, herb, vegetable, and rose gardens. We are mesmerized as we watch them collect pollen from the clover, dandelion, persimmon, pomegranate, blackberries, lavender, rosemary, pistachio, avocado, Meyer lemon blossoms, and over 100 varieties of roses.
Soil
A key part of maintaining organic practices is to create our own compost for our vegetation, all of our culinary garden clippings, vineyard clippings and if additional compost is needed we supplement with an organic fertilizer.
In the vineyard we plant a Rye Grass crop cover for nitrogen and soil erosion control. Rye Grass has one of the strongest root systems, as it can penetrate the rocky serpentine soil. When the Rye Grass is mowed, nitrogen is released into the soil, and the root systems allow water to move into the crevasses.
Our vineyard team uses small torches to manually burn off the weeds. This natural process allows for the ash allows the nutrients to enrich the soil. The health of our soil is one of the parts of determining the quality of what we produce. In the evenings you can hear the frogs singing.
Ladybugs
We also maintain a hospitable environment for helpful insects. We have ladybugs, butterflies and bees that are attracted to the culinary garden. We use natural repellent tags that hang on the wires across the rows that keep the “bad bugs” away and keep the “good bugs” around.
Weather Station
Water conservation may be one the most important elements of long-term sustainability. We use a weather station that provides pinpointed information about the microclimates in our own vineyards. Combined with a sophisticated drip irrigation system that utilizes moisture sensors that only provide water to individual vines as need. This system is all controlled through a tablet, which tracks the irrigation history data as well, allowing us to consistently increase efficiency.
Fayard Winemaking
Julien Fayard, our winemaker is a firm believer in treading lightly and being creative about becoming more efficient with all resources.
Our Cultivar Wine and Caspar Estate wines are produced at Fayard Winemaking.
Before any wine goes into the bottle at Julien Fayard Wines, the winemaker asks himself a question: “How do we become both better at what we’re doing and less impactful?”
Keg Wine: An Eco-Friendly, Sustainable Process
We were early adopters of the keg wine program as we have been using kegs for over 10 years. As it is a greener, fresher, better way to serve wine by the glass. We are passionate about what we do and always looking for new ways to think outside the ‘bottle’.
Serving wine from kegs reduces carbon dioxide emissions in the production and shipping process, while reducing waste from corks, bottle production and labeling. The kegs are fully recyclable, and one keg alone can replace the need for one ton of glass over the lifetime of the keg. We currently are using kegs for our 2021 Caspar Estate Sauvignon Blanc, 2021 Cultivar Rosé, 2021 Cultivar Sauvignon Blanc, 2019 Cultivar Cabernet Sauvignon, North Coast.
These wines are served from the keg at Cultivar SF. Our staff loves that it is fast and efficient. There are 26 bottles in a keg. Cultivar Wine ships kegs to like minded farm to table restaurants in California.
