Samara Piluris-Sheehy

Review of Yealands Wine Group

Incredible experience. The world's most sustainabl...

Incredible experience. The world's most sustainable vinyard. Wine tasting and a 'self-guided' drive through the world's most sustainable vinyard Peter Yealands in Malborough! It was really interesting as they have a zero carbon offset, the largest solar installation in NZ producing 500 000 kwh, they produce 50 000 tonnes of compost (using the waste product of grapes, mussel shells, seaweed and sawdust from a local sawmill) to boost the vines growth, they use ex battery chickens and sheep to keep the grass down and they even play classical music to the vines .

The most interesting part was all the vine clippings at the end of the season they bail up (see picture) and then later burn to heat liquids as part of the wine making process, they then put the ashes into the compost! Each bale weighs around 200kg and when burned provides the equivalent heat of approximately 60Kg of LPG. At full capacity the burners can produce 500kW of energy, enough to keep the average household going for three weeks! This process eliminates over 180 tonnes of CO2 per year.

Other than the free wine tasting which was very nice, they allow all visitors to do a self tour of the vinyard with a map which was very interesting, came across some 'overly friendly chickens!' listened to the music and dodged sheep running between the vines! Anyway hats off to Peter Yealand and his winery!!