Bolney Wine Estate is delighted to have been awarded the World’s Finest Glass of Bubbly Sustainability Award. On Monday afternoon, the trophy presentation was live-streamed from the beautiful Sussex vineyard, during which Shane Holland, Executive Chair of Slow Food UK presented Sam Linter, MD & head winemaker at Bolney Wine Estate with the award.
A three-generation family business led by Sam Linter, Bolney has been guided by nature since 1972 when its first vines were planted. The Estate team believes that the more it understands and takes inspiration from the nature in & around the vineyard, the more it can appreciate its needs and protect its diversity and beauty for future generations. Across the estate, they have installed solar panels creating a more sustainable way of working. These generate approximately 50% of the electricity used across the site and, generate up to 25KW of power which is enough to run its disgorging and labelling lines. On long sunny summer days, the panels generate more electricity than they actually use, so any left-over electricity goes to the National Grid for use elsewhere.
In March 2021, in partnership with Brighton Energy Cooperative (BEC), Bolney Wine Estate installed the first of its new network of community owned, solar-linked electric vehicle charge points at the estate. This is the first community solar-linked electric vehicle charge point in the South East, and allows visitors to charge their vehicles whilst enjoying the estate.
On winning the award, Sam Linter explained that “at Bolney our ethos has for many years been centred around ‘Guided by Nature’ and this is embedded in the heritage of the brand. We always strive to develop how we can be even more sustainable and build on this ethos. The principle of sustainable management is crucial to our continued existence and growth as a company, so we look at everything from mulching grapevine prunings back into the soil to our local sourcing policy for the restaurant. We’re really proud to have achieved what we have to date, so it’s wonderful to have been recognised with this award, but there is so much more we can do and will continue to evolve in this area.”
Discover more about Bolney Wine Estate here.
Comments