NEWS & INFORMATION

Being as sustainable as possible makes perfect sense

Terroir is often thought of as a snooty wine term. But it's actually a really beautiful concept – especially as it's described by Suzanne Hunt in celebration of Earth Day.

At its best, winemaking is about capturing the unique essence of your place and all of your practices – the terroir – in every bottle of wine. So the fact that we put so much emphasis on stewardship of the land and being as sustainable as possible here at Hunt Country makes perfect sense.

Because our stewardship – all of our decisions about how to take care of the terroir – is critical to the essence of our wine.

To make great wine, you have to have clean air, clean water and healthy soil.

Watch Caring for the Land, a short video that tells our story of sustainability and stewardship.

In Finger Lakes vineyards, climate change has already arrived

“We’re already seeing changes in climate that are likely to have big impacts on the wine industry in the Northeast, including Upstate New York," says Ben Cook, a climate scientist with Columbia University and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Hunt Country Vineyards might be at the forefront of responding to human-caused climate change – and at taking steps to prevent it.

Here's a great story by Glenn Coin from The Post-Standard in Syracuse about how we and other Finger Lakes wineries are taking on the challenge of climate change.

Hunt Country is the First Finger Lakes Winery to Install Electric Vehicle Chargers

The Hunt family has just installed five electric vehicle chargers in their parking lot at Hunt Country Vineyards on Keuka Lake, which makes them the first winery in the Finger Lakes to provide charging stations to their customers.

"Sustainability is an evolution," says Suzanne Hunt, director of strategic development at Hunt Country Vineyards and a global consultant on renewable energy. "The EV chargers are just one more thing we can do as a business to help accelerate the transition to clean, locally-produced power.”

In 2015, the Hunts installed a 348-panel solar system that provides most of the electricity used by the farm and winery. As a result, Hunt Country Vineyards and three other collaborating Finger Lakes wineries collectively received the national Solar Champion Award from the Solar Energy Industries Association for their leadership in helping the region transition to solar energy use.

According to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), transportation currently accounts for 40 percent of the state's greenhouse gas pollution that contributes to a changing climate. Conventional cars and trucks also generate pollutants that directly affect human health, including carbon monoxide, particulate matter, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and other toxins.

Electric vehicles, of course, don’t produce any of these emissions. And even though electricity generated by burning fossil fuels is often used to charge EVs, the Union of Concerned Scientists has determined that it's still four times cleaner to drive an electric car than the average conventional car.

"Electric vehicles are the only vehicles that get cleaner over time, as our grid gets cleaner," says Hunt. "The faster we transition to renewables, the faster we eliminate the harmful emissions."

EVs also incur dramatically lower lifetime costs to their owners due to reduced (or non-existent) fuel costs and lower maintenance costs. A typical internal combustion engine has over 300 parts whereas an electric motor has fewer than ten, significantly reducing the number of things that can break or require replacing.

"Driving an EV not only keeps the air cleaner but also keeps more money in your pocket," says Hunt.

The Hunts have installed four Tesla chargers and one universal charger, which can be used for other types of vehicles like the Chevy Volt and Bolt, the Nissan Leaf and the BMW i3. All five chargers were acquired through a program at Tesla: the company provides the chargers for free and pays for the installation, while the recipient business arranges and oversees the installation.

"And now we can provide free power to our customers with EVs," says Hunt. "We've already planned for the installation of additional universal chargers as more and more people come to the winery in electric vehicles."

According to several searches for EV charging stations in the Finger Lakes on the Tesla website (www.tesla.com/destination-charging), PlugShare (www.plugshare.com), ChargePoint (www.chargepoint.com) and Solving EV (www.solvingev.com), Hunt Country Vineyards is the only winery on Keuka, Seneca and Cayuga lakes to have charging stations available to their customers.