Sustainability
Sustainability is at the heart of every decision made at Printhie Wines. We’re focussed on improving our landscape, reducing our waste and supporting local producers while respectfully working on Wiradjuri land. We invite you to follow our journey as we implement and develop new initiatives that continue to reduce our carbon footprint.
Our Sustainability Commitment
To reduce our carbon footprint whilst caring for the environment, our community, and our employees. We’ll do this by focussing on provenance, seasonality and tapping into the rich agricultural history of the Swift family. We aim to provide a true sense of place and to do this we need to care for and improve the land we work on.
Our Environmental Commitment
To protect the ecology of the Cellar Door site, continue to learn and embrace indigenous heritage and plant endangered local native flora species.
Sustainability Scorecard
As part of our sustainability journey we wanted to benchmark our performance to understand the effectiveness of our initiatives. So we completed EcoTourism Australia’s Strive 4 Sustainability Scorecard and received 92%.
Ecotourism Australia advises the scorecard is based on their existing globally recognised certification criteria. The scorecard measures where a business or tourism operator is on their sustainability journey at a point in time. Businesses track their own operations against 50 criteria across the following four pillars of sustainability.
- Sustainable Management
- Environmental Impacts
- Socio-economic Impacts
- Cultural Impacts
Below is our scorecard outlining what we received for each of the four focus areas and the overall score of 92%.
Our Initiatives:
We know that creating a sustainable business and reducing its carbon footprint doesn’t happen overnight so please join us on this journey of discovery. The initiatives below are just a snapshot of what we’re currently doing:
- The first vineyards planted at Printhie Wines in 1996 used timber posts from a pine plantation owned by the Swift family at Oberon. This ethos continues today by recycling the hail netting posts that used to cover the orchard on the Cellar Door site. They are being used in the new Millwood vineyards.
- Our new vineyards are planted east to west. The traditional north to south direction is the traditional European way and aimed to capture as much sun as possible. In Australia we don’t have that problem so by changing the direction of the vineyard rows the vines are more protected from our harsh elements such as the wind and the sun. The change in direction reduces the amount of water they need, reducing irrigation requirements and saving this precious resource.
- Creating a landscape plan for the Cellar Door site that will include a fenced off regeneration area that will be planted with local native trees
- Building a kitchen garden that will supply the majority of vegetables and herbs for the restaurant
- Compost and Chook yard will be built in 2025 so all green waste from the restaurant remains on site
- We are a styrofoam free site and work with suppliers to find alternative sustainable delivery packaging
- Phasing out single use items at the Cellar Door. All plates, crockery, napkins and cutlery used within the cellar door are multi-use including bamboo straws
- Continue to invest in equipment that will reduce energy use and lower costs
- Installation of an EV charger
- Working towards Sustainable Winegrowing Australia accreditation
- Bottling pure filtered rain water captured at the Cellar Door and provided to guests on our experiences such as the picnic and fly fishing.
Feedback and Improvements: We continuously strive to improve our sustainability and welcome feedback from our visitors. If you have suggestions on how we can enhance your experience, please let us know by emailing [email protected]
Scan the Instagram QR code below to view a reel showing a bi-product of the winery being used as mulch on the Cellar Door gardens.
