GREENFIELD — This Earth Month, Scheid Family Wines celebrates nearly seven years of being 100% powered by renewable wind energy.
The Greenfield family-owned and operated wine company, which has embraced sustainability as a core tenet since its inception in 1972, is the only winery in the Monterey AVA to put the natural power of the wind to work to lower its CO2 emissions.
In 2023 alone, the wine company’s 400-foot tall, 1.85-megawatt wind turbine produced more than 4 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of renewable wind energy: 2.6 million kWh fulfilled all winery and bottling operation needs and the surplus — enough to power 125 homes in the local community — was supplied to PG&E.
From its installation in 2017 through 2023, the company’s wind turbine has generated a total of 25.6 million kWh, equivalent to a reduction in CO2 emissions of over 17,000 metric tons.
One of the factors that makes the Monterey AVA ideal for fine wine production also makes it ideal for this form of renewable energy, as the turbine harnesses the power of the region’s year-round winds.
As warm air rises each day in the Salinas Valley, it draws cooler ocean breezes off the nearby Pacific Ocean, which are funneled between the Gabilan and Santa Lucia mountain ranges and down the valley, with increasing force as the day progresses. At their peak, these winds approach 30 miles per hour.
“At Scheid Family Wines, we’re proud to say that our wines are 100% powered by wind,” said Heidi Scheid, executive vice president of Scheid Family Wines. “Making the switch to renewable energy over six years ago is just one of the many things we continue to do to reduce our carbon emissions.”
Scheid Family Wines, a top 20 wine producer in California, produces high-quality, estate-grown wines from its sustainably certified vineyards and grower partners throughout the Central Coast.
The company employs low-impact and organic farming methods, measured water use, integrated pest management, energy reduction techniques, and the recycling of all winery wastewater to irrigate the vineyards. Its estate vineyards have been certified sustainable since 2014 and its estate winery since 2018 through the Certified California Sustainable Winegrowing program.
Scheid Family Wines farms over 600 acres of organically certified vineyards in the Monterey AVA, making it the largest certified organic winegrape grower in the Central Coast growing region of California. Visit scheidfamilywines.com for more.
