We are careful at what we do and that's why we make the best organic wine in Perth.
Sustainability is central to Harris Organic’s philosophy of vineyard management; we favour the ‘slow food’ process of wine production which is vital to our physical and environmental health. By not using industrial techniques and focussing on small-scale processing, ultimately this means caring for you and the local environment.
Land that is cared for without introduced irrigation allows the land to be used for future generations. We only use nature’s underground water on our vines.
In organic winemaking we use minimal artificial energy sources. For example
we built an underground cellar for naturally cooler storage temperatures while our wines likewise mature in natural oak, ultimately sealed in recyclable glass and use wine corks. We use very small amounts of electricity in producing a litre of wine compared with the Swan Valley and Australian average. We are against the use of pesticides.
The embodied energy in our product is minimal as we grow, crush and bottle our organic wine on site, not all Swan Valley wineries can say that.
We use all our grapes every season. Whether the gorganic grapes are used in organic wine production or used to make organic brandy spirits. Pressed organic grape skins are returned to the vineyard
for organic compost and our fat chickens eat the organic grape seeds.
We also recycle our waste. Customers are welcome to return our wine bottles for a deposit on their next purchase. Our used wine corks are given to Australian schools for use in classes.
Therefore we can claim to be one of the most sustainable wineries in Australia, producing sustainable small vineyard wines of Australia.
I was told this as a boy, and I agree. "the best fertiliser is a farmers feet" means that walking and observing the land and its soil tells you what to do. For example the sour-sobs are just starting to turn yellow in the
organic vineyard and the fest blue lupins are in flower. This means that it is time to do the Springtime undervine weeding and strip digging and turn the soil for the coming summer weather to produce a dry earth mulch.
We use low amounts of preservative and additives.
See the Additive List for the chemicals that we DO NOT use in our wine (useful if you have particular allergies).
We are a very low waste winery and we believe a zero waste sustainable winery is not possible as pallets of bottles come wrapped in plastic etc.
Since the end of 2006 we have been Certified Organic.
We have an expensive annual inspection and our practices follow
strict instructions and laws by the Australian government, such that we can meet stringent export criteria.
Carbon Neutral
We planted a green belt of trees and installed 34 solar panels producing a maximum of 7.5kW of power to offset our electricity and hydrocarbon fuel usage -
We examined using bio-dynamic products in our vineyard and concluded that
bio-dynamics created extra stirring and spraying, not to mention the petrol or diesel required to do the spraying. All that stirring must make you love your vineyard.
As we love our vineyard and there is no scientific proof
that bio-dynamics works, we see no need.
Western Australia has introduced a container deposit scheme, but not for wine bottles.
Even though we think that a wine container deposit scheme is a good thing, the government regulations would require us to label bottles with a recycle symbol, fillout paperwork and submit monthly and pay per bottle sold.
For a small producer, the impost will be more than $1 per bottle.
Following that, the amount of recycled wine bottles has been shown to NOT increase.
So what are the benefits???
We have introduced a similar container deposit scheme on Harris Organic Wine and Spirit bottles.
Friends of Harris Organic Wines may return their empty Harris Organic labelled bottles to Harris Organic to receive $0.50 per purchased bottle.
We want to you to come and enjoy what Harris Organic Wine and Spirits has to offer.
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