Our Sustainability Commitment
We’re delighted to announce that we’ve been awarded the Sustainable Wines of Great Britain accreditation by WineGB. As a founding member of the scheme, we’re proud to be flying the flag for sustainability within our industry and collectively reducing our impact on the environment.
At Exton Park, our vision is to create beautifully crafted wines without compromising the world around us. We are committed to minimising our environmental impact wherever possible, opting for a more natural approach in the way we grow, manage and harvest our crops. That means nurturing the land holistically, enhancing the ecosystem around the vineyard, preserving natural habitats and promoting biodiversity.
Each year, we introduce new sustainability projects to run alongside some of our more established practices, to continue working towards our sustainability goals. We have already successfully lowered our carbon footprint by generating renewable electricity through our solar energy panels.
In 2020, we welcomed some exciting new additions to the vineyard to help with our conservation and biodiversity efforts. These include a new set of neighbours – sheep, birds and bees!
Sheep were introduced to the vineyard in the autumn, grazing on our grass and acting as a natural fertilizer for our soil. This means we can avoid using energy-intensive machinery like lawn mowers and rotavators to keep our soil in check.
Over the summer we introduced several bird boxes to the vineyard, which are now home to a large family of nesting swifts. We have also built seven beehives to encourage cross-pollination of our cover crops and to help maintain the natural eco-system around the vineyard.
We’ve increased our cover crops to 30 different varieties ranging from grass, wildflowers, herbs and grains. These help to keep our soil full of nutrients which, in turn, generates healthy vines and grapes.
With more sustainability projects in the pipeline, we’re fully committed and feeling excited about the journey ahead. We’ll be working towards the objectives set by the Sustainable Wines of Great Britain scheme, further building on our improvements from the past few years and proudly leading the way in putting sustainability at the heart of UK wine production.
