Sustainability at Port Townsend Vineyards
Port Townsend Vineyards integrates family heritage and innovation to provide a community wine experience of the highest quality that invests in the local legacy of agriculture, sustainability and craftsmanship.
Our dedication to sustainability is seen in our winery with our low-water practices and reusable keg program, in the tasting room with wine on tap and take-home ‘growlers’, and at the vineyard with organic and biodynamic practices and hand-harvesting techniques.
Vineyard
Our vineyard at Portuguese Hill is nestled in the heart of Port Townsend and represents our values and ambitions beautifully. At 11 acres, it’s the largest vineyard in the Puget Sound AVA. With ingenuity and a dedication to organic and biodynamic practices, we’ve increased the health of the soils, developed a full canopy of grapevines, and we handpicked our first robust harvest of delicious and healthy fruit in the fall of 2018.
Kegs
Each of our reusable stainless steel kegs hold the equivalent of 26 bottles of wine. We clean them with natural cleaning agents and refill them, and the cycle continues.
In 2018, our keg and growlers kept 24,000 bottles, labels and corks out of landfills and recycling centers. Roughly half of our wine produced is kegged and served on-tap in our tasting room and at events.
Wine Growlers
Each time you fill a wine growler, you keep one wine bottle out of our recycling plants or land fills. What’s more, each of our kegs holds the equivalent of 26 750ml wine bottles, and the keg are reusable. So not only do they keep the wine stable (no issues with corkage) they are eco-responsible wine vessels.
Get the most from your growler
- Purchase a PTV growler at one of our tasting rooms.
- Fill growler with your favorite PTV wine on tap. (Hey you just saved 2 bottles!)
- Take full growler home (or bring to a friend’s), drink and enjoy!
- Clean empty growler (best to do right away - even just a quick water rinse).
- Return to one of our tasting rooms for a refill.
Wine Growler FAQs
How long does the wine last in the growler?
We recommend enjoying your wine within 5-10 days. Once opened, it will last the same amount of time as a traditionally-corked bottle of wine.
How much wine fits in there?
750 ml., the same as a bottle of wine.
How do I clean my growler?
Rinse with hot water as soon as possible. (Problems occur when small amounts of wine sit exposed to oxygen for long periods of time.) As needed, wash them like you would your wine glasses.
Why wine kegs & growlers?
We believe in being both community- and sustainability- focused. Using kegs and growlers fits this mission by giving the community a local wine that can be shared around the table, created with you in mind while staying eco-conscious.
The glass footprint
- It takes one glass bottle about 1 million years to decompose.
- Glass bottles represent between 50% and 73% of a winery’s total carbon footprint.
- While there are more than 300 million cases of wine sold in the U.S. each year, virtually none of those bottles are reused.
- Glass bottles have a low recycling rate at 34.1%. This means that two out of every three bottles end up in landfills.
- Recycling of glass containers saves some energy, but not a significant quantity compared to reuse of glass. The energy saved is about 13% of the energy required to make glass containers from virgin raw materials.
- The process of washing a wine bottle for reuse generates less than 5% of the carbon emissions created in the new production of that same bottle.