Cedar Mountain Winery combines the creative interests of Linda and Earl Ault wine food and art. Earl is an accomplished sculptor watercolorist and large format photographer. Linda is a recognized amateur gourmet chef. Together they manage the farming activities and operate the winery. Earl is the winemaker. The Aults believe that quality wines begin with the grapes in the vineyard. They specialize primarily in Livermore grown and produced wines.
JK: Can you provide readers with a little background on who you are, why you care about sustainability and what you’re doing?
LA: Earl has been on the Board of Directors for the Wine Institute for many, many years (we are the smallest winery on the board). We have been practicing their Sustainable Winegrowing Practices for both the winery and the vineyard since they published the guide in 2002. The self-assessment workbook/guide is aliving document that is frequently updated. To us sustainability means a minimum impact on the environment. Why spray insecticide when lady bugs and soap will do (and the soap bio-degrades to fertilizer). Weeds in the vineyard are OK – they harbor pests that would be on the grapes. Disking the weed into the vineyard wipes out one generation of pests and adds compost to the vineyard at the same time. As for the winery, Cedar Mountain Winery is the only certified green winery in Alameda County. To be certified we had to pass audits in the following areas: solid waste reduction and recycling, energy conservation, water conservation and pollution prevention. And we must show improvements every year in order to maintain our certification. This past year we took out all of the water hungry landscaping in front of the winery, donated the plants to the local college for their plant sale and put in drought resistant, native California plants. After this year we won’t have to water them. We also put in a tankless water heater in the winery in order to use less water. Our gammajet washer, for washing barrels and tanks, takes only a fraction of the water we used to use. As we said before Sustainability means Minimum Impact on the Environment. I could go on forever on this subject.
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