Green Policy
The effects of good working practices At Bodegas Castro Martin are actually quite difficult to quantify, and whilst we have no official accreditation, we are extremely pro-active on many different environmental fronts.
Indeed it would almost be true to say that we are quite obsessive when it comes to re-cycling, and have re-cycling bins throughout the bodega, and for every type of material – wood, glass, metal, paper, plastic and organics. Bottles that are used for tastings (or even home consumption) are carefully washed and re-filled at bottling (but never re-used for customer orders). Cardboard cartons are also re-cycled if they are not in any way dirty or damaged.
The bottling line is probably the greatest generator of waste materials. Packing materials from the pallets of bottles, corks, capsules etc are carefully separated (mostly cardboard and plastics) and taken to a local re-cycling centre the following day.
In order to reduce our carbon footprint as much as possible, we have changed the ordering patterns for our ‘dry goods’, reducing the number of deliveries that we require by holding a little more floor stock of some items – enough for two or three bottlings, rather than ordering for one at a time.
After a long search to find an aesthetically suitable replacement, our new, lighter weight bottle was introduced nearly ten years ago. Despite a very similar appearance and feel to the previous model, it is, in fact, almost exactly 100g lighter. This actually equates to a weight saving of between 60/70kg per pallet (dependent upon the configuration). This reduction in weight not only saves fuel as our pallets are transported by road and sea, but they also require less energy to produce.
Lighting in all areas of the bodega has recently been replaced by low consumption LED and in some areas is controlled by movement sensors.
In this humble way, we like to think that Castro Martin is making its own small contribution to help preserve the environment.
(See the Vineyard section for our Environmental Policy)
Vegetarians: Please note that our Albariño is suitable for vegetarians as we do not use any meat, dairy or fish derived products during handling or vinification.
