PHILO – In a county that markets itself as "America's greenest wine region" for its long history of natural-minded methods, Duckhorn Wine Co. aims to raise a new symbol of environmentalism with its winery for the Goldeneye brand from Mendocino County.The winery, completed this summer in the Anderson Valley winegrowing region, has been registered with the U.S. Green Building Council for certification under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system for new construction, or LEED-NC.If certified, it would be the first winery to earn that distinction in Mendocino County.Goldeneye wine is ready for release with a few years of age, but the winery project itself was more than a dozen years in the making.The Duckhorn family, which also started the Duckhorn Vineyards and Paraduxx brands in Napa Valley, acquired the first Anderson Valley vineyards in 1996, and local vineyard acreage now totals 220. The first commercial vintage, 1997 Goldeneye pinot noir, was released in 2000."We were making wine in some metal buildings and a wooden barn on property before this," said Zach Rasmuson, Goldeneye vice president, general manager and winemaker.Verdier Architects, which has designed a number of boutique wineries, and Mr. Rasmuson set their sights on project features to achieve silver-level certification, which is the second of four levels in the LEED system. The facility-commissioning phase of a certification application, which analyzes systems performance against standards, began in November and is expected to run through August 2010.“I started here in 2003, and we embraced LEED from the outset,” Mr. Rasmuson said. “It is easier to design for LEED than try to do it later.”Currently, 15,000 cases annually of the Goldeneye brand are produced on the property and 10,000 cases of the Migration brand.However, the new facility was built and permitted to make up to 50,000 cases of wine a year."We have good ownership, and they saw the value in building it with room to grow," Mr. Rasmuson said. "In five to eight years, we will likely need more space for barrel storage."Design work on Goldeneye spanned five years, including the 2007 sale of a majority stake in Duckhorn Wine Co. to GI Partners. Construction started in August 2008 and ended July 1.Design features targeted at LEED certification include a 28-kilowatt solar electricity array to power the winery, an all-recycled-steel structure sourced through Soule Building Systems of Cotati, insulated panels for the building, cork linoleum floors in the offices instead of vinyl, removable entryway floormats integrated into the slab of the production facility, screening for windows, soil used from the site, low-flow fixtures, paints low in volatile organic compounds (VOC) and Forest Stewardship Council-certified redwood for board-and-batten siding and interior wainscoting.In 2004 the family had 148 acres of second-growth redwood on a 202-acre vineyard property certified as a Smart Wood Forest. Wood for the planned winery was harvested and stored.Another design feature of the new winery, important in the groundwater-thirsty Boonville area, is rainwater harvesting, according to Mr. Rasmuson. Gutters direct rainwater to the ponds used for irrigation and frost-protection.For general contractor Nordby Construction, local sourcing for the Goldeneye project applied to more than building materials."We went to local vendors and subcontractors, mostly in Mendocino County as well as in Lake and Sonoma counties," said Steve Kilgannon, project manager.
