Coasting beneath regal oaks it’s hard to believe I’m less than 90 minutes from the urban clatter of the city. The Pfifer Pavitt tasting room nestles cosily in a shady hillside nook. I couldn’t have felt more welcome if the Waltons themselves had buzzed me into their gate with open arms. Suzanne Pfifer Pavitt, the eponymous proprietor and driving force behind the winery’s design credits her simple farm upbringing in Georgia for her commitment to sustainability. “I hate waste. I grew up being very resourceful, that’s how my parents were... But also I don’t want something new, I want something that’s had a life, that has a story”. Suzanne’s own previous life was in tech for a Fortune 500 company. Many of the winemakers I meet have had similar success in the fields of tech and creative, perhaps part of the reason they feel untethered to traditional practices, more able to experiment and innovate.

There’s not much to distinguish the exterior of Pfifer Pavitt’s tasting room from the local design vernacular of wooden barns. But this is a long way from the the Persian mausoleum and faux doric follies found elsewhere in the county. It’s the striking minimalist interior and detail that sets this place apart. “I never stop trying to stop to improve and re-use” Suzanne explains. The roll call of recycled materials is impressive – the wood is repurposed snow fencing from Wyoming and restored 100-year-old Redwood, milled onsite back to its original patina. Every corner is expertly mitred into clean modern lines but with enough nicks and flaws to hint at its previous incarnation. When Suzanne ran out of wood she dismantled the boxes her olives trees were delivered in and used them to finish the benches. The doors are made from old copper sheeting recut and shipped in from Mississippi and the insulation rendered from recycled jeans – a rare commodity when Suzanne first began planning but now a familiar and highly effective substitute. Even the industrial chandeliers are fashioned from abandoned rusty hogwire.

“I’m a vowed and determined steward of this land” Suzanne tells me, her commitment and sincerity are clear and common among the landowners I meet. It is this indefatiguable attitude that saw her return to the driving seat after a head-on collision that left her hospitalised for over a year. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever drive again but I did.” She says, nodding to her Land Rover Discovery in the drive. “But that’s the only thing I’ll drive now. It’s the only thing that makes me feel safe.” I’m reminded it’s time to move on though I could listen to Suzanne for hours more, her enthusiasm is infectious.

We hug goodbye and I cruise for half an hour back to my hotel. It seems only fitting to make elegant eco-spa Bardessono my base for the trip. This impressive luxury hotel in Yountville has achieved the highest possible Platinum LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) status, one of only a handful in the country. These standards are increasingly necessary in attracting the luxury dollar. Businesses simply cannot cater for this strata of wealth without considering their contribution to the circular economy. “Everything you see is recycled” the manager tells me. “All the wood, metal and stone are reclaimed, the linens are recycled cotton, second or third-tier material of the finest quality. The art is made by local artists from used screwdrivers and newspapers.” I think I’ve caught him out when I spy plastic shampoo bottles but it turns out even these are biodegradable. 

Bardessono and the vineyards I visit all amply demonstrate that sustainability does not mean having to compromise on quality or style. Nothing in the sleek stone architecture of Bardessono feels anything less than first class. This is not the hokey home-made recycling of old, it’s a serious business and demand is increasing as industry leaders set the bar high. 

The wines coming out of this region are widely considered to be every part the equal of their Old World counterparts as proven by the wine-makers at my next stop, Odette Winery. They were awarded a rare 100 (out of 100) points by revered wine critic Robert Parker for their 2016 Reserve. It is perhaps in part that California is relatively young that the vintners feel more able to experiment with new ideas and technology apart from the more cloistered European traditions. 

One of the three partners in Odette, Gavin Newson, has a strong pedigree in sustainability and innovation having served as mayor of San Francisco and currently as Governor of California. He recently co-authored a book called Citizenville, a rallying cry for the radical reinvention of government in the digital age. His partner John Conover recalls Gavin insisting they build for Gold LEED certification and thinking he’d had a few glasses too many. “I thought he was crazy. But now I think it would be crazy to do anything else. It’s just the right thing to do. Also the demand is there. Our guests are well-educated, well-travelled, they demand high standards of sustainability. It’s about how we motivate the next generation of customers and wine-makers. We have to take risks, experiment, fail.”

True to that directive they hired Mexican architect Junacarlos Fernandez to design Plumpjack’s Odette Winery and sister facility CADE, half an hour north on Howell Mountain. He had never designed a winery before so brought an entirely new sensibility to the project. His award-winning Odette Winery is a discreet but distinctive oval structure notched into a hillside off the Silverado Trail. The grass-roof and curvy perforated screens house re-used shipping container offices, a wine lab, production facilities and naturally insulated caves. Juancarlos sourced concrete mixed with fly ash, a coal by-product, and recycled steel for the structure. I consider Saint-Exupery’s observation that “a rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.” and marvel at the minds that can make architecture out of ashes. 

California is streets ahead of the rest of America in its commitment to the circular economy but the movement is gaining traction all over the world. Indian entrepreneur Narayana Peesapati has invented edible cutlery as a replacement for plastic, Australian company Close the Loop is turning used printer cartridges into tarmac and Danish textile experts Kvadrat have designed a bespoke alternative to the leather interior of the Evoque using 53 recycled plastic bottles per vehicle. It’s an infectious concept and as I go to grab a bottle of water at my next stop it gives me pause. I decide to wait til I reach the hotel and can quench my thirst guilt-free. 

I have one day left of my drive and leave early in the morning to avoid the hard dry heat. I’m heading north out of Napa towards Alexander Valley in Sonoma County. Grand madrone trees cast a living Rorschach on the road. Winding up into the mountain on the mythical sounding Petrified Forest Road I’m reminded of the vineyards’ vulnerability in the face of extreme natural events. The same seismic forces that warm Calistoga’s hot springs and geysers fossilised this entire forest over 3 million years ago. Deprived of oxygen and submerged in Mount St Helena’s volcanic ash the trees were gradually replaced by silica preserving all their original knots and whorls. It’s a chastening sight, towering ancient Redwoods turned to stone – they’re thought to be some of the oldest of their kind on earth. More recently drought and this year’s wildfires have contributed to a deeply embedded awareness of the elements in California and a need to be more creative with resources.

My final tour is of Silver Oak’s Alexander Valley outpost, the apogee of sustainable design. I arrive just as the winery is coming to life, in the distance bottles clink and the odd golf cart hums by. I wander round the abundant garden beds behind the tasting room waiting for my guide. Butterflies tumble about the lavender stems and cobalt dragonflies the size of sparrows patrol the pristine rows of vines. 

Set in the foothills of the Mayacamas Mountains this platinum LEED status winery is the world’s first to achieve net positive energy and water thanks to discreet banks of solar panels and a real time data monitoring system developed by viticultural innovators Fruition Sciences. 

My guide explains that the owners are not proprietary about their methods and see themselves as an open source centre of excellence. “We’re willing to share. Part of the idea of sustainability is that you don’t just do it for getting the credentials, we’re actually making the industry collectively better. Not everyone has the resources to do what we’ve done here, but we’re hoping people can borrow and apply in different situations which will in turn demand that we keep improving.” he explains.

It’s an impressive philosophy writ large in the architecture. From every angle the tasting rooms appear to vanish into the landscape, an exercise in transparency designed to frame the vineyard. Long rectangular water features earth the sky and large glass panels reflect the acres of lush burgeoning vines. Sections of the facade are clad in Redwood boards salvaged from the Cherokee Winery, one of the valley’s earlier wine-making pioneers. The stairs are constructed from old wine barrels, red stains left in tact and the insulation is made from ground up denim. And so I’ve come full circle. I hop into my Evoque in my jeans made of plastic bottles onto a seat made of plastic bottles and head home feeling hopeful.

Words: Jenni Doggett
Photography: Tanveer Badal