Rivercap plans Benicia capsule plant(2)
Ms. Bentley said luxury goods–hungry buyers from China are eager to find “the best of the best” wine properties.
“I probably talk to Chinese investors twice a week,” she said.
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Evan Engber of BioEngineering Associates is designing three projects to shore up and restore fish habitat along more than 1,000 feet of Russian River banks in Sonoma County on property owned by Treasury Wine Estates Americas, Ferrari-Carano and the Diaz family.
Treasury Wine plans to bioengineer a total of 365 linear feet of severely eroded bank on the west side of the river near the Alexander Valley community of Asti, where the wine company has a major winemaking facility.
The goal of the project, according to the July 19 permit notice from the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, is to revegetate the riparian edge as well as enhance and create fish habitat. The comment period ends Aug. 9.
Ferrari-Carano winery wants to stabilize, revegetate and bring back fish habitat along 497 feet of the east bank of the river about a football field-length south of the Highway 128 bridge at Geyserville. The comment period ends July 27.
Manuel and Carol Diaz applied to work on 260 feet of the east bank along River Road near Cloverdale. The comment period also ends July 27.
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Stone Edge Farm, an organic farm and winery located in Sonoma Valley, last week unveiled a 5-kilowatt fuel cell system called ClearEdge5, supplied by Hillsboro, Ore.-based ClearEdge Power, to reduce the electricity needed to run irrigation pumps and lights as well as to produce heat needed for operations.
Stone Edge Farm proprietor Mac McQuown expects to save 49 percent on the business’ electricity bill and prevent 24,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the environment annually. The refrigerator-size system is projected save the winery more than $250,000 on total energy costs over 20 years.
Fuel cells use an electrochemical process to convert natural gas to electricity and heat.
Some North Coast farms and wineries such as Straus Family Creamery and Clos Du Bois have used bacterial action on dairy and winery waste to create natural gas, or biogas, to fuel boilers and generators.
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Better Barrel offers wine-by-the-glass programs a cask-like
look to a bar-top chiller dispenser.
Santa Rosa-based inventor Greg Snell, who launched the WinePod “micro-winery” device and wine blending club service last year, has released a combination four-bottle bag-in-barrel wine dispensing device and wine chiller, all encased in a small countertop wooden keg with tap.
Called Better Barrel, the container holds a 3-liter vacuum bag and is targeted at restaurants and venues that sell wine by the glass. The first 100 units are scheduled to reach the market in October at a retail price of $199. For details, visit www.betterbarrelwine.com or call 408-205-4850.
