Sustainable Viticulture
For more than 35 years, the Firestones—owners of Curtis Winery—have been faithful stewards of their land in Santa Barbara County’s Santa Ynez Valley. Founder Brooks Firestone is a longtime advocate of native oak tree regeneration, and has personally planted more than 2,000 new oaks over the decades. At Curtis Winery, the Firestone family and winemaker Chuck Carlson take a progressive approach to viticulture, incorporating sustainable farming practices wherever possible to grow naturally balanced vines while respecting the surrounding environment.
PRACTICES
Our farming practices aim to maintain the highest levels of natural micro organisms in the vineyard, as achieved through natural fertilizers, cover crops, minimal tilling and minimal synthetic inputs.
The estate vineyard is farmed with natural fertilizers, consisting mainly of grape skin compost and alpaca manure along with other organic composts. The alpacas—which are similar to llamas—are raised on the Firestone family ranch. The rich nutrient composition of their manure is particularly beneficial for spot treating areas of the vineyard that are showing advanced nutrient deficiencies.
Native cover crops are grown between the vines as a natural method for delivering nitrogen to the vine roots for optimal vineyard health. Native flora surrounding the vineyard remains untouched to maintain beneficial populations of native insects. These insects help control invasive harmful insects, enabling us to minimize pest control inputs. In instances where active intervention is required to keep pests, mildews or weeds from harming the vines and crop, we emphasize organic-based inputs. We are able to control mildew mainly through light sulfur and mineral oil applications.
There are three main guideposts to our sustainable farming philosophy: (1) we do not use Category 1 pesticides; (2) we do not use pre-emergent herbicides that can potentially leach into groundwater and sterilize the soil of beneficial microbes; and (3) we monitor the vineyard on a weekly basis, counting bugs and inspecting for diseases—enabling us to apply treatments only when thresholds are hit, as opposed to simply spraying on a calendar basis.
