McKahn Wines is wholly committed to producing and purveying wines sustainably. The health and healing of our planet is of utmost importance to us as we hope to continue the tradition of winemaking for generations to come.
Sustainability Practices
As of the 2021 vintage, we have completely foregone use of the antiquated capsule on our bottles. Capsules are a purely cosmetic component of a bottle’s package and contribute nothing to the preservation of quality of the wine inside the bottle. They are also made of tin, which requires fossil fuels to mine and ship to producers.
Our new labels are 100% recyclable paper and do not use metal stamps, which again require fossil fuels to mine and ship.
We use only 100% natural cork closures on our wines. Contrary to popular opinion cork trees are not cut down to produce cork closures, but have the bark stripped around the tree and each cork tree can continuously harvest corks for generations. This gives us a perfectly sustainable and natural product, unlike screw cap closures which require the mining of heavy metals to produce.
Most importantly we do not, and will not use a heavy weight glass bottle for any of our wines. Heavy weight glass bottles have erroneously become associated with higher quality wine, and there is simply no correlation between the quality of the wine and the weight of the bottle. Heavier bottles require more fossil fuels to produce and to transport. Glass is an infinitely recyclable material, and also the most appropriate container for long term aging of wine, so we will continue to use it, however we will never use an unnecessary heavyweight bottle.