How did Dowie Doole Cellar Door maximise the design of their solar power and air conditioning systems?

Chris Thomas, the Winemaker and Managing Director for Dowie Doole Wines, emphasises the importance of sustainability and generational farming in the wine industry. The responsibility of custodianship extends to the land for future generations, not just the present one. The Cellar Door was built with sustainability in mind, with energy neutrality being the key element of the design. The building utilises effective angles for solar panels, which provide high ratios of energy output and make up for the limited area. The air conditioning utilises an in-built system that maximises output despite the limited space.

So my name is Chris Thomas, I am the Winemaker and Managing Director for Dowie Doole Wines. And right now we're sitting in our California vineyard where the brand new Dowie Doole tasting room is being built. Sustainability, generational farming, I guess is very very important to Dowie Doole, we feel like we are custodians of the land here, and it's our responsibility to look after it for not just our generation, but the following generations to come. And that will make, wine making in this region sustainable for the longterm.

So sustainability was a key part of the development of the Cellar Door, and choosing the site and everything that's gone into the building. So the key part of the Cellar Door design right from the start was trying to be, I guess energy neutral, or even putting back in, feeding back into the grid. so we're trying to have zero impact in terms of power consumption. So, we've designed the building all around the most effective angles for the solar, right from the initial design that the architect did. Brought in early in the piece to advise us on the most effective panels that we could use, that gave us a high ratios of energy output, and they gave us a more effective output per area. And with the size of the Cellar Door here, isn't huge, so having an effective output per square metre, was very important in the selection of the panels. We liked the design aesthetic and we love that, reliable and of high quality so, and good value for money in that as well.