Another Reason To Legalize Hemp: Make A Wine Cellar With It

By Katie Kelly Bell
Source: forbes.com

Chateau Maris’ 9,000 square foot wine cellar in southern France maintains a stable temperature year-round without the use of air conditioning or heating; it’s sustainable, organic, all-natural, odorless, and acts as a carbon sink–able to absorb carbon dioxide for up to 25 years (according to a French study). The cellar isn’t made of brick, or stone, or some magical new ingredient, but rather it’s a simple combination of hemp, lime and wood. Three things, that’s it.

Owner of Chateau Maris, Kevin Parker, believes that their hemp cellar is the only one of its kind in the world. Certainly they were the first winery to ever gamble on a cannabis structure as a winemaking space. In pursuit of a completely carbon negative winery, Parker and his business partner, Robert Eden, researched several options for cellaring. “We had a beauty contest between various sustainable structures, weighing the pros and cons of each approach and decided to go with hemp and lime.”

The net result is a completely biodegradable cellar space that is also energy self-sufficient. Constructed with hemp bricks, the cellar is a double-walled structure with a space in between (for aeration) and supported by a wood frame. Surprisingly, mold isn’t an issue for the plant-based building—the lime retards mold growth and the dry windy climate of southern France does her part to keep bacteria away as well.

One of the cellar’s hemp bricks.

Cellar exterior with lime wash covering hemp bricks.

Hemp architecture is noble but what does it do for taste? The wines of Chateau Maris, which is also a certified organic and biodynamic winery, already enjoy significant critical acclaim. Regardless, Parker insists the wines have more room to improve. “The wines we have on the market today were made in a hot garage. We are wildly excited about the potential for further quality improvements in the new cellar.” Indeed, there isn’t another winery in the world crafting wines from biodynamically farmed grapes and fermenting and aging them in a carbon negative hemp cellar. Chateau Maris’ dedication to environmental purity is something Parker believes gets expressed in the wines. “Most people say they get a sense of purity when they try our wines, we were striving for that. In general, it’s what you get in a lot of biodynamic wines. You taste purity.”

It’s hard to say if the hemp cellar is a concept that will take hold at wineries elsewhere. Parker adds that ten years ago he couldn’t give away a bottle of biodynamic wine. “Today we get calls from buyers saying I need 10,000 cases of biodynamic wine…people are turned on to this.” The truth is always in the bottle anyway, and if history is any guide, hemp might well join the ranks of organic, sustainable and biodynamic winemaking. Expect the hemp cellared vintages to be released in the spring of 2015.