LEADERS Interview with Florencia Palmaz | Original Article

Expert from interview: …rather than irrigate block by block, we irrigate vine by vine. To ensure that we are mindful to not waste our ground water, my brother built a program called VIGOR that reads infrared imagery flown over the vines twice a week and pairs it with soil moisture, insect mapping, and petiole data, so the team can respond to what each vine actually needs instead of watering for the thirstiest one in the row. In its first year, it cut our water use per acre by 18 percent. Since then, we continue to optimize our irrigation system dialing in the deficit farming mindset to great results in our net water usage and the quality of our wines.

And the most obvious sustainability program is the winery cave itself, all 100,000 square feet of it, in the living rock of Mount George, so the building disappears into the hillside and the viewshed of these mountains is left as we found it. Barrel storage in caves is the most energy-efficient way to cellar wine – the mountain holds temperature and humidity all year without wasting energy on climate control.

The vines outside my kitchen window will outlive me and my children. You farm differently when you think that way.

Read the full article in LEADERS October/November/December 2026 edition: VOLUME 49, NUMBER 4

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