Our Community and Sustainability

The village of Cardan

This is our beautiful village of Cardan, with some 400 inhabitants, located 35 km south-east from the city of Bordeaux on the low hills or “côteaux” of the right northerly bank of the River Garonne. The village contains a heritage protected 12th century church. Many of the locals have become our friends and actively support / work with our project. They inspire us to maintain, sustain and improve the use this piece of paradise for ever. The community of Cardan and their support is our measure of success.

Sustainability

Several factors make something sustainable – that is “to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs”. It is much more than environmental protection.

It is our aim to both protect and improve the environment for which we are responsible. At the same time, we will look after the well being of our team plus respect, involve and support our community. And in the medium term, we must be profitable or else we – and the community we support –  cannot prosper.

Environmental Protection and Improvement

From Day 1 of our operations, we have chosen to manage our vineyard and produce our wines to the standards required to achieve Organic certification. All herbicides and pesticides are excluded and treatments are limited to mild inorganic products within tight control limits. The success of this plan can be seen in the health of the vineyard and the quality / taste of our wines. Paradise Rescued was certified organic by ECOCert in 2016 and has proudly maintained our certification ever since.

As we start into the second decade of our operation, as we learn and achieve further success plus recognition for what we do, it is time as part of our Vision 2030 to consider what we should do next. It is clear to us that the Bordeaux vineyards are an intense monoculture of vines. In our plans moving forward, we aim to broaden our viticultural / agricultural diversity such we will pass on a vineyard and wine that are significantly beneficial to our community by comparison to what we started with. This is a much bigger project but one that will provide lasting benefits.