Month: April 2026
Yellowstone Bourbon has donated more than $1 million to NPCA since 2018 to preserve and protect national parks
ST. LOUIS and WASHINGTON, April 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — For nearly a decade, Yellowstone Bourbon has been supporting the National Parks Conservation Association – and the brand recently renewed its annual partnership with a $25,000 donation. With this gift Yellowstone Bourbon has surpassed the $1 million mark in total donations since its partnership with NPCA began in 2018, continuing its commitment to protect and preserve national parks.
The ongoing partnership has been a natural fit because of Yellowstone Bourbon’s heritage and history, which is rich in Americana. As the nation’s second-longest running bourbon brand, Yellowstone Bourbon was named for the national park and is led by Limestone Branch Distillery Founder Stephen Beam, a seventh-generation master distiller of Kentucky bourbon’s renowned Beam and Dant families. Its commitment to protecting national parks is unmatched in the industry as the perfect intersection of respect for history and appreciation for adventure.
This year, as the nation commemorates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Yellowstone Bourbon will participate in the National Parks Conservation Association’s year-long public engagement campaign United by Parks. NPCA’s United by Parks campaign is a chance to commemorate America through the lens of our national parks, connect with our most treasured places, imagine what we would lose if they disappeared, and take action to protect them. Together, NPCA and Yellowstone Bourbon will call on Americans to renew our century-old commitment to protecting parks so they can continue to endure for future generations.
“NPCA is so proud to continue our important partnership with Yellowstone Bourbon, who has been an incredible ally in our work to protect our national parks, including their unparalleled beauty and rich history,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, President and CEO of National Parks Conservation Association. “As we celebrate America’s 250th birthday this year, we’re all in to defend and commemorate America’s best idea, just as we have for more than a century. And we know Yellowstone Bourbon is too.”
Throughout its partnership, Yellowstone and NPCA developed creative ways to share and amplify their work to protect the parks and wildlife while inspiring others to take action. These efforts include the creation of videos and music highlighting preservation projects for use in social media campaigns; the release of commemorative special-edition bourbons and on-the-ground adventures exploring Yellowstone National Park with Beam and more.
A lover of the outdoors and avid adventure traveler, Beam has been at the forefront of the brand’s commitment to the parks and NPCA.
“I grew up visiting national parks and the excitement of exploration and being surrounded by nature has been with me ever since,” said Beam. “Having the opportunity to give back and see the impact we’re making is a dream come true, and I hope people will be inspired to get out and enjoy the parks and do what they can to keep them preserved for generations to come.”
In 2023, NPCA awarded Yellowstone Bourbon its National Park Defender Award, bestowed annually to a partner demonstrating exceptional dedication to national park protection through authentic and impactful partnership with NPCA and educating its customers about the importance of taking action to protect parks.
About National Parks Conservation Association
Since 1919, the nonpartisan National Parks Conservation Association has been the leading voice in safeguarding our national parks. NPCA and its more than 1.9 million members and supporters work together to protect and preserve our nation’s most iconic and inspirational places for future generations. For more information, visit npca.org.
About Yellowstone Bourbon
Founded by distiller Joseph Bernard Dant, Yellowstone Bourbon was named after the world’s first national park in 1872. In 2011, seventh-generation Master Distiller Stephen Beam – a descendant of both the historic Dant and Beam distilling families – founded Lebanon, Kentucky-based Limestone Branch Distillery and resurrected the Yellowstone brand with the creation of Yellowstone Select Bourbon. Expressions in our Yellowstone family of premium bourbons and whiskeys have earned many spirits industry awards including Whisky Advocate’s Top 20 Whiskies of the Year in 2025 as well as Double Platinum at the 2025 ASCOT Awards and multiple Gold medals at the 2025 SIP Awards and San Francisco World Spirits Competition. Since 2018, we have partnered with the National Parks Conservation Association, having donated over $1 million to preserve national parks. In 2026, Yellowstone Bourbon and our new Yellowstone Ready-to-Serve Cocktails are also supporting the Vital Ground Foundation to help preserve and protect threatened grizzly bear habitat. To learn more, visit YellowstoneBourbon.com and follow Yellowstone Bourbon on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and follow Yellowstone Cocktails on Instagram and TikTok.
About Luxco
Founded in St. Louis in 1958 by the Lux family, Luxco is a leading producer, supplier, importer and bottler of beverage alcohol products with a mission to meet the needs and exceed the expectations of consumers, associates and business partners. Luxco operates as MGP Ingredients Inc. (Nasdaq: MGPI) Branded Spirits division since its acquisition in 2021. The company’s extensive and award-winning premium portfolio includes brands from four distilleries: Ross & Squibb Distillery in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, where Penelope and Remus bourbon are produced; Bardstown, Kentucky-based Lux Row Distillers, home of Rebel, Ezra Brooks, and Blood Oath bourbons; Lebanon, Kentucky-based Limestone Branch Distillery, maker of Yellowstone Bourbon; and Arandas, Mexico-based Destiladora Gonzalez Lux, producer of 100% agave tequilas including Cortada, El Mayor, Escasa and Exotico. For more information, visit Luxco.com.
View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/yellowstone-bourbon-renews-annual-national-parks-conservation-association-partnership-with-25-000-donation-302750926.html
SOURCE Yellowstone Bourbon and National Parks Conservation Association
Key Takeaways:
- Heat stress impacts a wide range of stakeholders and business activities.
- A structured approach gives more clarity to how brands and manufacturers can collaboratively address and mitigate heat stress.
- Newly released, the AAFA Guide to Protecting Workers from Heat Stress aims to promote practical action on heat stress.
Heat stress is not a new issue, but it’s accelerating at a pace that the apparel and footwear industry must take further action upon. It is influencing how factories operate, how companies think about worker well-being, and how supply chains prepare for operational disruption.
For an industry that produces globally and sells globally, heat stress has implications across sourcing, production, and business continuity.
That is why AAFA has been working with industry stakeholders to develop the AAFA Guide to Protecting Workers from Heat Stress, focusing on what it takes to move from awareness to practical implementation.
Why Heat Stress Demands Greater Industry Alignment
Over the past several years, companies have made incremental progress on social responsibility and environmental performance, yet not fast enough, as recent Cascale reports noted. Expectations across supply chains have also become more complex, and companies are managing more requirements than ever before.
Heat stress brings those pressures into sharper focus because at the center of this industry is – and always will be – people.
It affects workers directly. It affects production timelines. And it raises important questions about how expectations are set and applied across the value chain.
Across many major sourcing regions, rising temperatures and more frequent extreme heat conditions are making this issue harder to ignore, particularly in factory environments where ventilation, pace of work, and other workplace conditions can intensify risk.
The goal of this work is to help the industry move toward a more consistent and practical approach.
What Manufacturers and Brands Are Telling Us
As part of this process, AAFA engaged dozens of stakeholders across the value chain. This included recent input gathered with support from Cascale, bringing in perspectives from both manufacturers and brands.
A few themes came through clearly. First, there is broad recognition that this is an important issue and that guidance can play a useful role.
Second, there is a strong focus on how that guidance is applied in practice. Manufacturers emphasized the need for approaches that reflect on-the-ground realities, including existing systems, operational constraints, and local conditions. Brands raised similar questions around how guidance can be integrated into current compliance programs without creating duplication or unintended consequences. Across both groups, there was a consistent message: clarity, consistency, and practicality matter.
What the Guidance Is Designed to Help Companies Do
The AAFA guidance is intended to help companies and facilities take a more structured approach to identifying, monitoring, and managing heat stress risks across the supply chain.
In practical terms, the guidance is designed to support companies in several areas, including:
- Determining when workplace heat conditions become excessive
- Monitoring and recording heat conditions at the facility level
- Tracking and responding to heat-related illness
- Preventing, mitigating, and managing excessive heat days through practical workplace measures
- Developing heat action plans and response procedures
- Strengthening worker training, awareness, and monitoring programs
It also encourages factories to establish heat thresholds, adjust workloads, and water and bathroom breaks in accordance with heat conditions, and strengthen alignment with applicable workplace health and labor requirements.
Just as important, based on recommendations from Cascale members and other stakeholders, the guidance emphasizes the importance of communication between buyers and suppliers, and between suppliers and their workers. Every decision to protect workers from heat stress can involve costs, impact production, affect workers, and change timelines. Regular communication between suppliers, buyers, and the workers themselves, is critical to make any effort to protect workers from heat stress a success.
The objective is to give companies guidance they can actually use — guidance that helps translate a growing body of research, policy attention, and industry concern into practical action on the factory floor.
Why Implementation Will Matter as Much as the Guidance Itself
As with any industry guidance, how it is used will ultimately determine its impact. That includes how expectations are communicated, how they are implemented at the facility level, and how companies work together when challenges arise. It also requires being mindful of unintended outcomes, such as additional audits, overlapping requests, delivery delays, additional costs, or requirements that are difficult to operationalize in practice. Getting this right will require continued dialogue across brands, manufacturers, and other stakeholders.
What Progress Will Require Going Forward
The AAFA Guide to Protecting Workers from Heat Stress is part of an ongoing effort. It will continue to evolve as the industry builds more experience and as conditions change.
AAFA will continue working with industry partners to refine the guidance and support implementation. For example, AAFA has planned an upcoming open industry webinar, “Implementing the AAFA Heat Guidance,” on May 19, which will provide an opportunity to walk through the guidance in more detail and discuss what practical implementation may look like across the value chain.
Efforts like those facilitated by Cascale are an important part of that process, helping to surface practical insights and ensure that a range of perspectives are reflected. Heat stress is a complex challenge, but it is one the industry is increasingly equipped to address. Progress will depend on alignment, collaboration, and a shared focus on what works in practice. By continuing to build on industry input and focusing on practical application, there is an opportunity to develop approaches that better support workers and strengthen the long-term resilience of global supply chains.
Members: Read the Summary of Member Perspectives on Cascale Connect
Key Takeaways:
- Heat stress impacts a wide range of stakeholders and business activities.
- A structured approach gives more clarity to how brands and manufacturers can collaboratively address and mitigate heat stress.
- Newly released, the AAFA Guide to Protecting Workers from Heat Stress aims to promote practical action on heat stress.
Heat stress is not a new issue, but it’s accelerating at a pace that the apparel and footwear industry must take further action upon. It is influencing how factories operate, how companies think about worker well-being, and how supply chains prepare for operational disruption.
For an industry that produces globally and sells globally, heat stress has implications across sourcing, production, and business continuity.
That is why AAFA has been working with industry stakeholders to develop the AAFA Guide to Protecting Workers from Heat Stress, focusing on what it takes to move from awareness to practical implementation.
Why Heat Stress Demands Greater Industry Alignment
Over the past several years, companies have made incremental progress on social responsibility and environmental performance, yet not fast enough, as recent Cascale reports noted. Expectations across supply chains have also become more complex, and companies are managing more requirements than ever before.
Heat stress brings those pressures into sharper focus because at the center of this industry is – and always will be – people.
It affects workers directly. It affects production timelines. And it raises important questions about how expectations are set and applied across the value chain.
Across many major sourcing regions, rising temperatures and more frequent extreme heat conditions are making this issue harder to ignore, particularly in factory environments where ventilation, pace of work, and other workplace conditions can intensify risk.
The goal of this work is to help the industry move toward a more consistent and practical approach.
What Manufacturers and Brands Are Telling Us
As part of this process, AAFA engaged dozens of stakeholders across the value chain. This included recent input gathered with support from Cascale, bringing in perspectives from both manufacturers and brands.
A few themes came through clearly. First, there is broad recognition that this is an important issue and that guidance can play a useful role.
Second, there is a strong focus on how that guidance is applied in practice. Manufacturers emphasized the need for approaches that reflect on-the-ground realities, including existing systems, operational constraints, and local conditions. Brands raised similar questions around how guidance can be integrated into current compliance programs without creating duplication or unintended consequences. Across both groups, there was a consistent message: clarity, consistency, and practicality matter.
What the Guidance Is Designed to Help Companies Do
The AAFA guidance is intended to help companies and facilities take a more structured approach to identifying, monitoring, and managing heat stress risks across the supply chain.
In practical terms, the guidance is designed to support companies in several areas, including:
- Determining when workplace heat conditions become excessive
- Monitoring and recording heat conditions at the facility level
- Tracking and responding to heat-related illness
- Preventing, mitigating, and managing excessive heat days through practical workplace measures
- Developing heat action plans and response procedures
- Strengthening worker training, awareness, and monitoring programs
It also encourages factories to establish heat thresholds, adjust workloads, and water and bathroom breaks in accordance with heat conditions, and strengthen alignment with applicable workplace health and labor requirements.
Just as important, based on recommendations from Cascale members and other stakeholders, the guidance emphasizes the importance of communication between buyers and suppliers, and between suppliers and their workers. Every decision to protect workers from heat stress can involve costs, impact production, affect workers, and change timelines. Regular communication between suppliers, buyers, and the workers themselves, is critical to make any effort to protect workers from heat stress a success.
The objective is to give companies guidance they can actually use — guidance that helps translate a growing body of research, policy attention, and industry concern into practical action on the factory floor.
Why Implementation Will Matter as Much as the Guidance Itself
As with any industry guidance, how it is used will ultimately determine its impact. That includes how expectations are communicated, how they are implemented at the facility level, and how companies work together when challenges arise. It also requires being mindful of unintended outcomes, such as additional audits, overlapping requests, delivery delays, additional costs, or requirements that are difficult to operationalize in practice. Getting this right will require continued dialogue across brands, manufacturers, and other stakeholders.
What Progress Will Require Going Forward
The AAFA Guide to Protecting Workers from Heat Stress is part of an ongoing effort. It will continue to evolve as the industry builds more experience and as conditions change.
AAFA will continue working with industry partners to refine the guidance and support implementation. For example, AAFA has planned an upcoming open industry webinar, “Implementing the AAFA Heat Guidance,” on May 19, which will provide an opportunity to walk through the guidance in more detail and discuss what practical implementation may look like across the value chain.
Efforts like those facilitated by Cascale are an important part of that process, helping to surface practical insights and ensure that a range of perspectives are reflected. Heat stress is a complex challenge, but it is one the industry is increasingly equipped to address. Progress will depend on alignment, collaboration, and a shared focus on what works in practice. By continuing to build on industry input and focusing on practical application, there is an opportunity to develop approaches that better support workers and strengthen the long-term resilience of global supply chains.
Members: Read the Summary of Member Perspectives on Cascale Connect
Key Takeaways:
- Heat stress impacts a wide range of stakeholders and business activities.
- A structured approach gives more clarity to how brands and manufacturers can collaboratively address and mitigate heat stress.
- Newly released, the AAFA Guide to Protecting Workers from Heat Stress aims to promote practical action on heat stress.
Heat stress is not a new issue, but it’s accelerating at a pace that the apparel and footwear industry must take further action upon. It is influencing how factories operate, how companies think about worker well-being, and how supply chains prepare for operational disruption.
For an industry that produces globally and sells globally, heat stress has implications across sourcing, production, and business continuity.
That is why AAFA has been working with industry stakeholders to develop the AAFA Guide to Protecting Workers from Heat Stress, focusing on what it takes to move from awareness to practical implementation.
Why Heat Stress Demands Greater Industry Alignment
Over the past several years, companies have made incremental progress on social responsibility and environmental performance, yet not fast enough, as recent Cascale reports noted. Expectations across supply chains have also become more complex, and companies are managing more requirements than ever before.
Heat stress brings those pressures into sharper focus because at the center of this industry is – and always will be – people.
It affects workers directly. It affects production timelines. And it raises important questions about how expectations are set and applied across the value chain.
Across many major sourcing regions, rising temperatures and more frequent extreme heat conditions are making this issue harder to ignore, particularly in factory environments where ventilation, pace of work, and other workplace conditions can intensify risk.
The goal of this work is to help the industry move toward a more consistent and practical approach.
What Manufacturers and Brands Are Telling Us
As part of this process, AAFA engaged dozens of stakeholders across the value chain. This included recent input gathered with support from Cascale, bringing in perspectives from both manufacturers and brands.
A few themes came through clearly. First, there is broad recognition that this is an important issue and that guidance can play a useful role.
Second, there is a strong focus on how that guidance is applied in practice. Manufacturers emphasized the need for approaches that reflect on-the-ground realities, including existing systems, operational constraints, and local conditions. Brands raised similar questions around how guidance can be integrated into current compliance programs without creating duplication or unintended consequences. Across both groups, there was a consistent message: clarity, consistency, and practicality matter.
What the Guidance Is Designed to Help Companies Do
The AAFA guidance is intended to help companies and facilities take a more structured approach to identifying, monitoring, and managing heat stress risks across the supply chain.
In practical terms, the guidance is designed to support companies in several areas, including:
- Determining when workplace heat conditions become excessive
- Monitoring and recording heat conditions at the facility level
- Tracking and responding to heat-related illness
- Preventing, mitigating, and managing excessive heat days through practical workplace measures
- Developing heat action plans and response procedures
- Strengthening worker training, awareness, and monitoring programs
It also encourages factories to establish heat thresholds, adjust workloads, and water and bathroom breaks in accordance with heat conditions, and strengthen alignment with applicable workplace health and labor requirements.
Just as important, based on recommendations from Cascale members and other stakeholders, the guidance emphasizes the importance of communication between buyers and suppliers, and between suppliers and their workers. Every decision to protect workers from heat stress can involve costs, impact production, affect workers, and change timelines. Regular communication between suppliers, buyers, and the workers themselves, is critical to make any effort to protect workers from heat stress a success.
The objective is to give companies guidance they can actually use — guidance that helps translate a growing body of research, policy attention, and industry concern into practical action on the factory floor.
Why Implementation Will Matter as Much as the Guidance Itself
As with any industry guidance, how it is used will ultimately determine its impact. That includes how expectations are communicated, how they are implemented at the facility level, and how companies work together when challenges arise. It also requires being mindful of unintended outcomes, such as additional audits, overlapping requests, delivery delays, additional costs, or requirements that are difficult to operationalize in practice. Getting this right will require continued dialogue across brands, manufacturers, and other stakeholders.
What Progress Will Require Going Forward
The AAFA Guide to Protecting Workers from Heat Stress is part of an ongoing effort. It will continue to evolve as the industry builds more experience and as conditions change.
AAFA will continue working with industry partners to refine the guidance and support implementation. For example, AAFA has planned an upcoming open industry webinar, “Implementing the AAFA Heat Guidance,” on May 19, which will provide an opportunity to walk through the guidance in more detail and discuss what practical implementation may look like across the value chain.
Efforts like those facilitated by Cascale are an important part of that process, helping to surface practical insights and ensure that a range of perspectives are reflected. Heat stress is a complex challenge, but it is one the industry is increasingly equipped to address. Progress will depend on alignment, collaboration, and a shared focus on what works in practice. By continuing to build on industry input and focusing on practical application, there is an opportunity to develop approaches that better support workers and strengthen the long-term resilience of global supply chains.
Members: Read the Summary of Member Perspectives on Cascale Connect
WALLA WALLA, Wash., April 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Echolands Winery in Walla Walla, Washington, has achieved USDA Organic Certification from California Certified Organic Farmers for their Echolands Estate Vineyard location on Mill Creek Road.
Echolands Winery was created by MS.MW, Doug Frost, and conservationist Brad Bergman in 2018. With winemaker and general manager Brian Rudin at the helm, Echolands pursues its winemaking endeavors with a sustainably driven mission. As a young, burgeoning winery, this certification marks the newest achievement in their commitment towards responsible stewardship and regenerative farming.
As in the name, Echolands pursues vineyard management with the phrase “echo the land” in mind. Plantings for the Echolands Estate Vineyard began in 2021 with soil restoration. Cover cropping, composting and incorporation of bio-char (a carbon-rich charcoal) have greatly improved soil structure, while helping to regenerate soil microbiome.
Today, Echolands has planted over 10 different grape varieties at its Estate Vineyard on Mill Creek, including Gamay Noir, Cabernet Franc, Grenache Blanc, Vermentino, Chardonnay and others. Echolands will continue its planting on new clones into 2027 and 2028. The first harvest from their organic crop will be this fall 2026. Echolands currently sources from Taggart Estate Vineyard, a part of the SeVein Vineyard Project on the Oregon side of the Walla Walla Valley AVA. Taggart Estate Vineyard is a Sustainable WA certified vineyard. Among other sources include Blue Mountain Vineyard, Les Collines Vineyard and Riviére Galets Vineyard in the Rocks District AVA.
In their sustainable efforts, Echolands utilizes an onsite herd of goats and sheep to weed and maintain undergrowth. They are dedicated to never using herbicide in the vineyard. To promote plant, fungus and bacterial populations, methods such as grazing, hand-pulling, mechanical and other methods are relied upon to control weeds. Synthetic-free fungicides and fertilizers made only with organic materials are used as well. To continually improve and nourish the soil, organic cover crops such as crimson clover, arugula, radishes and turnips are planted throughout the vineyard rows. Once the plants have died there are then used for green manure to further enrich the soil.
Co-owner Doug Fost MS, MW said, “This is the culmination of the ideas that Brad Bergman and I have had for our land all along. To bring modern winemaking and grape growing into harmony with the needs of the land. For a great wine, you need a great vineyard. For a great vineyard, you need healthy soils. This is our aim.”
View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/echolands-winery-estate-vineyard-attains-organic-certification-302750895.html
SOURCE Echolands Winery
WALLA WALLA, Wash., April 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Echolands Winery in Walla Walla, Washington, has achieved USDA Organic Certification from California Certified Organic Farmers for their Echolands Estate Vineyard location on Mill Creek Road.
Echolands Winery was created by MS.MW, Doug Frost, and conservationist Brad Bergman in 2018. With winemaker and general manager Brian Rudin at the helm, Echolands pursues its winemaking endeavors with a sustainably driven mission. As a young, burgeoning winery, this certification marks the newest achievement in their commitment towards responsible stewardship and regenerative farming.
As in the name, Echolands pursues vineyard management with the phrase “echo the land” in mind. Plantings for the Echolands Estate Vineyard began in 2021 with soil restoration. Cover cropping, composting and incorporation of bio-char (a carbon-rich charcoal) have greatly improved soil structure, while helping to regenerate soil microbiome.
Today, Echolands has planted over 10 different grape varieties at its Estate Vineyard on Mill Creek, including Gamay Noir, Cabernet Franc, Grenache Blanc, Vermentino, Chardonnay and others. Echolands will continue its planting on new clones into 2027 and 2028. The first harvest from their organic crop will be this fall 2026. Echolands currently sources from Taggart Estate Vineyard, a part of the SeVein Vineyard Project on the Oregon side of the Walla Walla Valley AVA. Taggart Estate Vineyard is a Sustainable WA certified vineyard. Among other sources include Blue Mountain Vineyard, Les Collines Vineyard and Riviére Galets Vineyard in the Rocks District AVA.
In their sustainable efforts, Echolands utilizes an onsite herd of goats and sheep to weed and maintain undergrowth. They are dedicated to never using herbicide in the vineyard. To promote plant, fungus and bacterial populations, methods such as grazing, hand-pulling, mechanical and other methods are relied upon to control weeds. Synthetic-free fungicides and fertilizers made only with organic materials are used as well. To continually improve and nourish the soil, organic cover crops such as crimson clover, arugula, radishes and turnips are planted throughout the vineyard rows. Once the plants have died there are then used for green manure to further enrich the soil.
Co-owner Doug Fost MS, MW said, “This is the culmination of the ideas that Brad Bergman and I have had for our land all along. To bring modern winemaking and grape growing into harmony with the needs of the land. For a great wine, you need a great vineyard. For a great vineyard, you need healthy soils. This is our aim.”
View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/echolands-winery-estate-vineyard-attains-organic-certification-302750895.html
SOURCE Echolands Winery
WALLA WALLA, Wash., April 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Echolands Winery in Walla Walla, Washington, has achieved USDA Organic Certification from California Certified Organic Farmers for their Echolands Estate Vineyard location on Mill Creek Road.
Echolands Winery was created by MS.MW, Doug Frost, and conservationist Brad Bergman in 2018. With winemaker and general manager Brian Rudin at the helm, Echolands pursues its winemaking endeavors with a sustainably driven mission. As a young, burgeoning winery, this certification marks the newest achievement in their commitment towards responsible stewardship and regenerative farming.
As in the name, Echolands pursues vineyard management with the phrase “echo the land” in mind. Plantings for the Echolands Estate Vineyard began in 2021 with soil restoration. Cover cropping, composting and incorporation of bio-char (a carbon-rich charcoal) have greatly improved soil structure, while helping to regenerate soil microbiome.
Today, Echolands has planted over 10 different grape varieties at its Estate Vineyard on Mill Creek, including Gamay Noir, Cabernet Franc, Grenache Blanc, Vermentino, Chardonnay and others. Echolands will continue its planting on new clones into 2027 and 2028. The first harvest from their organic crop will be this fall 2026. Echolands currently sources from Taggart Estate Vineyard, a part of the SeVein Vineyard Project on the Oregon side of the Walla Walla Valley AVA. Taggart Estate Vineyard is a Sustainable WA certified vineyard. Among other sources include Blue Mountain Vineyard, Les Collines Vineyard and Riviére Galets Vineyard in the Rocks District AVA.
In their sustainable efforts, Echolands utilizes an onsite herd of goats and sheep to weed and maintain undergrowth. They are dedicated to never using herbicide in the vineyard. To promote plant, fungus and bacterial populations, methods such as grazing, hand-pulling, mechanical and other methods are relied upon to control weeds. Synthetic-free fungicides and fertilizers made only with organic materials are used as well. To continually improve and nourish the soil, organic cover crops such as crimson clover, arugula, radishes and turnips are planted throughout the vineyard rows. Once the plants have died there are then used for green manure to further enrich the soil.
Co-owner Doug Fost MS, MW said, “This is the culmination of the ideas that Brad Bergman and I have had for our land all along. To bring modern winemaking and grape growing into harmony with the needs of the land. For a great wine, you need a great vineyard. For a great vineyard, you need healthy soils. This is our aim.”
View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/echolands-winery-estate-vineyard-attains-organic-certification-302750895.html
SOURCE Echolands Winery
Last week in Los Angeles, Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff, senior director of communications at Cascale, had the opportunity to attend the “Design for Compliance: Textile EPR in California” event during Los Angeles Climate Week (LACW) – which brings together a range of events and conversations across sectors exploring climate solutions, policy, and innovation.
LACW discussions affect not only fellow Angelenos, but also the world – as California ranks as the fourth largest economy. Those specific to textile, apparel, and footwear manufacturing are particularly of interest, given that Los Angeles is also the largest apparel manufacturing hub in the United States.
Quick Recap of LACW:
- Dubbed “Design for Compliance: Textile EPR in California” the event convened cross-sector conversations on climate solutions, policy, and innovation.
- California, and LA specifically, have a part to play in global textile policy discussions.
- Discussion focused on moving California’s SB 707 textile EPR law from policy design into implementation.
Fashion is Outrageous and the California Product Stewardship Center (CPSC) co-hosted the event, which was held at the Little City Farm urban regenerative farm and zero-waste event space. It brought together designers, circularity stakeholders, and experts including Marissa Nuncio, executive director of the labor organizing nonprofit Garment Worker Center and Paul Asplund-Dirani, co-executive director of Project Ropa, which provides clothing to people experiencing homelessness. Event attendees were encouraged to explore and express these ideas through creative exploration led by Gabrille Miller and Kestrel Jenkins, co-founders of FIO.
Joanne Brasch, director of advocacy and outreach at CPSC, led the discussion on how California is moving from policy design to implementation for SB 707, the Responsible Textile Recovery Act, which is the nation’s first statewide extended producer responsibility (EPR) program for textiles. The conversation focused not only on the policy landscape, but also on what implementation will require in practice — from infrastructure readiness to producer obligations and system coordination.
While Climate Week conversations often focus on emerging solutions and future pathways, CPSC’s perspective highlighted the sustained stakeholder engagement and coalition-building required to bring SB 707 forward. A clear takeaway was that “design for compliance” is increasingly becoming synonymous with designing for system readiness, linking product design decisions directly to recovery infrastructure and material flows – connecting design, policy, and end-of-life systems.
The conversation was especially relevant to discussions happening during climate weeks held around the globe. Across sectors, there is increasing attention on how climate goals translate into implementation — particularly where policy, industry systems, and infrastructure intersect.
As Cascale approaches its 2026 Annual Meeting, held in Athens this September, participants are increasingly challenging how the industry shows up to this collective call to action. Because it’s not one city or company acting in isolation, it’s a shared economic and climate reality.
And every corner of Cascale’s global, diverse membership brings an important perspective to the table.
