Centralas is a Los Angeles-based, ecologically focused winery using delicious wine to connect you to local farming that improves the environment.
Our story is about connection.
It goes without saying that we love wine. Starting a winery is a fool’s errand without that love.
But we love the world more. We love the health and well-being of the planet and all the interconnected life that depends on it and each other for survival and meaning.
So somewhere along the way we realized that making delicious wine isn’t good enough. It isn’t worth our time and energy to be just another status quo winery. Because we realized that the status quo is destroying the world.
Instead of wine, we want to make a real connection - not to the romantic vision of wine, but to the real agriculture behind it and how our consumer choices have the ability to influence it.
We want to connect to you and provide you with wine that actually reflects your values.
Setting a higher standard
Ecologically Focused.
This means we make every decision, business or winemaking, with a goal to protect or benefit the environment. We work with farmers local to the Los Angeles area to make our wines. None of our farmers use herbicides or chemical pesticides. Most are certified organic or biodynamic, and dry-farmed. We also forage wild, indigenous fruits, and the surplus of fruit trees in our neighborhood. Thoughtful organic, regenerative, and local viticulture reduces our carbon footprint, and prevents harmful chemicals from entering our land, air, and waterways. It protects the health of the environment, which in turn protects our health. It also provides a clean and safe work environment for the humans and other animals who work and live in and around the vineyards. Ecological viticulture also protects biodiversity in the vineyard soil, flora, and fauna. This biodiversity grows more nutrient dense fruit resulting in more complex and vibrant wine.
All Ingredients Listed.
Centralas sets an example by listing all ingredients used, so you know exactly what goes into the wine you’re drinking. There are well over 60 ingredients allowed to be added to wine, yet wine producers are not required to tell you about any of them (except sulfites). Most of these ingredients alter the flavor of the resulting wine. We believe every wine producer should stand behind all of the ingredients they use, and we practice leadership in transparency.
Our transparency goes to the extreme. We have even begun listing the “ingredients” we put into our home vineyard - things like water, compost, and the names of organic sprays that we used that vintage. We do this because our home vineyard is too small to be certified organic, so we want to show you exactly what we use so that you know we could be certified. Words like “sustainable” or “regenerative” can be meaningless and used to greenwash. We think that just telling you exactly what we use avoids this. Please ask us about any of our farming practices (but beware that we LOVE to talk about them).
Lightest Footprint.
We’ve selected bottles for our wines that are the lightest available in the industry – 30-50% lighter than an average wine bottle – and they are made in California. We chose these light-weight, locally-made bottles to reduce the carbon footprint of getting our wines to your table. To reduce waste we also don’t use the decorative foil or plastic capsules that cover the tops of most wine bottles, because they serve no functional purpose.
We believe that what’s in the bottle is much more important than the bottle itself.
In 2023 we began partnering with OOM.earth to source reused wine bottles and promote the massive ecological benefits of reuse.
Ecological Winemaking
“Natural” for us is focused on the agriculture. We make natural wine in the sense that we want our winemaking to take a back seat and let the life of the land shine. We aim protect and honor the work done by the farmers, vines, trees, and cacti.
Wine is singular among alcoholic beverages because it can reflect the different flavors of each year and place in which it was grown. We love this about wine and don’t believe in trying to eliminate those variations through extreme manipulation and recipe-driven decision-making. We make wine by making the most of the variations caused by all the interconnected variables of weather, sites, and winegrowing culture. Our winemaking is more responsive and protective than intentional.
Often we don’t measure the chemistry of the fruit until it’s in the winery, and and then we respond accordingly. Usually this simply means allowing naturally occurring yeasts & microbes to ferment the grapes. We store the resulting wine in used oak barrels to settle out any sediment. Then we bottle without fining or filtration or any other form of chemical or mechanical manipulation. We usually choose to add a very small amount of sulfites to protect the wines from spoilage and oxidation. All of our wines are vegan.
Ecological.
We make all choices with a goal to protect or benefit the environment.
Transparent.
We list all ingredients and welcome any questions.
Mindful.
We let the farming & terroir shine through our wines.
Unique.
We make wines that you can’t find anywhere else in the world.