Serving up eco-friendly, affordable, quality California wine, while saving nearly 30,000 bottles from the landfills, is a business model that merits appreciation.
Established in 2015, the Acheson Wine Co., located in Midtown Sacramento, sprang from owners Steve Burch and Loraine Scott’s shared vision, “to create a neighborhood winery with a comfortable, dog-friendly atmosphere while honoring Sacramento history and doing their part to save the planet and serve the community,” Scott says.
Burch (the winemaker) and Scott both have decades of combined food-and-beverage-industry experience, and embarked on the partnership with high hopes of making a difference.
In honoring Sacramento’s history and family roots, the winery was named Acheson after Scott’s spouse’s grandmother, a native Sacramentan who lived here throughout her 98 years. Further, the winery’s Solons sauvignon blanc’s name pays tribute to the Sacramento Solons, a local minor league baseball team that played on and off throughout the 1900s. On the tasting room wall hangs a picture of Edmonds Field, formerly located on the corner of Riverside Boulevard and Broadway in Sacramento, where the team played.
In 2019, the winery pivoted from traditional bottling to offering 100 percent of its wines in refillable bottles, thereby enabling the owners to accomplish the “doing their part to save the planet” portion of their start-up vision.
Instead of bottling wine in standard 750-milliliter bottles, Acheson Wine Co. stores its wine in reusable, five-gallon, stainless-steel kegs, where it’s preserved in an anaerobic environment. The wine is then drawn out on demand by a tap system into one-liter, reusable, flip-top bottles. Scott says this process has saved nearly 30,000 wine bottles from landfills, which translates to more than 75,000 pounds of glass. According to CalRecycle’s website, in a landfill, “glass bottles spend 1 million years waiting to decompose.”
Today, the original vision that set Burch and Scott in motion is identifiable by Acheson’s tasting room; its location is not only situated across the street from Midtown’s bark park, but it provides water bowls for four-legged guests, too. Additionally, the décor includes local mural replicas and Sacramento landmark images.
Patrons visiting the tasting room have the option of sitting inside or outside, with or without their pooches. They may choose from white, rosé, or red wines, which can be enjoyed by the glass or bottle, or may try a tasting flight of all eight wines for $15, which can be accompanied by a cheese and charcuterie box from Grazing Craving.
Another offering is a wine club membership with options to receive either two or four bottles monthly, available for pickup or doorstep delivery within a three-mile radius of the tasting room.
Plus, you can find Acheson Wine Co. on Saturday mornings at the Midtown Farmers Market in Sacramento and out in the community supporting nonprofit events year-round.
On most days, you will find a steady stream of customers stopping by the tasting room to refill bottles, many enjoying a glass for good measure. The vibe is friendly, casual, and comfortable, just as Burch and Scott envisioned.
