Coonawarra winery crowd funds its solar power

Bellwether community winery has devised a clever way to fund its decision to become solar-powered: crowd-sourcing the money on Pozible.

Pozible is an Australia-based crowdfunding platform and community-building tool for creative projects and ideas. 

The winery has already achieved its original target of $25,000 and the money continues to flood in. 

Sue Bell, founder, winemaker, and chief gardener at Bellwether community winery, says the decision to go to solar power was a vital part of its goal to become more self sufficient and lessen its environmental impact.

Bellwether is a small winery in Coonawarra that has spent seven years renovating an old stone shearing shed in Glen Roy (built by Chinese migrants in 1868) to be a boutique community winery, kitchen, produce garden and camp site.

"Behind our winery we have built a thoughtfully spaced campground for a maximum of 40 campers, with a communal fireplace," Sue explains. "Power and water has been put into place at each of these campsites along with the foundations for a camp kitchen.

"At the moment we have five 'powered' sites, but can't turn on the remaining five sites as we are on an old power grid. We also need to grow our ferment cellar to help increase our wine making capabilities. So rather than pay to tap in to the 20th century power grid we want to invest in solar power and go off-grid to become self sufficient in keeping with our ethics and philosophy."

More than $500,000 has already been spent on the winery and $45,000 will be needed to fund its solar system. Supporters who donate towards it will be rewarded with "unique experiences at our beautiful place and by doing so become a founding ‘Bellwether’ or member of our Wine Club."

Rewards kick off with a $30 donation receiving a shout out on social media and private tasting with Sue, while donations above $1000 can allow unique experiences such as becoming an assistant winemaker for a week at Bellwether.