Cultivating Community Chardonnay: Helping End the Houseless Crisis
Our second wine in Eco Terreno’s Purpose Line collection is our 2020 Cultivating Community Chardonnay, which is dedicated to bringing awareness to the growing houselessness and food insecurity crises both around the world and in our own San Francisco backyard.
Having both the Eco Terreno Urban Tasting Room and our restaurant, Lyon & Swan, in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco has brought us both beautiful scenery and culture, and a growing awareness of the Bay Area’s unsheltered and food insecure populations. We choose not to use the term “homeless” as it can often be associated with a state of permanence and old-timey notions of villainization that ultimately only hurt these marginalized communities.
The tasting notes for our Cultivating Community Chardonnay are described as having toasted brioche and vanilla aromatics that lean subtly into delicate hints of apple blossom and pear before pulling forward the enticing aromatics of kefir lime, star fruit, and citrus. The palate is much the same as the nose, with a velvety texture and a soft finish.
Our first vintage comes from 2020, a fact that feels kismet as the varietal is dedicated to a crisis that grew so exponentially in that year. Many people lost their ability to afford housing during the Covid 19 pandemic that began in 2020, much of which we’ve seen and worked to put an end to in San Francisco’s North Beach district.
We opened our Eco Terreno Urban Tasting Room and Lyon & Swan restaurant in November of 2022, proud to have our businesses located in the historic Jackson Square neighborhood. We specifically chose the building we now occupy because of its former inhabitants, which include the first lesbian bar on the West Coast as well as the famed Purple Onion.
As we’ve enjoyed the heritage and the charm of the area, we’ve also been privy to the amount of unsheltered people who live on the streets. This has spurred us into action, inspiring us not only to create the Cultivating Community Chardonnay to bring awareness, but also to partner with such organizations as North Beach Citizens and Meals on Wheels to help end the houselessness crisis in the neighborhood.
This wine can be purchased individually through our website, or delivered straight to your door as a part of our Purpose Pack subscription.
Our Purpose Line wine collection supports many important causes. For more information about the full collection, please visit our Purpose Pack page.
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