Living it up (sustainably) at the Hotel California

Driving south along McLaren Vale’s California Road, a patchwork of vineyards, dotted with stone cottages and old gums, extends as far as the eye can see.

Turn right into Inkwell Wines, just a few kilometres out of the township, and the scenery changes. The vines are still there, but dominating the view is a magnificent architectural delight, made from twenty-one shipping containers and housing a cellar door, office and micro-hotel.

It’s a rare sunny day during the winter when I arrive at Inkwell Wines, and the vines are demanding attention. The label’s organic certification means it’s vital to prune when the sun shines to avoid ‘dead arm,’ a dieback disease caused by the combination of two fungi that love moist conditions.

Inkwell is committed to sustainable farming principles. The vines are grown biologically using compost, with no chemical additives or pesticides. Nothing is added in production – no diammonium phosphate, tartaric acid, tannin or extra yeast. This means timing is crucial for pruning, hand picking and processing. The vines certainly won’t wait for my interview to be over!

After we inspect the vineyard, Dr Irina Santiago-Brown, who owns and manages Inkwell alongside her husband Dudley Brown, describes the vision for the cellar door and accommodation. ‘The cellar door was necessary to have a point of direct contact with the customers, because it’s difficult to sell online, and for people to find you randomly and book an appointment,’ she explains. ‘We wanted to diversify and integrate vertically. If you are just grape growers, it’s a tough business. And if you are producing wine, you get money from your grapes about three years later. Accommodation spreads the risk of the business and it also gives us an opportunity to showcase our wines.’

With Irina holding a PhD in sustainability in viticulture, and her role in developing McLaren Vale’s Sustainable Australia Winegrowing Program, it didn’t make sense for her to build something that didn’t follow the same philosophy. It was a given that any development on the winery site needed to be as environmentally friendly as possible. ‘I had this idea to use beautiful shipping containers – the ultimate sustainable material,’ says Irina. ‘They are already built, and they might not be any good to transport any more, because they might be a little rusty or have a little bit of usage already so are going to be thrown away. It’s a massive way to avoid waste.’

When Dudley had knee replacement surgery and was quite immobile, he discovered that two Lego pieces with five dots on top could be used as a scaled-down model of a twenty-foot shipping container. ‘So, he was playing with Lego, with inspiration from millions of things we have seen and liked and discussed, and he developed a little model,’ Irina says. ‘And then we tried to find engineers to help.’ This was no easy task, with many turning down the project, until a Melbourne-based structural engineering firm caught Dudley and Irina’s enthusiasm.

The couple engaged local architect Steve Layton to do the drawings for the structural engineers to work from. A team of engineers, including McLaren Vale company Oliver Engineers, worked on the final building, which was prefabricated before being moved onto the site late last year. All up, the process took about six months, from buying the containers in June 2017 to attaching the second layer and starting to work on the interior.

Irina and Dudley’s commitment to sustainability continues inside the cellar door and the three luxury rooms that comprise Hotel California Road. ‘We stuck with the original plan of using as much recycled and upcycled material as we could without compromising the luxury feel,’ Irina says. The floor of the cellar door is recycled timber, the chairs are old German school chairs, the solid iron table bases are machinery parts from India and the table tops are Japanese kimonofold tables. In keeping with the green theme, all new furniture is made from sustainable birch plywood, beautifully treated to give it a luxe look.

While the hotel and cellar door are not completely off the electricity grid, solar panels and battery storage mean they are about ninety to ninety five per cent powered by renewable energy. ‘We can’t risk telling guests, “hey today we didn’t have enough sun so there’s no electricity”,’ smiles Irina. ‘We capture rainwater so every single tap is rainwater, double-filtered and UV-treated. There are no plastic bottles for water.’ Meanwhile, all waste water is recycled for irrigation.

The cellar door, with its magnificent viewing platform, is on the first floor of the building, and offers timed tastings for visitors, as well as an immersion experience by appointment.

For those who want to wake up to panoramic views of the vineyards, the hotel rooms downstairs are simply sublime. Each is fitted out with a double rainfall shower, deep stand-alone soaking tub and a floating king-sized bed. One room can be configured to include an accessible bathroom and wheelchair-friendly entry. ‘We thought about all the things we love and hate about hotels and we tried to get the best and get rid of the worst,’ Irina says. Like the cellar door upstairs, the hotel furnishings are a mix of old and new, without compromising quality. ‘I make the joke that we reuse everything we can … but the sheets and the towels are new,’ Irina laughs.

Although neither Dudley or Irina have any hospitality experience, they have travelled extensively for work. Irina has also worked in Protocol – a government department involved in upholding diplomatic customs and hosting formal international visitors – in her home country of Brazil. ‘We had someone who came from a five-star hotel to teach me how to make the perfect bed and clean efficiently,’ Irina says. ‘I can clean, and Dudley can clean, but we were highly inefficient. This is a special event for our guests, there is no excuse not to be perfect.’

The lessons obviously worked because, since its opening in May 2018, Inkwell and the Hotel California Road have enjoyed a steady stream of visitors and five-star reviews, proving that sustainability and luxury can indeed successfully go hand-in-hand.

Story by Nicole Leedham.

Photography by Heidi Lewis.