At La Kooki, we like to experiment – with grapes, with ideas, and with how we tread more lightly on this planet. We make small-batch wines, so every decision is personal, from how we grow and source to how we bottle and ship. Sustainability, for us, is less about ticking boxes and more about doing the right thing, learning as we go, and sharing the journey with you. It’s a work in progress and we’re okay with that. From lightweight bottles and honest packaging to biosecurity, recycling, community volunteering each step is one piece of a longer journey. If you’re curious about any of it, pour a glass, check the label, and know that your wine is part of something a little more kooki – and a little more thoughtful – than just what’s in your glass ■

La Kooki wines are made on Wadandi Country in the Margaret River region. Over the years we have sourced fruit from Wadandi, Pibulmun, Pindjarup, and Menang Countries. Acknowledging that is an important part of how we do business. We want to make sure our actions reflect the respect we feel for this place and its Traditional Custodians. For us, sustainability includes cultural and social responsibility – not just environmental footprint.

La Kooki became a member of Sustainable Winegrowing Australia (SWA) in 2021 and proudly achieved certified member status as a wine business in March 2023. What does this mean? It’s a commitment from us to you that we will strive to continually improve in everything we do when making La Kooki’s wines. Whether it’s sourcing fruit from our respected growers, a light touch with winemaking, supporting as many local suppliers and businesses as we can, contributing to our Margaret River community through volunteering or how we minimise our packaging carbon footprint to name a few. It’s not easy being small and living in one of the most isolated wine regions in the world, but being sustainable is important to us.

Glass bottles are one of the biggest contributors to a wine’s carbon footprint, and we decided that didn’t sit well with us. Since 2021, La Kooki wines has moved to lightweight 750ml bottles with an average bottle weight of 396g, and we’re a signatory to the Margaret River Wine Association Lightweight Glass Packaging Charter. This simple switch helps cut emissions associated with our packaging by more than 20 percent, while keeping the focus where it should be – it’s what’s inside the bottle that counts.

Behind the scenes, we use APCO’s Sustainable Packaging Guidelines to review our cartons, closures and labels, and to build packaging goals into our broader business strategy. That means looking for recycled content where it’s feasible, designing out unnecessary or hard-to-recycle bits, and choosing materials that can have another life after you’ve enjoyed the wine. We’ve developed a La Kooki Packaging Strategy to keep us honest and to make sure future packaging decisions move us in the right direction. Since 2025 all our labels are 100% recycled paper stock.

We don’t own vineyards – we work with growers we know and trust – which means we also take responsibility for how we move between sites. We ask our growers for their biosecurity plans and adopt best practice by using self-service sanitation (like footbaths and clean vehicles) to help prevent the spread of pests and disease. La Kooki is also a signatory to the Code of Conduct for Australian Winegrape Purchases, working with our growers on payment terms that support both their business sustainability and ours.