(Wines&Vines) - Oregon’s wine industry has made a point of making a name for itself with green practices, embracing organic production and solar energy, and the state is the home of the country’s first winery certified by the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program.

With a new vintage starting to hit crush pads across the state, King Estate Winery is awaiting word that its quest for certification with Demeter USA will make it the largest biodynamic vineyard in the United States, and one of the largest in the world. 

King Estate’s sprawling, 1,000-acre property south of the city of Eugene is among the largest estate vineyards in Oregon, with 465 acres planted largely to Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc. Both the winery and its estate received organic certification from Oregon Tilth in 2002, a process that typically takes three years to complete.