COATESVILLE, Pa. -- Wine enthusiasts sipping Chardonnay might discuss its "terroir," a French word for the effect of a grape vine's environment on the wine's flavor.

	Joseph Kaczmarek/Associated Press
	Alice Weygandt, co-owner of Stargazers Vineyard in Coatsville, Pa., tends to her grape vines. The winery uses 30 roof-mounted solar panels mounted to generate electricity.

For John and Alice Weygandt, the most important environmental factor at their Chester County winery has everything to do with the sun.

That's because the couple rely on the sun not only to gradually ripen their vineyards, but thanks to 30 solar panels mounted on their winery's roof, to create the electricity for pressing grapes and corking about 10,000 bottles of wine a year.

Generating energy, not consuming it, continues the Weygandts' philosophy of sustainable viticulture.

Their Stargazers Vineyard and the nearby house they built into a hillside outside Coatesville, about 36 miles west of Philadelphia, use geothermal heating and cooling but no electricity. They avoid chemical pesticides and weed killers on their 9,300 vines. Rooftop cisterns collect rainwater for watering the vines, easing stress on their well.

The Weygandts and other vintners who have converted to solar systems say the change has been good for business, not just the earth.

Karen Ross, president of the California Association of Wine Grape Growers, said more wineries are catching on to the economic benefits -- tax incentives, rebates and reimbursement for surplus energy -- of environmentally friendly vineyards and alternative energy.

"It's important for them because we're part of a global market, we're in a competitive situation and, at least in California, we're part of an urbanized area that also has to deal with rural issues, to be good community members," Ross said. "It's just part of us being able to stay in business. The environment is one that there's no other choice for our industry."

But ecologically conscious enthusiasm must balance economic costs, said Patrick Healy, environmental manager for Fetzer Vineyards in Hopland, Calif., which produces 3.7 million cases of wine a year.

Solar panels installed on new administrative offices in 1999 contribute about three-quarters of that building's electricity needs, but Fetzer has no plans to expand the system to other winery facilities.

Panels too heavy for rooftops would take up valuable vineyard space, Healy said, and the price of converting Fetzer entirely to solar can't compete with the low cost for fossil fuels.

"We want to do the right thing but you can only do the right thing if you're still in business," Healy said.

New customers at Stargazers Vineyard come to see the three Sunny Boy inverters, mounted in June on the bottling room's concrete walls, that convert solar energy into electricity for the grid.

"We tell people you can buy our wine and buy our electricity from The Energy Co-Op," their utility company, Alice Weygandt said.

All energy generated by the panels goes into the power grid, but The Energy Co-Op buys any surplus the Weygandts don't use for 20 cents per kilowatt hour; the price per kilowatt hour consumed, about 7-8 cents, is about the same they paid with a previous utility company, Alice Weygandt said.

Since installing solar panels on the winery built in 1996, Stargazers has used about half of the 1,324 kilowatt hours sent to the grid.

With solar panels and a windmill to supplement the generator at Evergreen Valley Vineyards in Luthersburg, in central Pennsylvania, Mark Gearhart estimates that he saves approximately $1,000 a year for his nearby home and about $3,000-$4,000 for the winery -- fees he would otherwise pay to connect to the power grid.

The electricity generated on his 10-acre property meets almost all his home electricity needs, he said, and powers the lights, computers, bottling machines and cash registers at the winery where he produces about 12,000 bottles yearly. Gearhart wants to expand his system to power a walk-in cooler as well, pushing the system's total cost to about $20,000.

Eileen Crane, winemaker and president of Domaine Carneros in Napa, Calif., expects to save $50,000 a year with the solar panels installed this spring on the 15-year-old winery's new Pinot Noir facility.

"I thought when I did this research on solar that I would meet some resistance from the European company that is the primary owner [Champagne Taittinger] and they said, 'We looked at it for our building and it's just not economic,' " Crane said. "I said, this is northern California, not northern France, and I got a note back from them saying, 'You must do this.' "