Most people know wine and oysters go well together, but a recent partnership between a Maryland nonprofit and a Massachusetts company is giving the pairing meaning far beyond food etiquette.

Proud Pour, a Boston-based manufacturer of wines, recently struck a pact with Maryland’s Oyster Recovery Partnership to aid projects helping re-establish oyster reefs in several of the state’s waterways.

Through the arrangement, $1 from the sale of every bottle of Proud Pour’s North Coast Sauvignon Blanc goes to Maryland’s Oyster Recovery Partnership, which was founded in 1994 to help restore the oyster population in the Chesapeake Bay. The partnership began in January.

“Proud Pour reached out to us a few months ago,” said Stephan Abel, executive director of the Oyster Recovery Partnership. “They wanted to make a difference, and they’ve been very supportive. A little money can go a long way toward making a difference.”

“We realized how much we needed to connect with people who were involved with oyster restoration,” said Brian Thurber, co-CEO of Proud Pour. “We find science-based oyster restoration efforts and support those projects.”

The Maryland partnership is one of many that Proud Pour has struck since its founding in 2014. The company — and its environmental mission — is the brainchild of founder and co-CEO Berlin Kelly. Thurber said Kelly, an environmentalist and a member of New York City’s Homebrewers Guild, was inspired after watching the documentary “ShellShocked,” which chronicles the decline of oysters and efforts to restore them in New York waterways.

“Berlin Kelly gets all the credit for starting this project,” said Thurber. “The light bulb went off when she met the people who started the Billion Oyster Project, who were a few weeks away from launching an oyster restoration effort in New York Harbor. She met them at the premiere of ‘ShellShocked’ in the summer of 2014 and talked to them about her business venture.”

Since then the company has donated a portion of sales to several projects — including the New York-based Billion Oyster Project, the Nantucket Reef Project in Massachusetts and the Basin Preserve Restoration Project headed by the Nature Conservancy in Maine. The company’s efforts now stretch to the Mid-Atlantic as far south as North Carolina.

Thurber said the company believes the Chesapeake bay is at a critical point.

“Due to overharvesting of oysters, the Chesapeake Bay was beset with degraded water quality and a depressed oyster population,” said Thurber, who is from Washington but now lives in Boston. “At one point, the bay was at less than 1 percent [of the oyster population] that it once was.”

Abel said restoration efforts and increased public awareness are working to reverse the situation, and creation of oyster beds are a key element.

“People now understand the importance of this,” he said. “Oyster beds act as the coral reefs of the Chesapeake Bay. Where oysters are restored, you will see new marine life created. The reefs become a three-dimensional home for other species.

“If you have a large oyster reef, the water quality improves and bay grasses that provide habitats for smaller fish can re-emerge,” Abel said. “The reefs also filter out algae, which can get into the bay.”

The Annapolis-based group works with federal, state and county agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, to target prime areas for oyster reefs. A number of foundations, corporations, watermen and conservation groups are also involved in the effort.

The process involves several steps. Bottom mapping and diver surveys help to determine the best areas for restoration. After oyster larvae produced by the Horn Point Oyster Hatchery are placed on recycled oyster shells, reefs are planted by the Oyster Recovery Partnership. Divers from the University of Maryland inspect reefs after the initial planting, and the partnership regularly monitors completed reefs.

Currently three tributaries of the bay are being targeted for projects — Harris Creek, the Little Choptank River and Tred Avon River, all on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Abel said the 350-acre Harris Creek project has been completed, while Little Choptank and Tred Avon restorations are ongoing.

“We’re having a measureable impact,” Abel said. “But there are more areas that need help. We’re hoping to jump-start the natural population [of oysters], because the more oysters that we put in the bay, that will be good for everybody.”

The Oyster Recovery Partnership collects recycled oyster shells from about 300 restaurants from Delaware to Northern Virginia. More than 30,000 bushels of oyster shells were collected in 2016. Several top oyster-shell donors were Anne Arundel County businesses, including Annapolis’ Boatyard Bar and Grille and Mike’s Crab House and Jessup’s Congressional Seafood. They also receive stockpiles of shells from the Department of Natural Resources.

“Shell recycling is closing the loop,” Thurber said. “The used shell is precious, because it is a home for baby oysters to attach to. It helps to build the rich ecosystem.”

The partnership hopes to expand its efforts through money gained through the Proud Pour affiliation. Thurber said donations gathered through the sale of the wine “are always tied to the area, so if you buy in Maryland the donation will stay in Maryland.”

Proud Pour’s North Coast Sauvignon Blanc wine is sold at several Anne Arundel-area establishments such as Eastport Liquors, the Severn Inn, Fifer’s Seafood in Pasadena and the Gibson Island Club. The company’s website — proudpour.com/where-to-buy — lists retailers and restaurants that carry the wine.

“We actually sell quite a bit of it,” said Mike Smith, general manager at Fifer’s. “It has a good story behind it. Anytime there’s a story behind something, it does well.”

Thurber hopes that story resonates with people, and when people raise a glass of the wine, it will also raise money — and awareness — for the cause.

“With this project, we reach thousands of consumers and help them understand why oyster restoration matters,” he said.