How much water does it take to make wine?

Wine is AwesomeBut how much water does a winery use?

IME also estimates that 30-50% (1.2 billion tons of all food produced is lost before reaching a human stomach, and water required to meet food demand in 2050 could about triple the current amount used annually by humans

Common beverages Amount of Water

Milk 255 liters per 250 ml glass

Wine 109 liters per 250 ml glass

Beer 74 liters per 250 ml glass

Tea 27 liters per 250 ml cup

Water needed to produce common beverages

(Institute of Mechanical Engineers)

California makes 90% of all U.S. wine

• 4,100 bonded wineries (nearly all family owned)

• 214.6 million cases produced

• 5,900 wine grape growers

• /• 570,000

acres of wine grapes

• 4.24 million tons of wine grapes harvested

Source: Wine Institute, http://www.wineinstitute.org

It takes (on average)6 gallons of water to produced one gallon of wine

What is the sustainable/ideal

amount of water to turn water into wine?

2-3 gallons of water per gallon of wine

From M. Dunne, Sacramento Bee

• Most water use in wineries is associated with washing equipment such as crushers and destemmers, presses, harvest bins, fermentation tanks, hoses, pumps, etc

• Water is also used to clean floors, pads, other areas for dust control

Cleaning accounts for much of the water used at wineries.

It’s up to California

• Wineries need to conserve water• Wineries need to reduced water

usage

Common Conservation methods• High Pressure washing • Reduction in water use with pressurized vs non-

pressurized water for cleaning harvest and fermentation bins, and de-stemers-crushers

• 75% through use of timers, automatic shut off and related aids further reduces over use of water for cleaning equipment

• Use of cleaning and sanitizing chemicalso Cleaning aids detergents (percarbonates, others)o Disinfection aids (bisulfite, metabisulfites,

percarbonates, chlorine

Common Conservation methods (cont.)

• Dry ice pellets• Collecting rinse waters and treating for

recycling, or irrigation • Use of nanofiltration and reverse osmosis to

upgrade wastewater• Use of water meters throughout winery and soil

moisture meters in vineyard to pinpoint excessive use areas

• Educate and/or incentivize workers to conserve water

Who is studying the best water

conservation and sustainability for

California Wineries?

Jackson Sustainable Winery FacilityRobert Mondavi Institute, UC Davis

Focusing on• Ways to Save Water• Use of rainwater• Tank cleaning• Barrel Cleaning• Green chemistry• Recycling and recovery—

nanofiltration and/or reverse osmosis

• Self-sustainable, zero carbon • Carbon dioxide captured from all

fermentations in the winery will be converted to calcium carbonate (chalk), and will be given to a plasterboard company

• Real time monitoring of emissions• Temp maintained at 50° - 80 ° without heating

or AC units

Some techniques from Robert Mondavi Institute, UC Davis

• 90% of water and chemicals from each winery cleaning cycle will be captured and processed for future use

• Chilled water produced by using an icemaker powered by electricity from solar panels

More techniques from Robert Mondavi Institute, UC Davis

Presentation by

www.winesecrets.com

Information Courtesy ofJames N. Seiber

Department of Environmental ToxicologyUniversity of California, Davis, CA 95616

Valentino Tiangco and Joselito Real RST Cellars Davis, CA

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