(556a) Sustainable Winemaking – Challenges and Opportunities

In the making of wine one can expect to generate 2 gallons to as high as 10 gallons of water for every gallon of wine produced.  This water is purely for cleaning/sanitation since only the water contained in the grape can be added to wine.  The variation is largely driven by the scarcity/cost of available water, which suggests conservation is intimately tied to economics and the economic conditions are changing at an accelerated rate due to the severity and suddenness of the drought in the western US.  A more proactive approach is to consider the problem of water use reduction, treatment (including energy recovery) and synergistic use of the solids streams that exit a typical winery which will be the topic of this talk.