In these days of massive global water shortages and everyone being urged to save water and reuse and recycle wherever possible, it is heartening to see an innovative program to use captured rainwater in wine production coming out of the University of California Davis and wine production industry solutions provider Winesecrets, who partnered with GE to help Jess S. Jackson Sustainable Winery recycle rainwater for wine production.

By reusing rainwater rather that fresh water for wine production the program is piloting a new and innovative method of supplying the required wash water for the wine production process, which is vital as California’s agriculture plans for months of extreme rain followed by months of drought, which could hamper the wine production in the area.

This new method of reusing rainwater could help winemakers in drought-prone areas like California alleviate the water burden in the winemaking process and could also offer an opportunity for beverage companies to grow profits as recent studies have proven that customers are actually very willing to pay a premium for environmentally and socially sustainable practices and products.

This public-private partnership sees GE’s Water & Process Technologies providing a reverse osmosis (RO) system and a total organic carbon analyser to the winery, enabling it to use existing technologies with advanced digital capabilities for a new application.

Rainwater is collected from the roofs of campus buildings and transported through downspouts to a holding tank with a capacity of around 4 500 litres. The water is then passed through a 50-micron media filter and pumped into two 170 000 litre storage tanks which feed the water system. This water is then used to clean tanks and other winery equipment.

Jill D. Brigham, Sustainable Wine and Food Processing Center, University of California, Davis said, “The rainwater is cleaner than groundwater sources, as it doesn’t contain as much mineral content – that makes filtering the water easier. We treat about 7,000 gallons per day of water for use in the winery.”

Rainwater has fewer contaminants than traditional municipal water sources such as groundwater, lakes and rivers, which reduces overall treatment costs making the process more cost-effective so it is a win-win situation all round.

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