Wine production is one of the leading sectors in the food processing industry and accounted for some 27 million tons in 2013-2014. Unfortunately, the wine-making process has some important environmental drawbacks:

• the intensive use of land
• the large use of water
• the application of pesticides
• the production of large amount of waste and wastewater, which need proper treatment to be disposed of

Just to emphasise some key figures, the water footprint of wine is reported to be 120 litres of water for one glass of wine (125 ml) while its carbon footprint is some 1.2 g of CO2 equivalent per bottle (720 ml).  On the other hand, some 50 kg of organic waste (lees, pomace, vinasses …) per hL are produced.

Because all these aspects are of fundamental importance for future sustainable wine production, the Specialist Group’s members are active researchers in all these areas, with an obvious particular emphasis on wastewater treatment.

The SG will organize in November 2015 the 7th IWA Specialized Conference on Sustainable Viticulture, Winery Wastes and Wastewater, Winery 2015, will be held in Stellenbosch, South Africa, 1 – 5 November 2015.

 

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