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W i n e s & V i n e s J U LY 2 0 1 4 47 able Winery Building focuses on reducing water use in cleaning and sanitation. Likewise, many of the below tips and ideas focus on reducing the number of times wine is moved, thereby reducing the number of times you need to clean a pump and hose setup, and reducing the amount of water used for cleaning and reusing cleaning solutions. Saving 50 gal- lons of water by eliminating the odd tank movement here or there might not seem like much, but over the course of a year small tweaks can add up to big savings. Before you even pick a grape… It might surprise you to know that just like "wines begin in the vineyard," water conservation can begin there as well. Though tough to measure, these preven- tive strategies can contribute to overall savings goals. Pick balanced grapes (not overripe rai- sins) so there is no need to add additional hydration water. Similarly, every time a winemaker is able to avoid an addition (acid adjustment, etc.), there is one less pump and hose setup that needs to be sanitized. Healthy musts make healthy wines, and healthy wines are poised to use less water during their lifetimes. High-VA lots, stuck fermentations and their ilk need a lot more tank transfers, filtrations and addi- tions to improve them or treat them—all of which necessitate a lot more water. On the crush pad Cover the reception area and crush pad to minimize the baking on of waste material. The shade will make juice and grape skins easier to remove from equipment, thereby reducing the amount of water needed for cleaning. Pre-clean winemaking areas and equip- ment with brushes, brooms and elbow grease before resorting to water for final rinsing. To make this approach work, it's important to provide enough tools, edu- cation and employee incentives to use a broom instead of pushing a grape with a jet of water. Citing the difficulty in getting staff to think differently about water and use to elbow grease instead of hoses, Zucker said, "This is an obvious step, but not an easy one." Use PIGs (foam balls inserted into the outflow side of the pump) instead of flushing with a big bolus of water between must lots as you're filling fer- mentation tanks. (See "PIGs Save Water in the Winery" in the January 2014 issue of Wines & Vines.) And rather than cleaning picking bins individually, try using a water-recycling bin washer like that from The Tom Beard Co. Fermentation and maceration Pitch yeast directly into the top of the tank rather than injecting with a sump, pump and hose setup. Can you do punch downs rather than pump overs for some red lots? Sanitizing a punch-down tool with ethanol spray or something similar uses a lot less water than cleaning a pump and hose setup. Minimize the number of times you have to clean the red must out of your press before pressing white grapes. Dedicate a press to white varieties if you can, and schedule as many sequential red loads and white loads as possible. Make friends with one yeast strain, or go with your native one so you aren't sanitiz- ing pump-over lines between pump overs. Cellar Move from an old-fashioned three-step cleaning (caustic cycle, acid neutralization cycle and then water rinse) to a two-step process (KOH followed by peracetic acid, followed by a water rinse). If you wait 30 minutes after the peracetic acid cycle, you don't need to rinse with water. This one change can significantly add up during the course of a harvest. "The easiest change to make in the win- ery is to install high-pressure/low-flow cleaning devices throughout the facility," says Jeff Zucker of J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines. He adds, "High-pressure/low-flow nozzles reduce the flow to about 7 gallons per minute (gpm)," which is down signifi- cantly from a typical hose flow of 20 gal- lons per minute. To that end: Invest in pressure washers. "Pressure washers clean floors and equip- ment very well, while only using between 2 and 4 gpm," says J. Lohr's Jeff Zucker. Consider clean-in-place (CIP) tanks. The new CIP tanks at the teaching and research winery at UC Davis "will save the winery water because CIP technology uses less water than manual cleaning, allows for the recycle of cleaning solu- tions during and between cleaning cycles, and will allow us to clean up and reuse Foam balls known as PIGs can help thoroughly clean hoses while using less water. Installing flow meters at key points is a good first step to set baselines for water use. Mark Pisoni of cleans equipment after crush at Pisoni Winery. The winery employs pressure and steam to clean with less water. PiSoNi famiLy A covered grape-reception area eliminates the possibility of baked-on waste material. Sara maTTheWS G R A P E G R O W I N G W I N E M A K I N G