News

Australia Goes Eco: Turning Water into Wine?

Casella Wines, one of Australia's most progressive and successful wineries and owner of the [yellow tail] brand, has responded to the region's on-going drought by building the largest waste water treatment scheme of its type in Australia.

[yellow tail] is the most successful launch of any Australian wine brand in the history of the Australian wine industry. Sales have grown worldwide from 500,000 cases in 2001 to almost 11 million cases in 2006/7.

This exponential growth and [yellow tail]’s long term concerns for the environment have led to the need to manage resources more sensitively.

As of November 2007, 100% of the waste water from [yellow tail]’s Yenda winery in the Riverina wine region of New South Wales is now being recycled. The $5 million Mt Bingar project has the capacity to recycle 400 million litres of water per annum, the equivalent to 160 Olympic swimming pools, using simple and cost effective processes to achieve biological treatment of the waste water. All of this is reused to irrigate Casella’s Griffith vineyards and its new vine nurseries.

Casella currently uses an average of 2.5 litres of water for every 1 litre of wine it produces. The industry average is approximately 3.5 litres. The availability of its own secure recycled water source eases the winery’s reliance on channel water from the Murrumbidgee River.

Managing Director, John Casella comments: “What started as a dream in May 2006 is now a reality. We at Casella and Australians in general, feel strongly about the conservation of our environment; and we are delighted to be at the forefront of this movement.

“This great engineering and design achievement is also part of our broader environmental strategy which includes recycling all waste cardboard, plastic and glass and converting all vehicles to LPG.

“Casella Wines aims to be a key player in the development of a Carbon Footprint tool for the Australian wine Industry. We are on the front foot.”