Water recovery system reduces demand of water treatment
Eight years ago, J. Lohr was marketing two products under the "Ariel Vineyards" brand: Ariel Free, a 99.51% alcohol-free wine, and Ariel Vineyard at 6 1/2% a.c.Rick Jones and Clark Smith are co-owners of Vinovation, Inc., formed 18 months ago and operating out of Santa Rosa, Calif.The Ariel product line has changed considerably since the pioneering days of 1986. The current line includes 13 wines from such premium varietals as Cabernet franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, plus sparkling wines. The Cabernet franc label, for example, reflects quality (resembling a Bordeaux-type label). Many of the wines are vintage-dated and come from such appellations as Napa Valley, Sonoma, the Delta, Monterey and Paso Robles. Barrel-fermented and/or barrel-aged wines can be used as well as tank-fermented wines.Actually, the ethanol-removal process isn't that new. Karl Jung, a German, produced the first no-ethanol wine in 1920. "It was awful," Gnekow laughed, explaining that the technique Jung developed was distillation without collecting the evaporating ethanol and essences (you can try this at home! Put wine in a sauce pan, heat it up until the ethanol and essences evaporate, then give what's left a taste. Dare you!).The partners stress that while the technology can correct flawed wines, it also can be used to, for example, allow winemakers to pick based on flavor characteristics, not just degrees brix.One of 18 Wisconsin Dairies plants, the Waumandee facility specializes in several American cheeses including Colby, Cheddar and Monterey Jack. As a medium- to large-sized plant, Wisconsin Dairies processes approximately 1 million lbs. of milk utilizing about 130,000 gal. of water, per day.Vinovation utilizes reverse osmosis (R/O) with the R/O unit from Millipore. An extension of ultra-filtration, R/O can, besides removing V.A., lower ethanol, remove color, and concentrate the liquid. At the time of Wines & Vines' visit, the company had processed more than 150 lots of premium wine from 54 winery clients totaling 550,000 gallons. In fact, at our visit we tasted a "before-and-after" red and white wine. In the "before" mode, all the winery could do would be to back-blend or sell the wine as vinegar material, hardly worth it if we're talking about estate-grown Cabernet Sauvignon that might fetch $18 per bottle. Vinovation charges from $1-$2 per gallon for its service, which is a bargain considering vinegar prices.The plant currently operates 24 hours per day, seven days per week. It runs 60 gpm through the WRS filters, recovering 54 gpm of polished water, for 16 to 18 hours at a time. The system is then shut down for two hours, in order to clean the filter membranes with special dairy cleaners. This helps maintain proper flow across the filters.* concentrate to make "sweet reserves;"Filtration fills the need
The Water Recovery System continues to perform as smoothly and as efficiently as when it was first installed: reducing water intake volume into the plant; reducing the volume of wastewater; reducing wastewater treatment costs; all this while maintaining minimal operating costs for the company.
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