ABSTRACT
The wine sector has faced increasing pressure in order to fulfill the legal environmental requirements, maintaining a competitive position in a global market. The rising costs associated have stimulated the sector to seek sustainable management’s strategies, focussing on controlling the demand for water and improving its supply. These can be accomplished by defining the best practical techniques, using technological means (Best Available Technologies) (Duarte et al., 2004). Some EU Directives were implemented concerning water protection and management. These included in particular the Framework Directive in the field of water policy and environmental legislation about specific uses of water and discharges of substances. The disposal of the untreated waste from the wine sector is considered an environmental risk, causing salination and eutrophication of water resources; waterlogging and anaerobiosis and loss of soil struc-
ture with increased vulnerability to erosion (Schoor, 2005). The winery wastewater is seasonally produced and is generated mainly as the result of cleaning practices in winery, such as washing operations during crushing and pressing grapes, rinsing of fermentations tanks, barrels washing, bottling and purges from the cooling process. As a consequence of the working period and the winemaking technologies, volumes and pollution loads greatly vary over the year. Each winery is also unique in wastewater generation, highly variable, 0.8 to 14 L per litre of wine (Schoor, 2005; Moletta, 2009). Consequently, the treatment system must be versatile to face the loading regimen and stream fluctuation. During the peak season (vintage), the winery wastewater has a very high loading of solids and soluble organic contaminant, but after this period, contaminant load decreases substantially. The high concentration of ethanol and sugars in winery wastewater justifies often the choice of a biological treatment (Bolzonella & Rosso, 2007). But the different wine processing method of each winery generates wastewater with specific properties, causing the impossibility to meet a general agreement on the most suitable cost-effective alternative for biological treatment of this wastewater.
