Mission Winery is committed to minimising the impact of its winery operations on the environment.

To achieve this we have set up an environmental management program, and this has been recognised by the accreditation of ISO 14001 since 1998 (the environmental management standard). Power and water consumption is monitored, as well as the use of all other materials that have an effect on the environment.

Since 2007, Mission Estate has crushed 1000 tonnes of grapes, and bottled over 80,000 cases of wine annually. However, our power usage is similar to that of only four domestic homes. For every litre of wine produced, the power usage is an incredibly low 0.13 KWh.

Mission Estate's new winery building is a thermo-mass construction, with the concrete panels containing a sandwich of extruding polystyrene. The roof is also insulated allowing the temperature to be controlled and stabilised in an environmentally sustainable way.

All of the tanks are housed internally; this is unusual for a winery of this size and provides considerable energy savings. Unlike most wineries that run on high powered refrigeration glycol systems all year round, Mission Estate has installed two separate systems - a large, high powered system to be used during the busy six weeks of harvest, and a smaller, more efficient system to be used during normal operations.

In terms of refrigeration, Mission has employed different systems for controlling fermentation temperatures and cold-stabilising the wines. This has been designed in such a way that specific compressors are used for different duties, enabling considerable energy savings by minimising compressor inefficiencies.

Every aspect of Mission Estate's production is managed to create wines that minimise the impact on the environment.  This innovative approach creates lower demands on New Zealand's stretched energy resources, which is especially important through the critical winter months.

• PRINT PAGE
• SEND TO A FRIEND
• SUBSCRIBE TO RECEIVE UPDATES
• JOIN US NOW