South Devon Winery | Install a Bio-Bubble
Jane and Andrew Moon, owners of The Sandridge Barton Estate found themselves with a newly empty farm and an established vineyard. The decision to keep the farm and invest in the farm buildings led to the decision to renovate and convert farm buildings into a winery that could produce wine from their own grapes that were formally processed at the neighbouring Sharpham Estate.
The vineyard has 24 acres of south facing slopes down towards the River Dart and a further 10 acres available and suitable to expand the acreage under vine, which would allow production of circa 150,000 bottles of mostly still wine.
Experienced local winemaker Duncan Schwab is very much involved with the detail design required when building a winery and will head up operations going forward.
The winery waste is high in organic matter, dominated mainly by simple dissolved compounds such as organic acids, salts, sugars and alcohols. This industrial effluent has a high requirement for oxygen for there to be biological decay. BOD loading is typically high, averaging around 5,000 mg/l, hence the need for a specialist biological treatment plant which can introduce sufficient oxygen during the treatment process to reduce BOD levels down to levels acceptable before introduction back into the local watercourse. The process problem is a relatively short season where the bulk of the waste water is produced, outside of this there is not so much work for the plant to undertake, however to keep the process biologically active and ready for next harvest the micro-organisms require feeding, therefore to keep the process alive we use the domestic sewage generated on site from the accommodation, the staff, the café and the wine tourist part of the operation. The whole treatment process is monitored via a broad band link by our process engineers who keep a close eye on dissolved oxygen, pH and MLSS, all of which including effluent clarity are trended and logged in order that we can demonstrate effective treatment under our service level agreement with the Winery. Our team hope to assist Sandridge Barton Wines Ltd in one small part of the production process for many years to come.
