Features Production Research
CA wineries find new uses for wine waste

May 11, 2017, Sonoma, CA – In 2014, Sonoma wine growers committed to being the first 100 per cent sustainable wine region in the U.S. They are recycling their pomace – white wine grapes get turned into compost, and red wine waste turns out to be a great fertilizer and helps keep weeds down.

But wineries can only use so much. Each year, California wineries produce more than 100,000 tons of pomace. Now, that waste is being turned into everything from cooking oil to cosmetics.

Chris Simmons is a biological systems engineer and assistant professor at University of California, Davis. His lab is studying how food-processing waste products might be used, other than as compost in the vineyards. READ MORE