Treasury Wine Estates Ltd (TWE) has opened the largest winemaking site in the Southern Hemisphere, with the capacity to produce more than 100 million litres of wine every year.
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas declared the site open, attending the ribbon cutting with TWE's CEO Tim Ford and Supply Officer Kerrin Petty. (Pictured above.)
The business unveiled its new $165 million state-of-the-art wine production facility in Nuriootpa in the Barossa Valley, adjacent to and an extension the existing Wolf Blass Bilyara site.
It is the winemaker’s largest bottling operation in the world, packaging up to 216 million bottles per year, operating four bottling lines, and exporting to more than 70 countries around the world. The site employs around 400 permanent team members and up to 600 during peak vintage periods.
TWE Chief Supply Officer Kerrin Petty said the new facility demonstrated the leading premium wine company’s commitment to South Australia and its continued focus on innovation in the wine sector.
“It’s a proud moment to unveil our new Barossa wine production facility, which has been two and a half years in the making through the challenges of the pandemic. Our history in this region dates back to 1859 and today’s opening of our new site signals our commitment to the community and South Australia for many years to come,” Mr Petty said.
The new site provides TWE with the ability to increase premium winemaking capacity by one-third, drive production efficiencies, and expands TWE’s storage capacity. The site includes an additional production line, processing infrastructure and additional barrel storage facilities.
“The new site is purpose-built for premium winemaking with the flexibility to scale up or down production depending on demand, which is crucial given the ebbs and flows of wine production. Sustainability has been front of mind throughout the entire project with the new infrastructure allowing us to manage the impacts of climate change on vintages and ensuring we can protect our most valuable grapes and produce the highest quality wine even in challenging years. It also sets us up to pursue our commitment to net zero. "
This includes:
- being powered 100 per cent by renewable energy by 2024
- installing solar panels to offset 22 per cent of the site’s energy consumption from the grid
- installing a purpose-built 254 megalitre dam to store treated water waste in Winter and irrigate the vineyards in Summer
“As always, the safety of our people is our number one priority and we’ve been able to implement improved safety initiatives including being the first in Australia to use Automated Guided Vehicles to manage our barrel movements as well as using new automated tank technology to check on the wine which reduces the need for our team members to frequently enter tanks.”
The new winemaking site also includes a 4,500m² Icon Cellar Building which represents global best practice for luxury winemaking and provides visitors with the VIP treatment to experience and tour the winemaking process.
“We’re thrilled this key infrastructure site is now complete and operating during our 2022 vintage,” Mr Petty said.
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