Good Wine. Better Water. How Rose Family Estate Closed the Loop on Winemaking Waste.

Most of us think about what goes into making wine. Very few of us think about what comes out. Behind the scenes, every winery is managing significant waste streams — grape skins, fermentation lees, and large volumes of water used to clean tanks and equipment throughout the process. For years, this wastewater was one of the wine industry's less glamorous challenges. At Rose Family Estate in Marlborough, that has changed. In this episode of Progress in Practice, host Nick Morrison sits down with Nick Entwistle, Chief Winemaker at Rose Family Estate, for a fascinating conversation about water, waste, and what it means to genuinely commit to sustainability in a primary industry business. Rose Family Estate is home to the globally renowned Wairau River Wines. The business is proudly family-owned, with 15 vineyards covering around 500 hectares. Phil and Chris Rose have been farming this land since 1978 — and the third generation is now entering the business. This is intergenerational thinking in action. Nick Entwistle has been with the Rose family for 17 years. He is the kind of Chief Winemaker who gets genuinely excited about fermenting things — including, as it turns out, the microbes in a wastewater bioreactor. In this episode, Nick and Nick cover: Why winemaking generates significant wastewater and what's actually in it The difference between the old system and the new return activated sludge (RAS) system — and why it's a game-changer during vintage peaks of 120,000 litres per day The $1.5 million investment, the green loan from ANZ, and what the payback picture looks like over a 40 to 50 year horizon How the wastewater plant became a hub for wider sustainability initiatives across the estate The green spreading of grape marc returning 4.5 tonnes of potassium to their soils last year — nutrients that would otherwise have been imported as synthetic fertiliser The Marlborough Circular Wine Group and the BRAGATO project targeting diversion of 6,000 tonnes of winery waste from landfill every year Native plantings across the estate — and how they once saved a vineyard from slipping into the river after the Kaikōura earthquake What makes this conversation special is the scope of it. This is not a single initiative — it is an entire philosophy of land stewardship, expressed through practical action at every level of the business. For more on Rose Family Estate and Wairau River Wines, visit the links below. https://rosefamilyestate.com/pages/su... For more on Go Well Consulting, visit the Go Well Consulting website via the link below. https://gowellconsulting.co.nz/ 0:00 Introduction 1:56 Who is Rose Family Estate? 2:39 Welcome to sunny Marlborough 3:55 The initiative — wastewater treatment at Rose Family Estate 4:27 Where does winery wastewater actually come from? 6:37 The regulatory framework — NZ resource consents explained 7:41 Old system vs new system 8:40 What is BOD and why does it matter? 9:28 The return activated sludge (RAS) system explained 10:10 Managing the vintage peak — 120,000 litres per day 11:13 Annual volumes and water efficiency metrics 13:04 The biology behind the bioreactor — a big fermentation 13:56 Managing biomass like a microbe farmer 17:08 How long does treatment take and what happens to the water after? 18:33 The dedicated wastewater irrigation field 20:34 The council now brings other wineries to visit as a showcase 21:25 Growth capacity — sized for 15,000 tonnes 27:42 The commercial case — $1.5M and a green loan from ANZ 29:29 Intergenerational thinking — farming for the next 50 years 30:36 Telling the sustainability story without greenwashing 31:58 The wastewater plant as a hub for wider sustainability 33:06 Grape marc green spreading — 4.5 tonnes of potassium returned 36:08 The Marlborough Circular Wine Group 38:03 The BRAGATO project — diverting 6,000 tonnes from landfill 41:35 Anaerobic digestion and what a Chilean winery is doing at scale 44:10 Connecting with Kowtow's biochar initiative 45:49 The Green Circle and local biochar production 47:05 Photo walkthrough — the wastewater treatment plant 52:45 Photo walkthrough — the wastewater irrigation field 54:03 Native plantings and green corridors 57:49 How native plantings saved a vineyard in the Kaikōura earthquake 58:30 Closing reflections 1:00:31 Nick Morrison's closing thoughts