The feasibility of capturing the carbon dioxide produced during fermentation for reuse in winery operations has been confirmed in a trial carried out during the 2024 and 2025 vintages at Hill Smith Family Estates’ Oxford Landing winery in South Australia.
Carried out in partnership with the Australian Wine Research Institute and funded by Wine Australia, the project involved both white and red ferments with the concept and equipment tested in vintage 2024. Based on those results, the AWRI and Hill Smith Family Estates (HSFE) reviewed the design of the tank lids and engineered a custom cover optimised for carbon capture for the second year of the trial.
The custom lids extracted CO₂ during fermentation and utilised tank pressure to feed and capture the gas within a bladder. From the bladder, the CO₂ was treated and converted to liquid via a compressor and transferred into cylinders for storage. Treatment and compression equipment from three companies were trialled during the vintage including from CO2 Winery, a French-based company specialising in capturing carbon dioxide from fermentation.
Stephen Summers, project engineer for HSFE, explained that for a carbon capture and reuse system to be viable, the equipment must be easy to install and remove, have minimal impact on existing winery operations, and require minimal infrastructure and install costs to ensure accessibility for wineries of all sizes and locations.
“The project confirmed that the system effectively captures fermentation CO₂ and has the potential to offset up to 79 tonnes of purchased CO₂ annually per 1000 tonnes of grapes,” he said. “The ability to lease equipment would make the system more accessible industry-wide,” he added.
Stephen said a viable onsite solution for the storage and reuse of carbon dioxide year-round is still to identified. Such a solution may require alternative approaches to CO₂ storage or a purchase agreement with CO₂ suppliers to collection winery fermentation CO₂ during vintage and provide back from other sources the rest of the year.
This is one of several 'Impact Projects' between Wine Australia and the AWRI which sees research projects co-designed with sector and supply chain partners with the aim of producing commercially available products or services.