Analysis of the thermal loads required by a small-medium sized winery in the Mediterranean area

Since the Nineties of the previous century winery design has been undergoing deep changes. Some factors are affecting the main design criteria, focusing on a new conception where the winery becomes more and more open to customers, energy demand reduction is a crucial goal driven by economic and environmental reasons, and the whole systems is aimed at the research of a renovate quality of the product. The state of the art in this specific sector highlights how a reduction of the energy consumed by a winery can almost reduce to zero the carbon emissions of the whole wine-making process, as well as the existing lack of specific design criteria addressing the most recent above-mentioned trends and challenges, in particular for small and medium-sized farms, that on the whole account for a huge production in the Mediterranean area. The main aim of this work is to provide information about yearly thermal demand in the wine-making sector, by means of an integrated approach that considers the thermal loads required by room heating and air conditioning, must/juice pre-cooling, and fermentation cooling. Different models have been created and tested on a case study, in order to analyze the contribution of various farm design choices to the total energy demand. The most representative models are described and analyzed in this work: they differ for harvesting modality, and materials and vertical distribution of the building envelope (aboveground vs underground). The results highlight the relevance of the three contributions in terms of total annual energy consumption, power peaks, and time distribution of energy demand over the year. The analysis of the data obtained by the different models have allowed to identify the strengths and potential critical issues, and to provide professionals, oenologists and farmers with useful elements to lend support in their decision making processes, as well as to define the next steps of the research, aimed at defining specific design criteria for small and medium-sized wineries.