De Grendel Helping to Beat the Water Shortages
We’re so grateful to be receiving consistent rainfall at last in the Durbanville Wine Valley, but the warnings are out for a hotter & drier summer than ever ahead. While at De Grendel we water our vines using reclaimed grey water supplied by the City of Cape Town, we decided we needed to explore other options to service the needs of our estate, including our blueberry crop.
De Grendel has always used water from boreholes where possible. The only drawback is that because of our proximity to the ocean, the water is brackish, and therefore unsuitable for drinking. “We’ve been discussing the use of reverse osmosis technology for a while, says De Grendel operation manager Pierre Viljoen. “In the past this wasn’t financially viable, but with water prices having increased to discourage water usage, it made sense for us to invest in this technology. We see it as a long-term solution for the estate, and are excited that we are able to assist the City of Cape Town with their water-saving efforts,” says Pierre.
Reverse Osmosis (RO) is a water treatment process that removes contaminants from water by using pressure to force water molecules through a semipermeable membrane. During this process, the contaminants are filtered out and flushed away, leaving clean, delicious drinking water. The reverse osmosis machine used on the estate is able to “clean” the undrinkable borehole water within a couple of minutes and can be turned on and off when needed. “The process allows you to clean the water the way you want it. With the filtering process you can choose which minerals, metals and the solids to remove and then the reverse osmosis process removes the salt. That gives us clean drinking quality which is better quality than bottled water,” he says.
So, when you visit De Grendel Restaurant and estate, you know that the water you are drinking and using is as high quality and unique as our wines.
To find our more about how you can save water and about level 4B water restrictions click here.