Winery & Distillery Drainage

Drainage by Application · Food & Beverage

Crush pads that flood every harvest, cellar floors that never quite dry, still houses hosed down daily — wineries and distilleries concentrate a year of drainage abuse into a few intense months. The fix is a properly sized trench drain system with grates rated for the trucks and forklifts that cross it.

Where winery and distillery floors go wrong

The problems we hear from winemakers and distillers are consistent:

Harvest surge. A crush pad that is bone dry in July runs juice, pomace rinse, and wash water for weeks straight in September. Point drains clog with skins and seeds; a continuous trench run with removable grates and a catch basin strainer keeps the pad workable.
Acidic wash-down. Juice, wine, and stillage are acidic, and sanitation chemistry swings the other way. Channel bodies and grates need to shrug off that cycling year after year.
Mixed traffic on one slab. The same pad hosts pickers' bins, forklifts with full totes, and tank trucks at the hose bay. A grate that is fine underfoot can fail under a loaded forklift — load class has to match the heaviest wheel, not the average one.
Barrel rooms and tasting rooms. Wet floors around barrel washing, plus guest areas where grates must be heel-safe and presentable.

Load class for crush pads and cellars

Use our Load Class Recommendation Guide to match each area: tasting rooms and pedestrian walkways are Class A–B; cellar and production floors with pallet jacks and pneumatic-tire forklifts are typically Class C (meets AASHTO H-20); crush pads and hose bays that see tank trucks or hard-tire forklifts warrant Class C–D. A drainage run is only as strong as its lowest-rated part, so confirm the class marking on the grate as well as the channel body.

Recommended systems

ACO KlassikDrain K100 / KS100Quote-Only

A 4-inch nominal channel in sloped and neutral sections — the standard pick for cellar floors, barrel rooms, and crush pads. The KS100 variant adds a stainless steel edge rail, and the grate catalog includes stainless perforated, slotted, and mesh designs (many ADA marked) for guest-facing areas, with Series 600 catch basins and debris strainers for harvest solids. Part of the broader KlassikDrain line if you need wider channels.

ACO PowerDrainQuote-Only

For the hose bay, tank-truck apron, and forklift lanes: ductile iron grates with ACO's boltless PowerLok locking or 4-bolt lockdown, so grates stay seated under repeated heavy wheel passes. Sloped SK channel sections help long crush-pad runs self-clean between wash-downs.

BG Filcoten Trench DrainQuote-Only

Fiber-reinforced concrete channel bodies suited to daily chemical and thermal cycling, with grates from Class A galvanized steel up to Class E ductile iron, including ADA and heel-proof designs. A good single-system answer when one run passes from production floor into visitor space. Details in the Filcoten FAQs & resources.

NDS Dura-SlopeBuy Online

For tasting-room terraces, courtyards, and lighter-duty exterior runs, Dura-Slope is available to order directly from our site — pre-sloped channels with a wide grate range, including a stainless steel perforated option that looks right in guest areas.

Available on request: Josam Pro-Plus channel drain and Josam Lite Line stainless components, with grate options spanning Load Class A through F. Mention Josam on your quote request and we will price it alongside the lines above.

Sizing the crush pad

Outdoor crush pads also catch rain — size the channel for harvest wash-down and storm flow together. Our runoff estimation guide walks through the math, and the interactive runoff calculator gives you a quick flow number to put on your quote request. Check local rules on process-water discharge early; many jurisdictions treat winery and distillery wash water differently from stormwater.