The Stratus Winery has approximately 1870m² of floor space. The building provides space for the production of wine, from receiving the grapes, crushing, fermenting, to storage. There are also areas for tasting and testing the wines, as well as a retail space, bar and private function area.

The winery is equipped with the latest equipment, such as a 2-stage sorting table, which enables up to 16 people to first weed out under-ripe or damaged bunches and then, once the loose grapes roll out of the de-stemming machine, pick up the best berries. Once the juice is pressed, it is moved up and down in tanks on industrial elevators to avoid the need for pumping through tubes, which many winemakers believe produces 'off' flavours.

While care is taken to select only the best of the grapes, so too is the temperature control system that takes the grapes through fermentation into the wine stage. Humidity and temperatures are finely controlled using environmentally sound, ground source heating/cooling systems, from the time the grapes are selected to the time they are delivered to the customer. As multi-level tanks control the fermentation process, so does a sophisticated humidity/temperature control the environment of the aging process. The winemaker controls are centralised and available 24 hours per day via the internet. Detailed history of each batch is tracked through the aging process, through to delivery to the customer.

The project was designed to achieve LEED certification by the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC). Stratus was the very first building in Canada – as well as the first winery worldwide – to meet this standard.

View the full factsheet here.