A winery situated in the Western Cape of South Africa suffered a devastating setback on Tuesday when a stand supporting a massive wine tank failed. What began as a single tank losing integrity quickly turned into a large-scale domino line, resulting in multiple wine tanks collapsing and substantial damage to the facility.
According to a statement released by Darling Cellars on Twitter the day after the “traumatic” explosion, “A wine tank holding 50,000 liters of wine collapsed when (we suspect) the stand keeping it upright caved in.” More tanks were damaged as a result of the initial collapse, but fortunately, no injuries occurred during the accident.
Since launching in 1948, Darling Cellars is known for producing a diverse range of wines, but no information was released regarding which varietals were affected. The winery utilizes a variety of stainless steel tanks, ranging from 5,000 to 54,000 liters.
Video and pictures of the incident on social media and in South African newspapers document the unfolding events. Red wine can be seen spraying from tanks and flooding out of concrete walls damaged during the destruction.
Wine lovers on social media kindly offered their assistance in cleaning up the mess, and many were more than willing to bring their own containers to help capture the approximately 335,000 glasses of wine lost in the chaos.
Darling Cellars is not the first winery to suffer such a setback. Back in 2018, a Prosecco winery explosion caused a loss of 30,000 liters of sparkling wine after a pressurized fermentation tank failed.
While we were all told not to cry over spilled milk, spilled wine is a different story altogether.