The new winery, brewery and food-processing complex at UC Davis is the most environmentally sophisticated complex of its kind in the world.

The $20 million, 34,000-square-foot teaching-and-research complex is expected to be the first winery, brewery or food-processing facility to earn LEED Platinum certification, the highest environmental rating awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council. (LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.)

The complex was designed to serve as a test bed for production processes and techniques that conserve water, energy and other vital resources. It is located within the campus’s Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science.

When all of its environmentally friendly features come online, it will have onsite solar power generation and a large-capacity system for capturing rainwater and conserving processing water. The stored rainwater will be used for landscaping and toilets, per LEED specifications.

The new complex was funded entirely by private donations; no state or federal funds were used in its design or construction.

UC Davis is raising funds to complete an auxiliary building to house the equipment that will make it possible to capture, store and recycle rainwater, which will be used in an automated system to clean barrels, tanks and fermentors. The proposed system would reuse 90 percent of the captured rainwater volume.