Anyone who works in a wine cellar is in danger. The risks for winemakers are great: even a little carelessness can cost lives in the worst case, reports Matthias Stelzig.
It was probably just one of these thin steel legs under the tank. In May 2021, the support buckled under the weight of around 50 tonnes. The tank tipped against a second one—and now the domino effect could no longer be stopped. Several tanks smashed through the outer walls of the winery, taking stairs, gratings, and pipes with them. Within seconds, the hall of Darling Cellars in South Africa's Western Cape was transformed into the scene of a catastrophe. In front of shattered concrete walls, 250,000 litres of wine sloshed as if Darling was in a dark red flood plain.
Meanwhile, inside, staff battled against metre-high fountains of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cinsault before the stainless steel containers toppled over each other and came to rest like an oversized toy. "That was traumatic," said Managing Director Riaan de Waal, "but it could have turned out much worse." Luckily, all the employees escaped with a scare.
Accidents of this magnitude don't happen every day—but they do happen from time to time. The year before, Bodegas Vitivinos in the Spanish wine-growing region of Castilla-La Mancha was hit when a ruptured external tank flooded the company premises with 50,000 litres of Bobal red wine. At the Rodney Strong Winery in California, a 380,000-litre tank burst and coloured the yard, the surrounding area, and the nearby Russian River red. An entire tidal wave of red wine flooded a village in north-west Portugal in 2023: two tanks burst for unknown reasons, spilling around 2.2 million litres through the streets and damaging several houses. Many cellars were flooded with wine.
But personal accidents also happen too often in cellars. In October 2025, for example, Italian winemaker Matteo Forner (44) was cleaning his grape press in the evening—a routine job. But for unexplained reasons, the grinder suddenly started moving and caught his head and neck. Forner suffered a broken neck and died, reported the daily newspaper Corriere del Veneto.
Traditional barrels are also a risk: if they are stacked in rows, they are usually secured with wedges. Even a normal, full barrique weighs around 270 kilograms. If just one securing device comes loose in one of these rows, a few tonnes of barrels can move faster than a person can run (see picture above).
The fact that a winemaker falls into a tank and drowns could be considered the start of a crime novel. But it happened in reality: Victor M., a winemaker in British Columbia, Canada, was leaning over the edge of a 2,300-litre tank, slipped and fell in. A worker jumped in after him to save him—but they both drowned. If the tanks are only filled to the point where a person can no longer grasp the upper edge, they can no longer save themselves. Even the fire brigade had to drain the wine first to recover the bodies. A very similar situation occurred in two wineries in the Basque Country and in Treviso, Italy: in both cases, a man had fallen into a tank. Another man tried to pull him out—and fell after him. All four died.
Lattice boxes and pallets that are moved with a forklift truck are also heavyweights and often lead to serious accidents. In April 2025, all help came too late for a forklift driver in Sonoma. He had obviously become trapped under a stack of pallets that was too high. A falling pallet hit him as he was climbing out.
Chemicals in the cellar are also an often life-threatening problem. An employee of the Durbach winegrowers' cooperative got caustic soda in the face while cleaning a pasteurisation plant. Despite wearing a protective visor, he was blind for days afterwards. Diatomaceous earth and sulphur can also cause serious damage to health in the long term. Finally, the mechanics of bottling are very dangerous for winemakers and employees—especially if someone tampers with the corking machine during operation. The plunger that presses in the corks can injure people badly, as can shattering bottles. The noise also pushes the limits: 85 decibels during bottling can damage hearing without protection. This also applies to machines such as harvesters. An open tractor can be as loud as a disco. And some pile drivers can be as loud as a jet plane taking off just a hundred metres away.
Another danger: if wines ferment uncontrollably in closed tanks, they develop high carbon dioxide pressure, which escapes explosively when a closure flap is opened—or blows away due to the pressure. Even pressurised tanks for sparkling wine can burst. In 2018, around 30,000 litres of Prosecco bubbled uncontrollably over the farm in Veneto as a result.
In wine production, however, things can become life-threatening even without pressure: During mash fermentation, for example, carbon dioxide takes up to fifty times more volume in the cellar than the must—and it is five times heavier than air. This is why so-called "fermentation gas lakes" form on the floor of cellars. The risk: they displace the air we breathe. The CO2 also flows through walls and gaps into the rooms below. Different temperatures during fermentation—red wine warm, white wine cold—create a thermal effect and even distribute the carbon dioxide vertically in the room. If the odourless gas rises to head height in rooms without good ventilation, it becomes life-threatening for winemakers and employees.
In 2021, several members of a winemaking family in Calabria were working in an unventilated fermentation room. The reconstruction of the accident revealed that one man fainted first. A second man tried to save him. He also fell unconscious, followed by a third. In the end, four people died. A woman was found near the door and only just survived.
"People die every year, entire families have been wiped out," reports Gabriela Würth from the General Accident Insurance Institution in Vienna, "and the number of unreported cases is probably high." As personal fault is often undeniable, not every accident ends up on her desk. A rule of thumb is: when a candle goes out, there is not enough air. However, there are only a few winemakers who have experienced this. Normal air contains 0.04 per cent CO2. Increased concentrations often produce a kind of intoxication in people, which is quickly followed by a loss of control. "There is hardly any time to react," explains Würth. At five per cent you faint, at nine per cent you die. Candles, however, still burn even with 13 per cent CO2 in the air.