Wastewater from human dwellings and activities has been a primary target of manyrntreatment technologies, including constructed wetlands. Constructed wetland technologiesrnfor wastewater treatment is characterized by specific conditions enabling simultaneousrnvarious physical and biochemical processes that are responsible for the removal and retentionrnof pollutants. Thanks to its advantages such as simple construction, easy operation and costrneffective maintenance, there is growing interest in the use of this technology for therntreatment of wastewater from different sources including industries. rnThe specific characteristic of industrial wastewater (new pollutants, extreme concentration,rnlow biodegradability, high toxicity) is a challenge for the application of constructed wetlands,rnand therefore research is necessary to assess their viability and optimize their design andrnoperation. This study was undertaken to establish the efficacy of horizontal subsurfacernconstructed wetlands in purifying winery wastewater, and to examine the effect of waterrndepth and vegetation on the treatment efficiency. rnThe study used four pilot scale cells with water depth of 40 cm and 80 cm that were operatedrnat the same hydraulic residence time of ten days. Two cells were planted with localrnmacrophyte (bossarus aethopium) and the other two were left unplanted to be used asrncontrol. The constructed wetlands exhibited good removal efficiency with respect to all thernmajor pollutants monitored i.e. COD, BOD, TSS, TDS, TKN, NH4rn+rn. The datarnanalysis indicated that the shallow wetland cells with a water depth of 40 cm had significantlyrnhigher performance for the removal of COD, BOD, TKN and NH4rn+rn-rn3-rn, NO3rn, TP and PO4rn than the 80 cm deep cells.rnAlso, the planted wetland cells showed better removal efficiency for the organic matter andrnnutrient than the unplanted cells. rnThe findings of this study showed positive results towards the use of HSSFCWs for therntreatment of winery wastewater. The 40cm deep planted cell had better overall performancerncompared to the other cells and hence was used to design a large scale constructed wetlandrnfor Awash winery. STELLA modeling tool was used to simulate the hydrologic dynamics of thernlarge scale constructed wetland.