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VintnersSupply_1-3v_VSC_Dec10.qxd 11/10/ GRAPE GRO WING ™ A DIVISION OF MOECKLY ENTERPRISES, INC. FILTRATION & SEPARATION harvests nearly all of Hahn Family Wines' vineyards with multi-purpose tractors. "The mechanically harvested grapes are higher in quality than hand-harvested fruit, and vineyard and winery opera- tions are much more efficient—saving us money and improving the quality of the wines we produce," said Bradley Saun- ders, vice president of finance and CFO of Hahn Family Wines. Instead of field workers frantically picking clusters of grapes by hand, the mechanical harvesters whip 4-foot-long fiberglass tension rods back and forth, snapping the robust berries from the vine and leaving the lighter berries, raisins and a steady blast of air in their wake. "In a year like this," Stambor explains, "the harvester shakes the vine ahead of the machine so that Botrytis-infected ber- ries fall from the vine before the harvester picks them." Depth Media Sheet Filters Membrane Filters Lenticular Housings Cartridge Filter Housings Cross-flow Filter Systems Recessed Plate & Rotary Drum Vacuum Filters Replacement Press Membrane and Filter Cloths Pumps, valves & fittings VINTNERS SUPPLY COMPANY P.O. Box 153 St. Helena, CA 94574 Toll Free 800.366.6809 Fax 707.584.7955 www.vintnerssupply.com QSEE US AT UNIFIED, BOOTH #510 88 Wines & Vines JAnUARY 2012 Keeping pace with the vineyard Two mechanical harvesters and a crew of five harvested 100 tons of Cuvaison Char- donnay during the three days leading up to the October 2011 storm—plus another 100 tons in the days that followed. "The old generation of harvester would harvest sprinkler heads and part of the vine," said Jeffrey Stambor from Beaulieu. "They've dialed in the new generation of harvesters to be much gentler on the vines and the fruit and much more efficient in the vineyard. Add the optical sorter to the mix, and you can bypass traditional destemming and crushing operations at the winery." Only a handful of workers operated the Selectiv' Process Harvester and Vi- sion Optical Sorter at Cuvaison, which together can process more than 40 tons of fruit per day. Rogstad estimates that hand-sorted fruit requires 10 to 20 people for a berry sort and three to four people for a cluster sort. The optical sorter re- quires four to five people, but throughput is three to six times faster than sorting fruit by hand. "In a vintage like this, where there was so little time between the onset of harvest and the first major rain event," Rogstad said, "we would have been sunk without this processing speed." Like the mechanical harvesting and sorting equipment, the Gimbre gondola that separated the juice from the berries on its way to Cuvaison Estates makes winemaking more efficient. weighed and then pumped to a 5,000- gallon fermentor, cutting the time from harvest to tank by almost half. "Because phenolics are picked up in the skin," Rogstad said, "we drain the free-run juice from the skins as quickly as possible. Storing the juice in a Notes from the crush pad Once the Gimbre gondola reached the winery, the grape juice, which had drained into the gondola's false bottom, was pumped to a 550-gallon stainless- steel tank, covered in a blanket of CO2 , stainless-steel tank saturated with CO2 limits oxidation." Winery workers poured berries from the gondola's bib-like shaker table into a Pellenc destemmer that dropped them onto a conveyer belt before delivering them to a Pellenc optical sorter. COMPANY Accurate Forklift Inc. American Grape Harvesters Euro-Machines Inc. Gregoire Group USA H & W Equipment Lakeview Vineyard Equipment Ogletree's Metal Fabrication Orchard Valley Supply Inc. OXBO International Corp. Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) Pellenc America Inc. S & H Farm and Vineyard Supply Spec Trellising Western Square Industries Inc. Harvesting Equipment Suppliers PHONE (707) 585-FORK (559) 277-7380 (707) 864-5800 (805) 458-2863 (905) 468-5016 (905) 646-8085 (707) 963-3537 (888) 755-0098 (360) 354-1500 (415) 973-5085 (707) 568-7286 (336) 679-6244 (800) 237-4594 (800) 367-8383 WEBSITE accurateforklift.com aghinc.com euromachinesusa.com gregoiregroup.com vineyardmachines.com lakeviewvineyardequipment.com ogletreecorp.com orchardvalleysupply.com oxbocorp.com pge.com pellencus.com sandhfarmandvineyardsupply.com spectrellising.com westernsquare.com For more on harvesting equipment suppliers, see Wines & Vines' 2012 Buyer's Guide in print or online at winesandvinesbuyersguide.com. QSEE US AT UNIFIED, BOOTH #918g