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WINERY & VINEYARD EQUIPMENT 58 WINES&VINES August 2016 T wo of the industry's leading pressur- izing racking wands were developed on California's Central Coast. The more recent of the two was the Rack- It-Teer, invented originally to solve a brewer's problem, but the pioneer in the field was the Bulldog Pup, which turns 30 this year. The Bulldog Pup In the mid-1980s, California Pinot Noir was something of a novelty, and it wasn't uncommon to find rustic winemaking equipment at most wineries. In 1986, however, Don Othman re- leased a new racking wand that he designed to be gentler on both the wine and the barrel. "You have to have reverence for the wine and rever- ence for the barrel," Othman told Wines & Vines. A skilled engineer and metal fabricator who came to San Luis Obispo, Calif., in 1974, Othman had been inspired by a separate innovation, the silicone bung. The new technology could com- press against the bunghole, forming a seal. Oth- man designed a racking wand with a gas inlet tube and wine outlet tube in the same stainless steel cylinder. The bung formed a seal, and when inert gas entered the barrel via the inlet, it forced clean wine to flow up the outlet pipe under pressure. Othman visited winery clients with a por- table welding rig on his 1950 A20H-model Mack truck, which can be recognized by its bulldog hood ornaments. He called his fabrica- tion company Bulldog Manufacturing, and he named the new racking wand the Bulldog Pup. The Bulldog Pup proved to be a hit with wine- makers, and Othman applied for a patent soon after releasing it. Unfortunately for Othman, the U.S. Patent Office deemed the device too simple for a patent. "Obviously, they just didn't know anything about making wine," he said. That wand has since been sold to wineries around the world and can be found on the fittings board of many premium wineries. Before the development of pressurizing racking wands, most winemakers used either gravity or their pumps to rack clean wine off sediment. "Every pump, no matter what it is, is going to bring a certain amount of shear to your wine," Othman said. The design of the Bulldog Pup took off, and many variants of pressurizing racking wands are on the market today. "Anybody who is anybody in Pinot Noir has to push with gas," he said. Still, Othman is surprised by how the technology has been embraced by more than just Pinot houses. "Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the Bulldog Pup would go from Pinot Noir and run the gamut of wine." Othman and a buddy still assemble and weld each Pup by hand. He reported that de- mand remains strong, and the trend of craft breweries using barrels has opened up a new source of clients. Othman's manufacturing business is not his only tie to the wine industry. In 1995, he and his wife Gwen opened Kynsi Winery, and in 2001 they developed their own vineyard. The winery currently produces between 3,400 and 4,500 cases per year of Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay, Syrah and red blends. The Rack-it-Teer Tony Pratt, who runs a Paso Robles, Calif.-based welding and fabrication business, has worked with many of the wineries in California's Central Coast region. In 2007, he started collaborating with brewers at Firestone Walker who wanted a reliable racking wand that could withstand the caustic chemicals used for brewery sanita- tion. "They asked me, 'Why don't you come up with something so we don't need to buy a new one every three months?'" he recounted. Pratt soon invented his own variation of the pressurizing racking wand with a couple of PRODUCT FOCUS Racking Under Pressure Two inventors led the way with pressurized barrel-racking wands By Andrew Adams