winemaking

54 Grapegrower & Winemaker www.winebiz.com.au March 2013 Issue 590

Modern cold stabilisation technology
saves time and energy
Winery works with supplier to develop tailor-made unit to achieve efficient tartrate stability.
Kellie Arbuckle
A BAROSSA WINERY
has signif icant ly
cut back on time and
energy inputs during
cold stabilisation after
ditching its chilling
tanks in favour of the
Della Toffola Pacific PolarCyro Unit.
Dorrien Estate has been trialling the
Della Toffola system since August last
year, after the company expanded its
winemaking operations at Nuriootpa.
With limited refrigeration capacity at
the new site, the winery was keen to
revamp its traditional method for cold
stabilisation with technology that would
allow for a more efficient process.
The PolarCyro is a unit designed
for the continuous cold stabilisation
of wine. Unlike traditional methods of
cold stabilisation that rely on external
refrigeration sources, which often consume
vast amounts of energy, the Della Toffola
unit comes with its own refrigeration unit.
The PolarCyro is also set up with an inline
heat exchanger to use wine temperatures
to do a lot of the work.
The inbuilt refrigeration unit does
not require external refrigeration sources
and, according to Montgomery, is far
more energy efficient compared with the
winerys existing ammonia refrigeration
system.
Although the Della Toffola PolarCyro
unit has been around in Europe for
about 30 years, the technology is new to
Australia.
Having taken an interest in the
technology, Dorrien Estate winery
operations manager and winemaker Julie
Montgomery set out to trial the PolarCryo
unit.
We wanted to see how it worked on
our wines and get a feel for the actual
process, Montgomery told Grapegrower
& Winemaker.
Admittedly it wasnt the best time to
trial the unit as a lot of our wines had
already been stabilised, but we knew
we would be receiving unfinished wine
from other sites that would need to be
stabilised.
We also wanted to see the effect on
stabilising red wines that were still being
blended. So whilst it has taken us longer
than expected, we are happy with the
amount of wines we have been able to put
through the system.
Montgomery was also keen to look
at ways to modify the machine to
make it more suitable for the winerys
requirements.
One significant modification was the
replacement of the units inbuilt filtration
unit with that of a crossflow filtration
system to allow greater turbidity of the
wines going through the system.
The filtration system that was
installed on the trial unit required wines
to be filtered prior to cold stabilising,
Montgomery said.
After discussions with the supplier
and technical team, we organised for the
trial unit to be set up with a crossflow
filter in place. This allowed us a lot more
flexibility as more turbid wines are able
to be processed in a single operation.
Reflecting back on the past six months
of the trial, the result that immediately
took Montgomery by surprise was
the amount of time saved; using the
PolarCyro unit, Montgomery effectively
reduced three stages of cold stabilisation
to one.
Were now doing the processes
inline we can take the wine, put them
through cold stabilisation and have them
filtered ready for bottling in the one step,
with little or no potassium bitartrate
required, she said.
The traditional method can take up
to two weeks to get temperature down
but now we can process large volumes of
wine in less than two days.
On top of that, theres no need to warm
the wine post-stabilisation the plate
heat exchanger at the front of the system
uses the incoming wine temperature to
do that. As such, the wines are stable
and ready for bottling as they come out
of the unit.
That the quality of wine being
produced has not changed is another
major benefit, according to Montgomery.
The beauty about the PolarCyro
Unit is that its the closest thing to the
traditional cold stabilisation method
its basically doing the same process but
in a shorter amount of time, she said.
Dorrien Estate is also looking
to automate the system to allow the
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March 2013 Issue 590 www.winebiz.com.au Grapegrower & Winemaker 55
software to communicate more readily with the crossflow filter.
The winery is also looking to enable the machine to manage
inert gases to better manage dissolved oxygen levels in the wine
throughout the system.
The final modification will see the unit adjusted so it can
process both large and small batches of wine.
The machine can currently process batch sizes of 30,000
litres, but because we have requirements for both small and
large batches, wed like to adjust the minimum volume to
around 9000 litres, Montgomery said.
Della Toffola managing director Paul Baggio said it was good
to see the technology have a positive impact in the winery.
To see the PolarCryo CTS operating in an Australian
winery, showcasing the significant energy, water and labour
hour savings, that were validated by the AWRI in their CTS
study, is very satisfying to realise, Baggio said.
Winemakers now have a proven solution to propel greater
productivity and efficiency in the winery that will deliver a
more cost-effective produced wine to compete overseas.
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The Della Toffola Pacific PolarCyro Unit at Dorrien Estates Nuriootpa site.
Dorrien Estate operations manager and winemaker Julie Montgomery.