Porto Protocol members may recall having been previously introduced to the merits of pulse cooling as identified in the February, 2021 newsletter article published by Treasury Wine Estates (Link).  TWE has done a great job with their automation and energy savings objectives, though many producers may not be able to develop their own solutions capable of reducing energy consumption and automating operations.  Knowing this, California based VinWizard has created an automation platform and solution set for wineries which includes pulse cooling among several other energy and water saving capabilities.  Oftentimes thought to be off limits due to cost and complexity, automating winery operations has typically been dismissed outright, though further investigation will show VinWizard can provide all the benefits of traditional automation without the aforementioned drawbacks.  While VinWizard is not new, having automated approximately 200 wineries and breweries across five continents over the past 25 years, the technology is likely unknown to Porto Protocol members, though perhaps that changes today.

As referenced in TWE’s prior article, UC Davis Professor Roger Boulton has suggested 75% of total energy consumption in wineries is owed to temperature control, specifically cooling.  Accordingly, temperature management is a primary target of energy conscious producers seeking to save money and reduce their carbon footprint.  To support producers in sustainability efforts, VinWizard’s technology streamlines winery operations while optimizing and minimizing energy consumption involved in temperature control.  VinWizard’s customer testimonials provide ample evidence of energy savings though to establish the benefit more firmly, VinWizard partnered with New Zealand’s Bragato Research Institute.  After utilizing VinWizard’s Pulse Cooling capability, the institute published their findings on their WEBSITE.  At the conclusion of the study, a 30% reduction in cooling energy consumption was observed and VinWizard is confident upwards of 50% energy reduction is achievable.  With Portugal being one of the most expensive energy markets, it makes financial sense to seek means of reduction in addition to pursuing sustainability goals.

Source: Global Petrol Prices website via Statista website (Link)

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The wine industry is constantly faced with new trends, challenges and the pressure to stay ahead of the competition. With that comes the opportunity to innovate. 

Each year, Wine Industry Network recognizes five wine industry innovators — not just for their impressive ingenuity or technical advances — but because of how their product and/or service betters the North American wine industry. 

By Jeff Siegel

How does a product work successfully for customers as diverse as a multi-national wine brand, a luxury Napa producer and a teaching winery?

By giving winemakers insight into the highest and lowest temperatures in the tank, says Kelly Graves, CEO of Sonoma’s VinWizard, whose new Multi-Sensor Probe, or MSP, does just that. And what winery – regardless of size or reason for being – doesn’t want to know that kind of information?

“This way,” Graves says, “winemakers can feel comfortable running the yeast at the higher end of its tolerance zones, generating highly sought after flavors and aromatics without running the risk of a stuck fermentation.”

Success follows success

The MSP follows VinWizard’s Multi-Level Probe, or MLP, which debuted in New Zealand some 10 years ago. The first probe let winemakers determine the temperature of the entire wine tank. Its successor goes one step beyond that.

“Having achieved success with the MLP, it was time to take a stab at addressing one of the biggest opportunities [for advancement] during harvest — providing real-time Brix measurement during fermentation without costing a fortune,” says Graves. “Any solution had to provide a positive return on investment when compared to sending an employee out to the tank front twice daily to pull samples and spin a hydrometer or use any of the existing technology.”

The MSP starts at the top of the tank and runs from top to bottom, so winemakers are able to gather multi-level Brix readings while avoiding the cooling jacket impacts that skew results. In this, the MSP’s placement within the tank has been designed to yield the most accurate temperature and rate of fermentation at the core of the tank, while not interfering with pump over devices and CIP set-ups.

The MSP’s data can be combined with automation platforms from VinWizard or its sister company, Octent Automation. Then, the data can be used to set up various fermentation and winemaking functions. For instance, MSP data can trigger a low volume pump over cycle and tank warming when a Brix rate of change is first detected.

“Wine quality, asset use efficiency and overall winery outcomes will be improved by the proper employment of MSP-provided information,” says Graves. “That’s because the MSP has been designed and sold by a company whose specialty is wine production automation. It’s valuable by itself to have the MSP data; it’s a game changer to link the data with a platform that can actually effect change in the cellar based upon the data the MSP provides.”

Eliminating the guesswork

That’s one of the things that surprises VinWizard customers the most, says Graves.

“The data itself shocks winemakers,” he says. “While an educated guess can estimate the temperature inside the skin cap, there are so many variables that impact the thermodynamics of a fermentation, it is essentially impossible to infer what’s going on inside the tank.” Until now.

In the end, real numbers in real time make all the difference.

What is "Visionary Leadership"?

Although most winemakers would hope that their entries into the wine world would be more unique than the next, crafting excellence in a wine from "X-AVA", or like Carol Shelton Wines "Monga Zin" from Cucamonga CA, what sets apart visionaries is having a unique approach that produces much more than simply another 'great wine'.

The questions we ask ourselves are critical in 'self-evaluation' with a primary one being;

"What exactly are we doing as an organization to lead with a Vision?"

This is the question Wine Technology, Inc. Founder Kelly Graves posed to himself when he purchased the Vin Wizard technology and company.

"I wanted to create a layer of useful technology that could enhance existing technologies in winery automation by being able to go right over the top of other existing technologies & that a winery doesn't have to abandon a good tool for a 'better one. We needed a compatible solution to enhance a winery's existing processing technology with a bolt on turbo-charge kit."

Kelly's goal to 'turbo charge' winery systems:

1. Free up the winemaking team to become more intimate with their wines vs. being bogged down with administrative tasks; 
2. Provide fast ROI with scalable systems to reduce power, labor, and risk in the cellar (re: reduced labor in critical high risk cellar activities or winery stress periods such as 'crush'); 
3.  Allow the winemaking team to take that ROI residual and invest part of it on R&D with an objective of continuous innovation. 

One of the areas of commitment that Vin Wizard is focused on is to ensure that the winemaking team does not feel constrained in the creative process when decisions are being made from the "Top Down".

Everyone understands that the bottom line is simply the bottom line.

"Can we make wine as good or better for the same price or less as our COGS and our overheads continue to increase?"

It takes two to tango.  

Wineries that are "Top Down Driven" who thrive in a highly competitive market:

As managers and/or department heads (that's one person in many wineries), we all know that when we're overly creative or innovative, we can easily blow our budgets in both time and expense.

On the other hand, as winemakers and marketers, it is the creative and innovative part of our minds that drive us to 'special outcomes'.

To be "Top Down Driven" without losing creativity and spontaneity, two 'buy-ins' from the winemaking team & CFO (and they must occur for both to 'thrive harmoniously'). 

• CFO's must drive the accountability for costs while the winemaking team strives to create systems to empower them;
• The Winemaking team must always be accountable to quality objectives and not be overrun by unrealistic expectations of quality without a budget;

Visionary Leadership occurs when all company culture, purpose driven company objectives, & leading technologies merge into beautiful products at a great value.

Do Better. Vin Wizard

Europe is putting real momentum behind energy efficiency and sustainability, and the wine sector is right in the middle of it.

We were at Barcelona Wine Week. The message was that automation and AI are becoming practical tools to run operations better, cut energy use, and make faster decisions based on real data.

That is where VinWizard fits, energy efficiency for wineries through automation, connecting operations, data, and control to deliver measurable savings without major infrastructure changes.

In Spain, this push is also being driven by the Federación Española del Vino (FEV) and its Digitalization Hub, bringing wineries and technology companies together to accelerate real projects.

Are you concerned about temperature fluctuations jeopardizing your wine quality during fermentation? 

Manual temperature management can lead to higher risks and prevent stable fermentations. The solution is here!

Introducing the VinWizard STC (Smart Tank Controller), the intelligent tank controller designed to give you full control at your fingertips and ensure precision fermentation.

With the STC, say goodbye to uncertainty and hello to:

• Real-Time Temperature Control: Precise temperature control, both local and remote.
• Consistent and Safe Fermentations: Ensures stability and provides consistent and safe fermentations.
• Risk and Cost Reduction: Minimize temperature deviations and reduce wine quality downgrades.
• Smart Automation: Includes automated pump-overs and oxygen control.
• Ease of Use: Intuitive touchscreen and instant alarms (App, Email, SMS).

Ready to guarantee your wine quality and optimize your winery costs? 

Let's talk about how the VinWizard STC can protect your product.

The Bottom line. Isn't that what we're all talking about?

Key Strategies for Enhancing Operational Efficiency

Automation of Processes

Benefits: Automation to minimize manual errors, reduces labor costs, and frees up staff for higher-value tasks.

Applications: Implementing Vin Wizard auto-pump over, temperature and brix monitoring, and Smart Power management to streamline operations

The linked document outlines a simple flow of Vin Wizard capabilities.

The Bottom Line. 

Automation can be seen as a ‘luxury’ but in reality it is one of the key ingredients to greater quality and reductions in overhead costs.

There’s more and more discussion regarding lean manufacturing of which production efficiency is at the core of ‘Lean’s’ definition.

What is Lean Manufacturing to you and should it be a focal point in your operations strategy?

“Lean” simply is ‘maximizing value while reducing waste’.

Lean translates to ‘improving quality’ as it increases consistency in production processes. 

Profound yet extremely simple.

In the winery, reducing waste means:

• Less Water
• Less Power
• Less Labor
• Less Fuel
• Less Movement 

At Vin Wizard, all we do is help wineries reduce waste and improve quality, freeing up staff from operational redundancies and allowing the power of automation to add $$ to your wineries bottom line.

The Future of Winery Automation isn't a sterile environment free of human interaction or simply producing bland salt-free crackers (so to speak) regarding the uniqueness of our wines. 

Power is at the center of winery automation with refrigeration being a massive power hog that demands our attention.

Let's get into a one of the key categories that VinWizard excels at mastering this world of temperature control: 

Pulse Cooling 🟰 Efficient cooling without the ice or overkill.

Pulse Cooling replaces the traditional method of continuous coolant flow with a smarter, more efficient cycle. Introduced to VinWizard customers in 2017, this technique delivers coolant to the tank jacket in controlled bursts, then holds it in place to maximize heat transfer — before cycling fresh coolant back in.

Why it works:
Rather than forming a layer of ice (which insulates rather than cools), Pulse Cooling ensures direct contact between the wine and the jacket — making cooling more effective and more energy efficient.

Key Benefits:

• No ice build-up inside or outside the tank — improves heat exchange
• Warmer glycol returns in bursts to allow chillers to work more efficiently
• Stationary coolant transfers heat better than a constant flow
• Promotes gentle convection, helping mix the wine naturally
• Easier on yeast — avoids the shock of aggressive cooling
• Reduces energy demand — fewer tanks call for coolant simultaneously
• Higher glycol temps possible, with the same results
• Pulse Cooling helps wineries cool with care, not brute force — resulting in better wine and lower energy costs.

If you are interesting in evaluating your energy and power systems, reach out to us direct: kelly@vinwizard.us

For a free download "Winery Power Audit" Spreadsheet to better evaluate where you stand on power consumption and learn about key areas that your winery can improve: https://wineryconsulting.consulting/winery-power-audit

Tank temperature stratification doesn't differ in the Southern Hemisphere!

We have a new MSP deployment and the data shows there are TWO different fermentations happening in ONE tank. Unfortunately fermenting Bordeaux at 14C/57F lower in the tank and 30C/86F near the top is likely not the winemaker's intention. 

The "sawtooth" trends shows the impact of a pumpover, which unfortunately is not achieving good enough mixing. The wine at the bottom of the tank never reaches the desired set point and the skin cap reaches the setpoint for less than an hour before jumping. 

While our real-time Brix readings are looking good as well (right side of the tank image), I know a lot of winemakers are changing their fermentation management based upon the MSP's ability to elucidate temperature at every level of the tank.

VinWizard will be displaying our latest tools for driving winery production efficiency.  Retrofitting existing wineries is a core competency of ours and will be highlighted with a working demonstration of our Retrofit Module, on tank STC controller, and award winning Multi-Sensor Probe (MSP).

Come have a look at the best in wine industry innovation and how it saves money and improves winery outcomes.  In today’s tough commercial wine market, wineries need every advantage available to maximize margin and improve resiliency; a combination VinWizard is uniquely suited to deliver.

VinWizard
Unified Symposium Booth: 1328

VinWizard is a global winery efficiency platform.  Specializing in reducing labor and energy costs associated with routine winery operations, VinWizard customers see positive cash flows immediately with our No Set-Up deployment strategy.

We are now a member of Renewable Fuels Association and looking to do business with their producer members. For more details, check out the latest press release.

Delivering Accurate Brix and Temperature Measurements from Inside the Fermentation Tank

How does a product work successfully for customers as diverse as a multi-national wine brand, a luxury Napa producer and a teaching winery?

By giving winemakers insight into the highest and lowest temperatures in the tank, says Kelly Graves, CEO of Sonoma’s VinWizard, whose new Multi-Sensor Probe, or MSP, does just that. And what winery – regardless of size or reason for being – doesn’t want to know that kind of information?

“This way,” Graves says, “winemakers can feel comfortable running the yeast at the higher end of its tolerance zones, generating highly sought after flavors and aromatics without running the risk of a stuck fermentation.”

Learn More

Regardless of the utility zone, the rate of cost increase is unsustainable for most producers. Switching to renewables is a great idea, but an even better idea is to simply reduce the amount of energy being consumed.

With 75% of the average winery’s electricity bill owing to cooling costs, the opportunity for reducing monthly costs is significant (between 20% and 40%). After combining immediate savings with rebates/incentives and financing programs, the average winery deploying energy saving technology should have positive cash flow in the first year.

A great combination for most wineries is PolarClad insulation, VinFoil mixers, and VinWizard load scheduling, pulse cooling, and VinFoil automation. This strategy should guarantee a winery 30% total cost savings on their chilling. Reach out to me or BevZero if you’d like to mitigate California utility costs.

Commercial/light-industrial energy trends mirror the residential energy chart below. 

Arkenstone Vineyards has always been a great partner and VinWizard is extremely privileged to have garnered their support for this commercial. 

Hear from VinWizard CEO Kelly Graves at the 2022 Texas Wine and Grape Growers Association Annual Trellis to Table Conference and Trade Show, February 18th from 10:30-11:30.

Join Kelly as he discusses cellar automation with winery-focused solutions to gain efficiency and stability. Learn how our affordable and effective winery production automation can help your team and your bottom line.

Fill the jacket with cold glycol, hold for a period of time to transfer heat and then replace it with fresh coolant. Good money is required to cool glycol so why only get a partial return with a constant flow?

If you were to introduce pulse cooling tomorrow you would be on the way to halving your refrigeration load for the entire year including vintage. If you were to add VinWizard Load Scheduling (synchronized off-peak cooling) you would easily show a 30% to 50% reduction in refrigeration power consumption. Add some pump control and you will do even better.

PULSE COOLING BENEFITS

1. The glycol is stationary when doing its work which is more efficient than with a constant flow.
2. The glycol does not need to be as cold because of a more efficient heat transfer.
3. The return glycol is much warmer than normal and will be returned to the chiller in bursts, so the chiller works more efficiently to bring it back down to temperature.
4. The fluctuations in temperature cause convection in the tank which helps mix the product.
5. Much gentler on the wine and not so destructive to yeast.
6. No ice build-up on the inside or outside of the tank so heat transfer is much more efficient.
7. Fewer tanks are calling for coolant at any one time.

A side benefit of pulse cooling is when you have an area of the winery with reduced flow due to length of run or pipe size. As fewer tanks call for cooling at any one time you don’t need as much flow to keep the tanks cool.

PULSE COOLING HISTORY

Pulse Cooling was first brought to the attention of the industry in the late 90's by Dr. Roger Boulton, a distinguished professor at UC Davis in California. It is still used at the university winery to this day.

VinWizard is installed in the UC Davis brewing laboratory where the subject of over-chilling was raised. With 100% jacket coverage on small tanks the cold glycol kept chilling after setpoint was reached. Pulse cooling was discussed as a solution and the latest VinWizard controller was soon released with the capability.  

The system is also installed at the world-leading Bragato Research Institute in New Zealand. In September 2020 trials were held at the institute with the following results:

Essentially, the pulse-cooled method used only 30% of the energy of the conventional method, while taking twice as long to bring down the temperature. The extra time the pulse cooling took outweighed the continuous cooling when you consider the substantial energy savings.  Often, I found pulse cooling to be beneficial because it gave me more control to bring down temperatures gradually,” 

The functionality has been released at several ultra-premium facilities in the Napa region as well as wineries in Australia and New Zealand. Feedback to date has been extremely positive. The next step is to trial at a larger Australian site where power usage of the entire winery will be measured before pulse cooling and then after pulse cooling. 

Url:https://bri.co.nz/2020/10/02/pulse-cooling/

Published Date:Fri, 02 Oct 2020 01:01:23 +0000

MARLBOROUGH, New Zealand & SONOMA COUNTY, California / May 4^th, 2021 – New Zealand based Wine Technology Marlborough, the developer of industry leading winery automation technology, VinWizard, announced its sale today to Sonoma County based Wine Technology Inc.

Production automation system, VinWizard, which is comprised of both software and hardware developed in-house over the past 25 years, provides unparalleled insight and control over the beverage production environment.  Enabling winemakers, beermakers, and beverage producers alike, the technology has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to save time, energy, water, labor, and money across five continents.  Some of VinWizard’s highlight international customers include Australia’s [yellow tail], New Zealand’s Kim Crawford, and Chile’s Concha y Toro, which are accompanied by California luxury stalwarts Staglin Family Vineyards, Quintessa, and Arkenstone. 

“The technology is unrivaled from a capability, cost, and ease of use standpoint,” comments new Co-Owner Kelly Graves who, along with longtime VinWizard veteran Bob Richards, will continue to commercialize and expand VinWizard’s global footprint.  Per Mr. Graves “VinWizard was one of the first technologies I ever evaluated in my prior career where I was tasked with finding technologies capable of making a big difference in how wine is made.  It is fortuitous I now have the opportunity to expand the adoption of VinWizard across an industry I’ve worked in my entire career.”

Going forward, VinWizard will hold dual citizenship in New Zealand and the United States, as the core operations will remain in its existing Renwick facility while administerial activities will be managed out of Sonoma County.  “Core to our ongoing business model is to maintain and grow our presence in the New Zealand and Australian market, as this is where it all began,” remarks Bob Richards, “… we’ve established a loyal customer base and we will remain heavily invested in local markets.”   Technology creator, David Gill, will be staying on to support customers as well as advance new VinWizard technologies, specifically their RedOx, level detection, and Brix probes.  Bolstering activities in the United States will be the addition of a new VP of Operations, to be named in the coming weeks.  The VP of Operations will be responsible for driving commercial growth and ongoing technology development while providing key support to customers and continuing the build out of the US support infrastructure.

“With rising labor and energy costs as well as recurring droughts along the West Coast of the United States, automating through VinWizard can significantly improve a winery’s resiliency and knowledge of its consumption,” comments the new CEO, “We want to maximize the efficiency of existing production assets while combining data from multiple sources to provide an encompassing automation platform.”  To this end, VinWizard’s flexibility allows integration with existing technologies like winery management platforms Vintrace and InnoVint or processing equipment providers like Pulsair or Della Toffola among others.”  Co-Owner Bob Richard’s comments, “With plug-and-play capability, VinWizard will continue to forge partnerships with complimentary technology providers with the aim of growing together.  Be it connecting to chillers, compressors, automated pump-over set-ups, or accounting software, VinWizard is extremely flexible and is intended to integrate, display, and control all critical aspects of a winery’s production environment.”

Wine Technology Inc.’s immediate task is letting producers know they can actually afford automation and spreading the word about VinWizard’s non-CAPEX subscription payment model.  “We want to let wineries of all sizes know we have a great solution and are capable of creating partnerships without requiring large cash payments,” says VinWizard’s CEO, “Once the broader market is exposed to our capabilities, we are confident VinWizard will become the go-to solution for all things automation related.”  Further information and customer testimonials as well as contact details can be found on the company’s website, www.vinwizard.com

The benefits of automating pumpovers are obvious in regard to labour savings and wine quality. There are however challenges with pumps running dry, isolators turned off and restricted flow. These damage equipment and cause essential pumpovers to be missed. The common answer to these challenges is to install a conductivity switch or flow sensor which add to the cost and complexity.

VinWizard has been interfacing to vfd drives supplied by others for many years. This allows winemakers to create and run pumpover schedules from wherever they may be. Without feedback from the pump there is however a risk the pumpover is not actually happening as expected.

Working with a world leading VFD manufacturer VinWizard now offers the control software and VFD panel as an integrated solution to overcome the above issues. By polling the motor of the pump we can tell if it is free-wheeling in which case an alarm is raised and we stop the pump. If the pump does not start you are notified immediately.

VFD panels come complete with an isolator on the front and a touch-pad screen where you can set the speed and perform manual pumpovers. 2-way coms between software and VFD panel                                            2-way coms between VFD panel and motor

Commissioning and support is simplified with a single company responsible for all except pump selection.

OTHER PUMPOVER FUNCTIONS

• Pumpover when cooling: An option for a pumpover to automatically run if the cooling valve opens. With a single temperature sensor located higher in a tank the temperature is likely to be warmer than wine at the bottom. Continued use of expensive refrigeration resources can result in an overly chilled bottom section of the tank as chilled wine in proximity to the jacket continues to fall. By automating a pumpover when the temperature exceeds setpoint we use the cold wine you have already paid for to create a more homogenous ferment which no longer requires cooling.  
• Pumpover by stratification: For wineries with the Multi-Level-Probe a pumpover can be automated when the temperature difference between the highest and lowest temperature reading exceeds a predetermined level.
• Pumpover by volume: For wineries wanting to pumpover by a known volume VinWizard can use readings from a flow meter.
• Air injection control: Control the operation of venturi valves or sparge stones during pumpovers.