With the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic receding, wineries are increasingly upgrading and modernizing equipment for the vineyard, winemaking, and packaging to optimize and automate more manual processes. Machinery like depalletizers is gaining traction because they play a crucial role in automating the handling of bulk glass. Bulk glass lowers costs and the winery’s carbon footprint by eliminating third-party charges for packing glass into cases before delivery. It reduces the number of trucks (and thus CO2 emitted) by 35 percent or more. Mimi Storts, Senior Director of Planning and Operations at Hess Persson Estates, recently upgraded the Hess Collection bottling line. She explains, “At Hess Collection, we had only one bottling line, and it was nearing its end of life. Quality is number one, so we wanted the new bottling line to maintain that quality and retain our internal quality oversight.” Storts also needed two capabilities the old line didn’t have: to h

Afternoon Brief, July 7th

US Wines Win International Acclaim at Decanter World Wine Awards 2021: Medal winners have been revealed in the biggest ever edition of the Decanter World Wine Awards, following two weeks of rigorous, Covid-secure judging in London, with US wineries claiming top awards...