Afternoon Brief, April 6th

Jancis Robinson at Napa RISE: "The Younger You Are, the More Concerned You Are": On April 5, 2023, the world’s most famous wine writer, Jancis Robinson, made a rare in-person appearance in St. Helena, Calif., at Napa Green’s Napa Rise sustainability event, highlighting her pet peeves in packaging, green solutions and insights into global wine trends...

Have you met Gravity Wine House founder, Jeff Pisoni? Jeff loves making wine—and considers himself a lifelong student of enology. It’s the craft that his father inspired him to explore, study and pursue since he was just a toddler. Through his role as a winemaker, Jeff developed a passion for exchanging information and insights with the winemaking community, all with the goal of driving for higher quality wine and methods. This passion is seen through our work with clients on both our mobile bottling line and in the cellar. Jeff recently spoke with Wine Industry Advisor on the reasons behind using the Armbruster Rotovib for unprecedented grape processing quality for Pisoni Family Vineyards, as well as our clients at Gravity Wine House.  Read the full article on Wine Industry Advisor

Situation: Winemakers producing premium wines know that wine quality is dependent upon the efficient removal of fruit from the vine and preparing the berries for destemming, a critical process requiring high-end, sophisticated, and reliable grape handling equipment. Jeff Pisoni, Winemaker at Pisoni Vineyards, had been looking to upgrade their previous destemmer for quite some time. “There was a lack of innovation in destemmers for a while,” comments Pisoni. “Purchasing new processing equipment is a big investment and long-term commitment, so we were waiting for the next generation of destemmers to come to market since destemming and sorting is such a critical part of the winemaking process.” When new destemmers did start to become available, it was clear they all had the common goal of giving wineries a very clean destemming process with as little MOG (material other than grapes) as possible. However, only the Armbruster Rotovib Destemmer delivered a f