Wine Making Equipment
Pulsair was pleased and honored this year to be selected as a 2016 IQ Innovation Award winner, for supporting winemakers with innovative wine making equipment products that help advance the quality of winemaking. The IQ Award Ceremony and two-day Wine Business Monthly’s Innovation and Quality forum, (IQ) was held in early March at the Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena, CA.
“Pulsair is honored to receive this prestigious IQ Innovation Award for innovative wine products, said Dick Parks, President of Pulsair Systems. “Wine Business Monthly’s editorial staff and IQ Advisory Board are well respected within the wine industry. Their new forum that focuses on cutting-edge innovation that advance wine quality for ultra-premium wineries is creative and innovative in itself. The consideration and selection of new innovative wine related products helps winemakers and growers around the world quickly identify and select the best products that are proven, tested and already accepted within the wine industry. Pulsair has been helping winemakers make great wines for almost 25-years.”
Innovation in any industry doesn’t happen overnight and that’s certainly the case with Pulsair’s entrance into the wine industry. The first uses of Pulsair’s “Pneumatage” method for managing red grapes caps started in the late 1980’s in Eastern Washington. A friend of a friend worked at a Washington winery and one conversation led to another that eventually led to a test of Pulsair’s mixing process in an open-top, outdoor red wine fermentation tank. The test was a great success. The winemaker was able to realize enhanced extraction of the color, tannins and flavor from the skins into the juice. Additionally, he was able to turn the cap faster with less physical effort. For years, the traditional methods of managing the wine cap or wine must during fermentation involved either “wine pump-overs” (the French term is “remontage”) or wine “punch-down” (French term is “pigeage”). Pulsair’s “pneumatage” method has been proven to be a great success and allows winemakers the option of converting to this process entirely for their cap management or using it as a compliment to wine punch-down or pump-overs.
Direct from Wine Business Monthly:
“Pneumatage” is an innovative and proven method for efficiently managing grape skin caps during red wine fermentation and wine blending. The Pneumatage process works by pulsing large bubbles of compressed air or gas near the bottom of the fermentation tank. The rising bubbles provide uniform temperature distribution, keep yeasts healthy and efficiently wet the cap to enhance the extraction of flavor, tannins and color into the juice. This process maintains freshness, reduces bacteria formation and helps expel unwanted wine mercaptans and volatile sulfur compounds. Unlike other methods, Pneumatage breaks up the cap into individual berries and then circulates them in the juice, which keeps the cap in a semi-loose state making it easier and more efficient to periodically conduct the Pneumatage.
Since the late 1980’s Pulsair has invested in new equipment solutions that helps make winemakers jobs easier regardless of the type of tank or number of tanks. Harvest is a super busy time and anything that can help winemakers improve efficiency without taking away from making great wines is always welcome. Pulsair continues to make product enhancements and release new products annually for winemakers.
Pulsair is pleased to have hundreds of supportive winemakers around the world who love using Pulsair to help them make great tasting wines.
Learn more about our wine making equipment on pulsair.com/wine-blending-techniques/
Contact Pulsair Today
