Sustainability should be top of mind for those in the winemaking industry. The way we use energy in winemaking has large impacts, not only on the environment but on the bottom line.  A European study notes that most of the energy used in the winery is related to temperature control of grapes and juices at harvest, in fermentation, and during wine storage. This white paper considers how we can optimize the use of energy-intensive systems and equipment through the use of data. In particular, this paper focuses on the use of data in wine fermentation - as this is the time when the wine is particularly volatile and data can give great insights to optimize the use of equipment.

Winemaking is no easy task. Wine is an incredibly sensitive, biological product, and wineries must ensure it is kept in optimal conditions. In order to maintain wine during fermentation, winemakers must have a very good understanding of key wine attributes that dictate fermentation rate, infection risk, and overall health of the wine. In order to ensure fermentation stays within acceptable parameters, winemakers carefully manage industrial equipment like agitators, pump systems, and temperature control. This equipment is energy-intensive and is not always easy to optimize the use of it. This is where data, particularly real-time data is incredibly helpful. 

An example of this is temperature control systems. Generally temperature control systems are set based on two parameters and aimed to create a happy middle point. For example, if a tank gets too cold the refrigeration will turn off, if it gets too hot it will turn on. For the most part, you could argue that the use of this equipment is optimized as it should spend most of its time idle and only be used when needed. However, this is a closed-loop optimization as it does not consider any particular data outside of the temperature of the wine ferment. There might be particular data points on wine attributes that could impact the desirable temperature. For example, if fermentation rate slows down prematurely this could indicate that the yeast needs a slightly different temperature to be effective - causing the winemaker to need to warm or cool the tank. This would change the use of temperature control. It would not just be looking to maintain a set temperature but to actually optimize its temperature according to the fermentation rate. This could have a marked improvement on energy use because if fermentation rate and temperature can be correlated in real-time, then only the exact needed amount of energy would go into ensuring the wine has a successful fermentation.

Similar things can be noticed about pump-overs, plunge downs, or agitators. Generally this equipment is used to ‘get the wine moving’ to limit infection risk, the chance of ‘pocket ferments’, and (for reds) to ensure grape skin contact with the juice. Wineries tend to work these systems on preset schedules, however, there are some wineries experimenting with optimal times to run this equipment. This is a huge opportunity for energy-saving if a winery could accurately examine wine attributes and determine whether a pump or agitator needs to run then the savings across a large number of tanks would be substantial. 

Without data it is very difficult to know when systems and equipment need to be used and when it does not. The data used in this decision-making process must be in real-time in order to truly optimize energy use to ensure quality fermentation. Without real-time data, wineries will set equipment to parameters or run them based on scheduling systems. Both of these miss opportunities for optimizations during a ferment. The ability to have real-time data on wine attributes will greatly enhance a winery’s ability to optimize energy-intensive equipment. With many wineries around the world already doing amazing work to lower their environmental impact, real-time data represents a great opportunity to become more sustainable and optimize the use of energy in each and every fermentation.

Written by Abbe Hyde - Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Winely