The worldwide thirst for alcoholic beverages grows –  beer, cider, wines, etc. Successful alcoholic beverage production requires getting the most out of raw materials and maintaining desired end-product characteristics through safe, cost-effective and sustainable multi-stage processing. HFM supplies equipment, modules and complete processing lines configured to meet the specific requirements for breweries. More and more customers in this field are working with us, especially in plate heat exchangers for wine.

Harvest grapes → Prepare grapes →Pasteurization →Add yeast→Fermentation→Press→Malolactic→Aging→Blending

→Pasteurization→Bottling→Bottle aging

1. Raw material selection: Choose mature, fresh and intact grapes. Grape varieties suitable for winemaking are shown in the table below. 

2. Cleaning and sorting: Rinse the selected grapes in a running water tank. Firmly rinse with water. Sort and remove rotten fruit while cleaning.

3. Pressing and coarse filtration: Commonly squeezed and centrifuged to extract the juice. The coarse filtration was carried out with a sieve having a pore size of 0.5mm to reduce the insoluble solid content to less than 20%.

4. Cold impregnation: control the ambient temperature at 5-10℃ for approximately 12-24h to extract polyphenols flavonoid polyphenols.

5. Low-temperature clarification: stand at 0-5℃ to remove suspended solids such as pulp and peel, reduce enzyme activity and prevent oxidation of grape juice.

6. Pasteurization: rapid heating to 90-95℃ to inactivate various enzymes.

7. Heat impregnation: quick and short time leaching tannin and pigment from grapes at 50-60℃

8. Fermentation: Different types of wine require different temperatures for fermentation. Dry white wine temperature is about 18-20℃, dry red wine fermentation temperature is about 26-30℃

9. Cold treatment: wine is cooled to precipitate sodium hydrogen tartrate

10. Packaging: The sterilized wine is quickly placed in a sterilized glass bottle and heat sealed. After sealing, it is rapidly cooled to 38 ℃.

1. Press cap

  In fermentation, the wine residue such as grape skin floating on the wine liquid in the wine barrel is called “wine cap”. Pressing the cap encourages the wine residue down into the wine liquid. Its primary function is to let the wine and the skin get complete contact, to extract more tannin, pigment and flavour substances. There are many ways to realize the cap. The traditional way to press the cap is to step on the artificial foot, also known as “stepping on the skin”. Some old wineries still keep this traditional way of pressing the cap， but now more of this is done mechanically.

2. Malolactic acid fermentation

  Once alcoholic fermentation is complete, some wineries process their wines through malolactic fermentation, a process in which the original malic acid in wine is converted to lactic acid. For some wines with too much acidity, this process can soften the edge of the wine and make the overall structure of the wine more balanced. Malolactic fermentation can also bring butter and cream flavours to wines and soften them.

3. Oak barrel ageing

  Many wines are aged in oak barrels after fermentation. At this stage, if the wine is aged with the puree, the winemaking staff also needs to stir the barrels properly so that the liquid can fully contact the puree. This process can lead to more complex flavours, a fuller body and better balance.

4. Pasteurization

  Use a plate heat exchanger to quickly heat the wine to 90-95 ℃ for 1 minute. The medium in it can be steam or water.

5. Filling

  The sterilized wine is cooled to 80 ℃ or higher through a plate heat exchanger, filled into a bottle that has been spayed and preheated, and then inverted for 10 minutes after capping.