40 JULY 2018
CRUSHING
SUCCESS
Award-winning winemaker Teusner Wines has recently
invested in two rotary screw compressors responsible
for delivering a reliable and energy-efficient supply of
compressed air to the pneumatic grape-crushing presses
at its new purposebuilt winery in the Barossa Valley
Based in one of Australia’s most
well-known wine producing
regions, Teusner Wines may
have only been producing
wine for 15 years, but the heritage of
its brand far exceeds this. The Barossa
Valley company sources its fruit from
vineyards in the region that are up to
130 years old, and crushes one small
picking bin at a time so it can keep a
close eye on colour, flavour, aroma and
structure - ensuring that the eminent
flavours found in old Barossa vineyards
take centre-stage in the wines. Compressed
air plays an important role in this
process, powering up the pneumatics
presses which are responsible in modern
winemaking. The pneumatic press
is filled with grapes and once the door
has been closed, compressed air is used
to inflate a sealed bag within the press
which effectively pushes the grapes
against a large sieve that softly squeezes
the remaining juice out. To keep up
with growing demand, Teusner recently
developed a much larger purposebuilt
winery which included sourcing two
higher capacity pneumatic presses, creating
a requirement for a larger capacity
compressed air system. With a typical
harvest lasting only three months, the
window to process the grapes is fairly
short, and Teusner needed to invest in
a compressed air system that will be
reliable and efficient in maximising the
harvest period. Owner Kym Teusner
says filling the presses with grapes is
a labour-intensive process, so when a
two-press system is in operation - as is
the case at Teusner - they tend to run in
separate sequences, resulting in flatter
air demand cycles. Two 15 kW SK25
MACHINE-TALK