Freestanding machinery gives production flexibility

摘要

Quality wines are being produced in small volumes with efficient use of machinery and winery floor space at Ralph Fowler Wines, at Mount Benson in South Australia's Limestone Coast region. This is possible through the use of its mostly freestanding machinery and equipment. Moving the machinery by forklift allows flexibility and effective use of space to meet the winery's needs from vintage to vintage. Relatively small machinery was suited to the 190 tonnes of fruit crushed in the 2004 vintage, which was also Ralph Fowler Wines' first vintage. Originally set up to be a 100 tonne winery, the machinery was installed pre-vintage in 2004 and has already been used to its potential. It is important to the winery's operations that each piece of machinery is capable of receiving grapes or juice via tipping from the forklift. Each machine has been chosen for the winery because of its efficiency in size and operation, reliability and ease of use.