Israeli archaeologists have found starch residue from wheat and barley in ancient pottery in the Jordan Valley, citing it as the oldest evidence of social beer drinking.

A Technology Feature Article Technology: CellarGuard System Type: Winery Sanitation The CellarGuard system from CellarGroup is a range of commercial-grade cleaning and sanitation products, specifically for use in wineries, breweries and foodservice areas. Each product has MAF approval and so are safe to use in all these areas.   Cleanskin24 by CellarGuard Hand Sanitiser &…

Judging for the New Zealand International Wine Show has been postponed until early February 2022 due to the ongoing COVID restrictions in Auckland and neighbouring regions.

New Zealand’s largest contract winemaker the Indevin Group – which acquired Villa Maria in September this year – has taken a majority shareholding in a leading labour supplier.

A Technology Feature Article Technology: Alpha Magic Wine & Juice Recovery Type: Juice & Wine Recovery Services The innovative, new Alpha Magic process is a modern alternative to RDV, for the efficient recovery of valuable juice and wine from material with high solids content. Product wastage is a thing of the past with Alpha Magic…

Marlborough-based wine company Indevin have agreed to buy 100 percent of the Villa Maria Estate, after its parent FFWL was placed into receivership in May, owing its bankers $212 million.

New Zealand Winegrowers and media outlets are reporting what industry has been anticipating for some months now; that unfavourable weather events during the past growing season have meant an overall harvest tonnage significantly down on previous years. Philip Gregan, CEO of New Zealand Winegrowers said, “There will be some variability across different parts of the…

Image © NZ Winegrowers 22nd March, 2021 by Patrick Schmitt In The Drinks Business New Zealand’s largest apple grower could be about to acquire the nation’s major wine producer Villa Maria Estates, according to The Australian Financial Review. In an article posted today, the publication said that New Zealand’s Scales Corporation, which is the country’s…

2021 marks the tenth anniversary of our name-change from Armourtech NZ to Vintech Pacific, in 2011. The business began back in 1998 when, after being involved with the winery services business Armourtech in Australia, Guy Rutledge returned to Gisborne with the idea to start an innovative winery services business here in New Zealand. Guy and…

By: Tamsyn Parker| Money Editor, NZ Herald Image copyright Stuff.co.nz Trade and private equity buyers are being approached to either buy or invest in winery Villa Maria Estate.  Investment bank UBS has been mandated for the search and has a handful of interested parties, according to a report in the Australian Financial Review’s Street Talk column. In…

2021 marks our 23rd year of operation and ten years under the Vintech Pacific brand name. Technologies in the New Zealand wine industries have come a long way in that time. From introducing Ozone Barrel Sanitation back in 1998, a service we still provide, to Crossflow Filtration, and most recently de-alcoholisation by Spinning Cone Column,…

Saturday, 7 November 2020, 3:05 pm Press Release: New Zealand Winegrowers. Congratulations to Ben Tombs from Central Otago for becoming the 2020 Tonnellerie de Mercurey NZ Young Winemaker of the Year. Ben is Assistant Winemaker at Peregrine Wines in the Gibbston Valley and the first Young Winemaker from Central Otago to win the competition. The…

A Technology Feature Article Technology: ReSoul Aroma Capture Type: Aroma Capture Technologies As New Zealand’s leading provider of mobile production technologies to the wine industry, Vintech Pacific’s services are all focused on quality outcomes. Vintech Pacific rigorously research, test and invest in specialised new technology and equipment, to provide a range of the latest process…

The New Zealand Lighter Wines Initiative is the largest research program our industry has ever undertaken. Its goal is to position New Zealand as the world’s leading producer of lighter wines; that is, those under ten percent alcohol. The programme aims to deliver economic benefits of $285 million per annum by the end of 2023.

From Our “Only In America” files… A Californian man has been arrested after he climbed underneath a moving wine tanker in his underwear, unscrewed a valve, and proceeded to drink from the vessel. As reported by the Turlock Journal, Modesto traffic police arrested Gabriel Moreno, 39, on 5 May following the incident on Highway 99.…

In the new environment that Covid-19 has introduced and with it the requirement for the very highest sanitation standards, Vintech Pacific has introduced the use of a new range of revolutionary sanitation products for our personnel and equipment. The products, a long-lasting, alcohol-free and sanitiser and a powerful surface sanitiser with extended 30 day effectiveness,…

The Resoul system provides a practical and effective method to capture aromatic compounds during alcoholic fermentation and to store and reintroduce those aromas at a later stage, such as at bottling.

An evolution of thermovinification for red wines, in flash détente, de-stemmed grapes are heated to 80-85 ᵒC then immediately pumped into a vacuum chamber where flash vaporisation of water inside the vacuoles of the grapes skins, causes them to explode, releasing all the pigments contained within, while avoiding the jammy characteristics of thermovinified wines.

The RDV filtration process recovers juice and wine from lees that would otherwise be discarded. As much as 80 percent of juice from lees that was once dumped down the drain can now be kept – all adding to yield per tonne of grapes harvested.

The US-based owner of Nobilo Wines, Constellation Brands, announced on Thursday that the brand and its related assets will be sold to E.J Gallo Winery Inc. for $US130 million.

STARSXF describes the process of both stabilizing and filtering wine, in one pass, often immediately prior to bottling or bulk tankering. This process has been shown to be highly efficient in terms of time, energy consumption and both reduces the use of additives and reduces process losses over alternative methods.  This technology saves time and…

A case of Bordeaux wine has been delivered to the International Space Station, to study the effects of micro-gravity and radiation on the maturation of wine.

12 bottles of the French red were part of the cargo delivered on Monday by the latest Commercial Re-Supply mission to the orbiting laboratory, 400 kilometres overhead.

Vintech Pacific Limited, New Zealand’s leading provider of mobile production technologies to the wine industry, announce a breakthrough development in the production of low and no alcohol wines.

Vintech Pacific Mobile Wine Technician, Bill Crossen and his crew competed in the Workworks Wine Race, this past Labour Weekend.

Vintech Pacific’s Technical Winemaker, Christian Kuun, has been conducting on-site trials this week with the Agrovin mini-Freek+ trial unit that arrived in the country recently. This small-scale technology demonstration unit processes as little as 200 litres, which is often sufficient to treat a 2,000 litre batch of wine, is now available for on-site demonstration of our new ion transfer capabilities.

Vintech Pacific were once again sponsors of the Bayley’s Hawkes Bay Wine Awards in 2019. We continued our involvement this year, sponsoring the Champion Commercial White Wine Trophy. The trophy was awarded to Church Road Grand Reserve Chardonnay 2018, the fruit for which was handpicked from two low-cropping vineyards, Tuki Tuki and Terraces, both in…

Vintech Pacific Limited, New Zealand’s leading provider of mobile production technologies to the wine industry, announce the commissioning of a new, mobile, Pall XL6-S crossflow, based in Cromwell, Central Otago. As part of our demonstrated commitment to bringing the very best wine production technologies to New Zealand’s wine industry, this new equipment is available as…

As a part of Vintech Pacific’s investment in our extensive and ongoing program of research and service development, our North Island Manager, Brett Barnes is in California for the next two weeks. While he’s there, Brett will be working with our partners at Agrovin, Conetech and Wine Secrets to develop our engineering and service knowledge.…

Imminent Technologies As New Zealand’s leading provider of mobile production technologies for the wine industry, Vintech Pacific has an extensive and ongoing program of research and service development. Through this program, we seek to ensure that the New Zealand wine industry, one of this country’s most important export revenue earners, enjoys access to the very…

Quality Low & No Alcohol Wine & Beer are Now a Reality Vintech Pacific’s new ConeTech Spinning Cone Column has arrived in New Zealand and is currently undergoing commissioning at our facility in Hawke’s Bay. This new technology process occurs under vacuum so the temperatures reached are much lower andfor far shorter periods than with…

Redox reactions involve electron transfers, where one species gains electrons and another, or more than one species, loses them . These are very commonplace in wine chemistry.

Many of the most common organic chemical reactions in wine production are influenced or even regulated by pH. A sound understanding of this relationship can open a range of possibilities and techniques which may not at first seem intuitive.

MemStar Reverse Osmosis A Technology Feature Article Technology: Memstar Reverse Osmosis Type: Filtration & Membrane Technologies MemStar (Membrane Separation, Treatment and Removal) Reverse Osmosis is an advanced membrane technology for the selective removal of targeted molecules from wine with minimal changes to the rest of the wine’s composition. MemStar Reverse Osmosis is a mobile service…

A Technology Feature Article Technology: Rotary Drum Vacuum Filtration Type: Filtration & Membrane Technologies The RDV filtration process recovers juice and wine from lees that would otherwise be discarded. As much as 80 percent of juice from lees that was once dumped down the drain can now be kept – all adding to yield per…

A Technology Feature Article Technology: STS45 Centrifuge Type: Clarification Vintech Pacific operate the mobile, skid-mounted STS45 centrifuge from Separator Technology Solutions in Australia. This versatile technology is highly effective for clarification of both wine and beer at various stages of the production of either. The STS45 is a high-speed, centrifugal, vertical, self-cleaning, two phase, disk-type…

A Technology Feature Article Technology:       Flash-Détente Type:                   Extraction   It is an inconvenient truth that not all grapes are created equal.  Try as we might and no matter how much skill, love and attention are showered on viticulture, sometimes the weather gods just have it in for us, when harvest time comes around.  Similarly, many…

A Technology Feature Article Technology:       Spinning Cone ColumnType:                   Distillation   The Spinning Cone Column is a technology that offers promising possibilities to the wine, beer and drinks industries and Vintech Pacific is at the forefront of research into spinning cone applications in New Zealand. Traditional distillation techniques use heat to evaporate and capture volatile compounds…

A Technology Feature Article Technology:       Crossflow Filtration Type:                   Filtration & Membrane   Vintech Pacific were pioneers of crossflow filtration technology for the New Zealand wine industry.  Today, we are the acknowledged leaders in crossflow filtration as a service for New Zealand’s wine producers. Crossflow filtration differs from more traditional ‘dead-end’ filtration methods in several ways.…

A Technology Feature Article Technology:       Reverse Osmosis & Ultrafiltration Type:                   Filtration & Membrane   Reverse Osmosis and Ultrafiltration are offered as on-site services in New Zealand exclusively by Vintech Pacific. Both services employ reverse osmosis technology but use membranes of differing pore sizes, which enables a wider range of quality enhancement results to be achieved.…

A Technology Feature Article Technology:       Reverse Osmosis & Ultrafiltration Type:                   Filtration & Membrane   Vintech Pacific’s Reverse Osmosis and Ultra-filtration technologies provide winemakers with a diverse range of tools for enhancing wine quality and for the development of new products. In simple terms, these are advanced membrane technologies that enable winemakers to selectively remove constituents…

Ensuring that wine is physically stable and can be transported, stored over time and served, while always remaining in perfect condition is hugely important in today’s modern, global wine market. For those who remember their high-school science classes, acids and non-metal ions combine into compounds called salts. With variations in temperature, salts have a propensity…

Vintech Pacific Wine Technologies have signed an agreement with Italian firm Agrovin to exclusively offer the Oxi-Out Dissolved Gas Management system in New Zealand and Australia.

Vintech Pacific Wine Technologies have renewed their sponsorship of the Hawke’s Bay A&P Bayleys Wine Awards for a further three years.

Nature is a lead player in the production of quality wine, yet nature is not always as cooperative as she might be when harvest time comes around.