Page 17 - Grapevine NovDec 2021

In The Winery

solutions for liquid nitrogen. Wineries use VBC’s deploy it for common uses such as purging wine
signature Nitrodose injection systems in multiple bottles before filling and removing oxygen in the
applications. Its piping systems include the stain- headspace before capping. Fallon describes how
less Semiflex, Nitromatic dewar fill and Cobraflex. liquid nitrogen is key in this process, known in the
CobraFlex is a liquid nitrogen hose made of wine industry as flushing.
stainless steel, deriving its name in part from its
extremely flexible outer wrap. A clean-in-place fea- “Flushing can be an important step in maintaining
ture is available for all piping options, as are sensor the freshness of any organic material,” he says.
control separators and modulating valve phase sep- “Removing oxygen from a storage container or bot-
arators. tle will help to extend the shelf life of the product.
Liquid nitrogen expands to 700 times its volume
Jim Fallon is an Application Engineer for VBC. He as it evolves into a gas. That rapidly expanding gas
explains that liquid nitrogen use in wineries is ver- drives air out of the container.”
satile and provides many solutions in real-time,
helping to delay or eliminate oxygen contamination Another use for nitrogen in wineries is sparging,
before it can start. which removes the oxygen that has dissolved in
wine during various points in production. Since it is
“The main advantage of nitrogen is that it’s inert inert, nitrogen doesn’t react with the wine and, as
and won’t easily react with other substances. This a result, won’t alter the flavor and bouquet intend-
means it can be used to reduce or delay the oxi- ed by winemakers. Fallon points to argon as anoth-
dation of the product. It essentially replaces a sig- er inert gas that wineries use for sparging. Another
nificant amount of the oxygen found in ‘air’ at dif- option is carbon dioxide, but Fallon warns that its
ferent stages of the manufacturing and packaging use presents some challenges.
process.”
“Carbon dioxide tends to be more reactive and
VBC works specifically with liquid nitrogen to tends to alter the profile of the wine, which may or

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