Equipment choices for our mobile services have come from years of testing the foremost worldwide filtration, membrane technologies and treatment column options. The result is a stellar combination of the highest equipment paired with extensive winemaking experience and research.
Besides offering the widest range of top-quality mobile filtration solutions, our team is comprised of winemakers with extensive international winemaking education, and is complimented with practical experience.
We don’t just bring a piece of equipment to you: we offer you all our know-how to successfully fine-tune your wine.
Winetech, LLC
WIN Expo Booth: 146
At WinePak, we source from a network of suppliers around the world. We’ve forged relationships with Gallo and other major North American glass suppliers—and we are the exclusive West Coast distributor for Ardagh. Our strong global partnerships with wine bottle manufacturers allow us to offer our customers high-quality glass, while ensuring multiple options and a reliable supply. We don’t just source quality bottles, closures, capsules, and boxes; we also provide repacking with a state-of-the art system. When you partner with WinePak, you’re partnering with our entire integrated supply chain.
Winemakers share a passion for a single goal – making the best wine possible. That’s why, when a winery seeks services from an outside company, they go to the experts. Bringing in expertise is critical when the service is highly specialized, especially when it’s new or infrequently used by the winery or if it’s a complex problem. No winemaker or winery owner wants to lose high-quality product when expert advice could have prevented it. One such service is wine filtration. Wineries often rely on a mobile filtration company to remove the yeast or recover valuable wine from the lees, rescue spoiled or smoke-tainted wine, or undertake de-alcoholization.
The company many winemakers turn to for these challenges is Winetech, one of the largest and oldest mobile filtration companies in the US wine industry. Winetech owners, Stefano Migotto and Valentina Guolo-Migotto, both grew up in Northern Italy. Stefano grew up helping in, and eventually leading, the family winery. After earning his enology degree, Stefano moved to Napa Valley and co-founded Ca’ Momi Winery with Valentina and 3rd business partner Dario De Conti. Valentina and Stefano started Winetech in 1998 when they saw the growth in demand for filtration services. Today, Stefano brings his knowledge gleaned from 23 years of solving problems for concerned winemakers at hundreds of wineries.
“Our company takes pride in the integrity of our work,” says Stefano. “If we truly believe that we can help our customer improve their wine, we will take on the job. We assess each request as winemakers, and if we believe we cannot improve the wine, we will turn it down. We make the decision that is in the best interest of the quality of our customers’ wine.”
“I grew up in St. Helena,” adds Winetech Manager Ivan Ramirez, “so working with customers is like working with friends, and you’re always honest with friends.”
Winetech differentiates itself by having trained technicians on-site at all times, both to answer questions and to ensure machines are not left unattended. That way, if something goes wrong, like a membrane breaking, a technician is there to catch it quickly so it doesn’t compromise the entire batch. This approach also prevents over processing the wine, which can happen in a more automated method.
“Our technicians and operators are highly trained,” says Stefano. “They train with senior technicians or work in house at our winery before working with a customer. The same is true for the machines we build; we test them in-house before they go out. We want our customers to have as few surprises as possible.”
“We’re not simply a service company that delivers filtration technologies,” says Business Development Manager Sean Rooney, “but a company of winemakers who can discuss the best direction for improving the product with other winemakers. We stay true to saying what we will do and then do what we say.”
Winetech provides mobile services to wineries, breweries and cideries from Temecula to Walla Walla, WA and custom-builds systems for companies throughout the US. For more information, contact an expert at filtration@winetech.us.
With California in the midst of harvest, many grape growers are wrestling with contracts -- trying to determine who will be honoring grape contracts this season and in what capacity. The Hennessey and Walbridge fires, both part of the larger LNU Lightning Complex, will most likely create far reaching monetary effects on premier fruit -- with many small growers ill-prepared to shoulder the financial burden.
What this means for many wine producers is that they will be facing critical choices for this harvest: (a) moving forward and producing potentially smoke-tainted wine (and utilizing more oak in programs to mask smoke-like aromas), (b) blending this wine into larger programs and lessening its profile, (c) bulking it out, or (d) foregoing this year’s harvest completely. There seems to be no easy choice but nonetheless, choices will need to be made -- imminently.
In previous years, wine producers have been creative with this potential pitfall, categorizing smoke taint as part of a natural occurrence – one that simply reflects that vintage’s conditions and adds an extra nuance among the multitude of flavor components. As smoke taint has become a less desirable characteristic to most consumers, however, this option is proving to be more difficult, if not impossible.
Fortunately, Winetech has been providing the alcohol beverage industry with filtration solutions for over 20 years and we are tightly connected with wine producers in California, Oregon, and Washington. We have seen and addressed a myriad of issues with wine production and have been closely involved in the development of winemaking (both in-house and in assisting others) in custom development. Simply put, Winetech understands the difficult decisions involved when it comes to reparations to juice and finished wine and offers winemakers and winegrowers real-time solutions.
Winetech’s Smoke Taint Removal System uses loose RO to separate 4MG/G into the permeate stream. This permeate stream is then treated separately through ion-exchange resin columns, removing smoke taint without damaging pigmented retentate, which is responsible for wine’s complex characteristics. After treatment, the permeate is blended back into the retentate.
For more information on Winetech’s smoke taint removal process, as well as our other services such as VA adjustment, ethyl acetate removal, and more, please email filtration@winetech.us or call us directly at 707.257.2080. We are here to support our partners in the industry.