A new 10-hectolitre white wine tank being lowered into place at the winery’s fermentation hall.A new 10-hectolitre white wine tank being lowered into place at the winery’s fermentation hall.

Early on Wednesday morning, seven 40-foot containers queued up at the Delicata winery on the Paola waterfront to unload their cargo of new state-of-the-art wine tanks imported from Italy.

The containers were packed with 24 temperature-controlled stainless steel white wine fermentation vats, varying in size from 10 hectolitres to 100 hectolitres. They were all delivered well in time for the 2013 harvest pressing which will take place in August.

This latest investment comes fast on the heels of a similar investment made last year, which saw the installation of six red wine stainless steel, temperature-controlled fermenters. These were all outfitted with insulated cooling jackets and fully equipped for pump-overs, délestage, carbonic maceration, pre-fermentation cold maceration, post-fermentation maceration, cap management, seed management and punch-downs.

In addition, last year Delicata installed two state-of-the-art 300-hectolitre Ganimede wine fermenters which are unique to the island. These technologically advanced fermenters are primarily used for red wine production and are the only fermenters in the world that allow the extraction of grape seeds during the fermentation stage. It is also the only fermenter to use a method that allows the scientific management of technical gases.

Ganimede is a world-renowned, innovative fermenter, a patented winemaking system that exploits the exceptional natural capacity of fermentation gas (40/50 litres of CO2 per litre of must) to obtain a gentle and effective extraction of the noble substances only.

The installation of these new 24 white wine tanks and the eight new red wine fermenters marks the latest drive by Delicata’s winemaking to continually upgrade its equipment with the very latest wine technology available, in order to improve the quality of their wines. These new tanks will enable Delicata to ferment even smaller individual parcels of very high-quality grapes while experimenting with the different terroir of each grape variety.

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