When Nikolai St George was appointed Cloudy Bay’s Director of Winemaking four and half years ago, he was tasked with increasing the efficiencies at the winery and also decreasing risk resulting from climate change. “We looked at options, and one of the main things was being able to bring our fruit in faster by removing bottlenecks. We also wanted to make better use of our existing receivables infrastructure during times of high need, such as when a weather event is coming, or if there is a lot of fruit ready at the same time which it often is.”
The solution was the development of a new state-of-the-art fruit receivables facility with greater capacity and designed for efficiency along with strong health and safety considerations. “My role in the project was to identify the best location for the new building and use my extensive experience in the wine industry to consider the best design for a receivables facility that was efficient while not compromising Cloudy Bay’s high-quality standards. We also wanted to decrease the labour efforts required to process a significant amount of receivable fruit. Marlborough has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, and it can be very hard to get good labour.”
Kotahi Engineering Studio, recognized as a premier engineer in New Zealand’s wine industry, was engaged to work closely with Nikolai in the design of the new receivables facility. “I had consulted with others in our winery and experts from the wider wine industry to help me make final decisions regarding press type and how the fruit would be received,” says Nikolai.
“I drew a concept of how I thought the facility would look, and Kotahi Engineering Studio refined that concept to make it a practical reality. Aspects such as keeping the facility operating if some machinery breaks down, and a huge health and safety element were brought into the final design considerations.”
“We’re able to receive up to ten percent of our total crush in one day. That’s massive for us…[and] helps retain consistency and ensures we have a really good vintage every year.”
The project encompassed both structural and civil engineering services alongside Apollo Projects. While a ramp is typically used for the trucks to go up and then tip the fruit into a large above-ground tipping bin, the final innovative design was a six-metre in-ground pit with a static steel hopper supplied by Crown, a leading stainless steel engineering company.
“That eliminated the need for the ramp, resulting in faster truck turnaround times, increased fruit processing capacity and vastly improved safety for the truck drivers. The fruit is pumped from the inground vat into the presses, which separate the juice from the skins. We looked at ways the whole system could be simplified while retaining quality where it mattered.”
“The presses are up high so that the grape marc (dried skins) could be dumped into a large bay below without the need for conveyors or anything that could break down. We used a lot of Italian Diemme products including large presses. They have a very high drainage capacity, enabling a very high yield of high-quality juice from the fruit without even having to press it, which is a huge advantage for us. When you press the fruit you are getting harshness.”
The new receivables facility enables significantly more fruit to be processed a day, with the support of one to two people. “We’re able to receive up to ten percent of our total crush in one day. That’s massive for us because with weather patterns becoming more and more extreme, we can receive a large proportion of our fruit before a predicted weather event arrives. That helps retain consistency and ensures we have a really good vintage every year.”
While originally built with one press, a second press was added for the 2023 vintage, and Nikolai says further refinements are made each year. The existing receivables building complements the new facility and is used to its fullest extent for hand-harvested fruit and smaller blocks of sauvignon blanc.
A producer of high-quality wines, Cloudy Bay’s winery is located in Marlborough’s Wairau Valley, with 50% of its vineyards owned, 25% leased and the balance of grapes grown under contract by long-term growers. “We grow only three varieties of grape – sauvignon blanc, chardonnay and pinot noir with sauvignon blanc accounting for around 80% of our total production. We have two sauvignon blanc styles – the ‘classic’ which accounts for the vast majority and a high-end barrel fermented sauvignon called Te Koko.”
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