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Parts
Most wine equipment is made outside the USA which leads to a legitimate concern
of winemakers— the availability of replacement parts. We buy virtually everything
we sell from the manufacturer, not a distributor. We simply ask the manufacturers
to supply us with an inventory of the most commonly needed parts. We have
on occasion had parts sent via air freight directly from the manufacturer.
Crusher/Destemmers
Presses
Pumps
Filters
Filling Machines
Pneumatic Capper
Corkers
Please note you cannot operate the electric corkers on a GFI circuit. GFI (Ground Fault Interrupter, aka GFCI) is a problem with equipment with frequency drives. Frequency Drives, by design, send current to ground which is what triggers a GFI. Equipment with Frequency Drives include Electric Corkers, Monoblock, and some pumps.
Vacuum or Gas Purge? The purpose of vacuum is to reduce the pressure such that the final pressure under the cork is the same, or nearly the same, as atmospheric pressure. This virtually eliminates the possibility of the cork working its way out of the bottle over time. This problem rarely occurs with natural cork and rarely occurs for any cork if the temperature of the wine does not fluctuate from hot to cold to hot .... The factors that can increase the risk of this problem are: 1)Hard synthetic cork, 2)Temperature fluctuations of the wine and 3)slow insertion of the cork into the bottle. All of our corkers insert the cork quickly (~2 seconds) which further mitigates the potential for this problem.
Gas Purge serves the same purpose as Vacuum. The gas should be Carbon Dioxide. Nitrogen or Argon should not be used. [Carbon Dioxide is more soluble in wine than air, so replacing the air with CO2 results in lower pressure under the cork. Nitrogen and Argon are less soluble in wine than air, and thus have the opposite effect.] Set CO2 regulator at ~5 psi during corking.
A common misconception is that vacuum or gas purge is for the primary purpose of removing oxygen and thus protecting the wine from oxidation. This is a very minor effect since the headspace is quite small, air is 80% nitrogen, and you are only purging about half of the air under the best of circumstances.
For more information on this and other interesting issues such as the temperature dependence of fill levels, we recommend Practical Aspects of Corkage This book must be ordered from France.
Monoblock-Filling/Corking
Cork
Tanks
Foil Spinners/Heat Shrinkers
Labelling Machines
Test Equipment