As harvest approaches, wineries are facing more than just challenges in the vineyard. Rising summer temperatures can cause wine tanks to heat up, increasing cooling demands and making it more difficult to maintain consistent fermentation temperatures and product quality. In this video, Todd DiCello and Silvia Cedeño from BevZero discuss how changing climate conditions are impacting wine production and share practical equipment solutions that help wineries better manage heat throughout the production process. Learn how tank insulation, efficient mixing, and other temperature management technologies can improve energy efficiency, reduce heat stratification, and help protect wine quality during harvest and beyond.

There is, for good reason, a lot of reporting right now on climate change and how it's affecting the grape harvest. Everywhere you look, wine regions are experiencing harsher-than-normal conditions. It would be easy to write a post about how hot it is and stop there. But, I want to pick out something else: this is a story of climate volatility, not just heat. A Cold Night in Bigfork, Montana This hit home for me in 2022, when I was asked to evaluate a future winery, and existing vineyard in the Bigfork area of Montana. Two years earlier, in 2020, the growing season had been warm, and the owners felt good about what climate change might mean for grape growing that far north. But, climate change isn't just hotter weather. It's climate volatility. In that same warm year, Montana got a sudden, early, catastrophic cold event. The weather through September and into early October 2020 stayed mild, highs in the mid-50s, with only two nights that dipped to freezing. Because of that, most of the

If you’ve ever walked into the cellar on a hot day and felt that “warm tank room” air hit you in the face, you already know the uncomfortable truth: summer heat doesn’t just raise temperatures—it raises risk . And for non-alcoholic (NA) and low-alcohol wines , that risk climbs even faster. Alcohol is more than a sensory component; it contributes to stability. When it’s reduced or removed, you’re working with a product that can be more delicate, more reactive, and more vulnerable —especially when temperatures drift upward. This is where two practical tools earn their keep: PolarClad tank insulation (and BevClad in the EU) to stabilize tank temperature an

What is a Brownout? According to Wikipedia, A brownout is an intentional or unintentional drop in voltage in an electrical power supply system. Intentional brownouts are used for load reduction in an emergency.  The reduction lasts for minutes or hours, as opposed to short-term voltage sag (or dip). The term brownout comes from the dimming experienced by lighting when the voltage sags. A voltage reduction may be an effect of disruption of an electrical grid, or may occasionally be imposed in an effort to reduce load and prevent a power outage known as a blackout.  Different types of electrical apparatus will react in different ways to a sag. Some devices will be severely affected, while others may not be affected at all. In most cases, brownouts are deliberately produced by energy providers as an emergency measure to prevent the system from failing completely (blacking out). Typically a utility will decrease system voltage by 10-25%, usually for a short period of t

NAPA, Calif. – January 19, 2022 – Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the bank of the world’s most innovative companies and their investors, today released its 2022 State of the Wine Industry Report. The 21st edition of the annual report assesses current conditions in the wine industry and provides a unique forecast for the year ahead based on proprietary research and economic and behavioral trends among consumers. While premium wine companies led the industry with the best sales growth since 2007 – and nearly 30% of wineries described 2021 as their best year in history – the US wine industry as a whole experienced a decline in sales volume and failed to take advantage of the tailwind of businesses reopening as COVID restrictions loosened. SVB will host a live videocast with SVB Wine Division founder Rob McMillan to discuss the annual report and state of the wine industry on January 19, 2021 at 9:00 a.m. PST with Amy Hoopes, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, The W

Oakville, CA – August 25, 2021 –  American Winesecrets, LLC. (Winesecrets), North  America’s wine taint mitigation expert has once again partnered with Napa Wine Co., Napa’s leader in high quality, reserve  lot custom crush to provide an artisan-scale Flash Détente system at the Oakville crush facility. Flash Détente removes  pigments from grape skins instantaneously prior to fermentation. This technique has proven beneficial in reducing the  impact of smoke exposure once the wines have completed fermentation. It is has also proven to be effective at making solid  wines from low color, low Brix fruit from vintages where maturity is difficult.  Flash Détente streamlines red maceration by rapidly heating must and then cooling it instantaneously in a vacuum chamber.  The treatment results in the rupturing of cell walls initiating an efficient breakdown of the structure of the berry. The smoke  aromat

Sebastopol, CA - August 25, 2020 - American Winesecrets, LLC. (Winesecrets), North America’s wine taint mitigation expert has partnered with Napa Wine Co. , Napa’s leader in high quality, reserve lot custom crush to provide an artisan-scale Flash Détente system at the Oakville crush facility. Flash Détente removes pigments from grape skins instantaneously prior to fermentation and has proven beneficial in reducing the impact of smoke exposure once the wines have completed fermentation. The smoke-taint causing volatile phenol compounds accumulate in grape skins during wildfire incidents. Flash Détente streamlines red maceration by rapidly heating must and then cooling it instantaneously in a vacuum chamber. The treatment results in the rupturing of cell walls initiating an efficient breakdown of the structure of the berry. The smoke aromatics are carried off with water vapor in the vacuum. “Flash Détente has a key advantage over