New IR300-EL single-unit electrical control box that automatically handles uniform spraying dosage when the diameter of the tank is pre-set, together with temperature control - level - extraction - PC connection if required.

Vinification is the most important operation in oenology, because it leads to the birth of the wine. By carefully keeping to, and through the rational management of, the technological operations of vinification, it is possible to respect Nature's work to the utmost, channelling it, where possible, towards an improvement in certain standards of quality.
Cellar techniques must aim, therefore, at respecting the product and exalting its characteristics. The vinification of red wines foresees the presence of grape skins during fermentation. Maceration, in particular, consists of dissolving the skins' components into the must and then into the wine.

Four are the features that maceration bestows: colour, tannins, constituents of the extract and aromas. Fermentation pushes the dregs upwards: thus, to ensure that maceration is correctly carried out, it is necessary to ensure that the solid parts and the wine-must are periodically stirred so as the achieve the following goals

• to prevent the cap of dregs from turning sour;
• to render the yeasts homogeneous throughout the mass by oxygenating it so as to optimise the fermentation process;
• to lixiviate the solid parts in order to extract their colour and tannins.

Thus, as regards the latter point, it is evidently important to have a tool available that is capable of spreading the interstitial liquid throughout the mass, since said liquid, being at the same level as the dregs, is unfused with the maximum concentration of all its contituents. This is the context in which the IR 300 sprayer is used.
The sprayer, thanks to its reduced weight, is extremely practical and manageable. It can be applied to any type of tank and be fed either by a fixed plant or by a system of mobile tubes. The pump exercises a soft movement even when grape skins and seeds are present and, at the same time, furnishes an optimum flow to ensure that the cap is well sprayed. The liquid sent through the sprayer tube to the nozzle does not encounter any obstacles thanks to the complete lack of sharp edges: a fact than eliminates the risk that any grape skins present in the flow get stuck or torn. In the following stage, the wine-must is sent axially along the arm that holds and drives the plate, spreading out evenly over the latter, thus ensuring that the wine-must falls onto the cap like a shower of rain. In this first phase of the cycle the plate revolves only a couple of times every minute, so the sprinkling of the wine-must onto the cap underneath is due exclusively to the inertial force exerted by the circuit pump.

At this point begins the true and proper rotation cycle of the plate, which reaches a peak speed equal to the centrifugal force needed for the wine-must to wet the skins located even on the upper walls of the fermentation tank. The time taken to reach this point is contemporaneously regulated so as to be inversely proportional to the increase in the sprinkling range. By means of this regulation, and thanks to the succession of cycles at higher and lower speeds, it is possible to ensure that every part of the cap is soaked with the same quantity of liquid. This result is also achieved to the plate. These fins, apart from tansmitting the necessary centrifugal force to the liquid, concentrate said liquid over a crown of about 30 cm. Compared to traditional repumping using a manually orientated pipe, the impact of the liquid on the skins is much more delicate, and this not only reduces the formation of lees but also brings about a slow percolation through the cap, thus leading to a greater and more uniform lixiviation. The umbrella effect caused by the longitudinal expansion of the plate is remedied by the presence of special hole through which the necessary quantity of liquid falls during the cycle. Lastly, the possibility of completely automating the entire cycle enables maceration to be carried out by simply regulating, according to the quality of the raw material and of the product one wishes to obtain, the timing and the quantity of repumped wine-must. It is worth noting that the possibility of working 24 hours a day can optimise the total time of vinification.