Nitrogen Use Improves Your Wine, Your Packaging and Your Bottom Line

By: Gerald Dlubala

It’s colorless, odorless and virtually undetectable. As a result, nitrogen is one of the most effective tools for winemakers to use as a combatant against oxidation, spoilage and bacteria growth in their wines. As a result, nitrogen can be used in multiple stages of winemaking and has become one of the best tools for winemakers to have at their disposal. The main reason? Nitrogen is inert and does not readily react with other substances around it. Because of that inertness, nitrogen is an excellent choice to help reduce or delay any damaging oxidation that might otherwise occur.

Additionally, nitrogen is preferred for tank blanketing, equipment purging, pump and filter membrane testing, pressure transfers, must-lifting and more. It also plays an essential role in packaging stability, which is critical with the increased production of single-serve and ready-to-drink container packaging. Finally, and perhaps at its most fundamental level for a winemaker, nitrogen is an economical and valuable way to ensure a wine’s integrity and profile properties while also providing extended shelf life.

Liquid Nitrogen (LN2) dosing is just one of the preferred uses in the winery. For preservation purposes, when LN2 is introduced seconds before sealing the filled bottle, nitrogen replaces the headspace oxygen, reducing the oxygen levels by up to 95 to 98 percent, with a 60 percent reduction in total package oxygen.

Chart Industries Inc. As Easy as Point-and-Shoot

“Nitrogen dosing is prevalent in consumer products across the board, including the ready-to-drink and single-serve segment,” said Christina Marrick, the business development manager for nitrogen dosing systems for Chart Industries Inc. “Wineries

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now have more packaging options, and whether they are filling glass bottles or aluminum cans, LN2 dosing is beneficial, especially if using screw cap enclosures. Bottles sealed with screw caps contain more head space and oxygen than those with a cork inserted. Dosing with LN2 removes roughly 98 percent of the headspace oxygen, leaving little room for any oxidation.”

“Additionally, LN2 dosing pressurizes the container being filled and sealed,” said Marrick. “When dosed, one-part LN2 warms and expands into 700 parts gaseous nitrogen at ambient temperature. That vaporization process adds pressure to the sealed container, providing rigidity to the walls of the filled container and increasing package stability. That increase in structural integrity allows wineries to use lighter containers with up to a nine-gram reduction in average bottle weight. Applied to the production of an average production line, this equates to about 2.6 million in annual savings.”

Marrick tells The Grapevine Magazine that Chart’s LN2 dosing equipment allows for simple, easy-touse point-and-shoot operation. “Using LN2 dosing equipment is really pretty simple,” said Marrick. “Our dosers are set once for the application needed and use sensors to pick up the incoming containers. Once they sense the incoming container, the automated dosers dispense a precisely measured amount of LN2 into the container after filling but immediately before being sealed. The trapped LN2 immediately vaporizes, forcing oxygen out of the container while simultaneously creating pressure and adding rigidity to the container. The dosers are modified for different products and containers through adjustment of dosing times or by using different-sized nozzles. Dosing equipment is installed and used in-line, but on casters, that can be easily moved or relocated for use wherever and whenever needed.”

Chart Industries provides an entire spectrum of potential nitrogen use for wineries, from liquid bulk tank storage to specific application delivery and dosing throughout the production, filling and packaging process. They were the first to provide a complete, turnkey, LN2 dosing system, including dosers, valves, piping and phase separators on through to handling your bulk storage solutions, offering a full line of tanks ranging from portable dewars to the

most extensive bulk tank storage options. Their standard cryogenic tank is an industry workhorse, able to be customized to a winery’s specific needs. The tanks can be installed in horizontal or vertical configurations and feature a proprietary insulation system, resulting in a lightweight tank with high thermal performance and extended hold times while offering reduced operational and installation costs.

Vacuum Barrier Corporation Dosing to Meet Your Needs

Vacuum Barrier Corporation (VBC) is a global leader in cryogenics, designing, engineering and fabricating liquid nitrogen (LN2) dosing and piping systems. Lisa Angelini, the marketing manager for VBC, tells The Grapevine Magazine that LN2 dosing systems address the oxidation challenges winemakers have during the packaging process.

“Liquid nitrogen dosing is used pre-filling, as a way to purge oxygen from the empty bottle, or post-filling to remove the oxygen that occupies the headspace, and in some cases,” said Angelini, “winemakers use it in both locations. By using LN2 dosing to flush oxygen out of the bottle, you’re preserving the wine’s intended flavor and bouquet while simultaneously extending shelf life. Additionally, winemakers can reduce, rather than eliminate, oxygen to give them added control.”

The growing demand for single-serve and readyto-drink options makes the structural integrity of packaging and extended shelf life an increasingly important part of wine packaging and distribution. A consumer only has to browse the shelves at a favorite retailer to notice the market shift.

“The acceptance of canned wine has opened another door to VBC’s LN2 dosing systems within the industry,” said Angelini. “The same LN2 dosing system that the winemaker uses to reduce oxygen in their wines provides packaging stability and integrity. By adding a precisely measured dose of LN2 to the can of non- or lightly carbonated wine, you’re providing the needed pressure to provide structural support in the packaging, reducing transportation and handling damage due to crushed cans.”

For over 60 years, Vacuum Barrier Corporation serves numerous industries, including food and beverage, beer, wine, coffee, cannabis and more. They are committed to delivering safe, defect-free, custom or standard LN2 solutions for your unique application needs.

Production Needs and Intended Use Determines Nitrogen Storage Choice

Bulk storage vessels and accompanying equipment are equally crucial in using nitrogen and must be appropriately sized and fitted to each winery’s consumption needs. You don’t want your nitrogen supplier to deliver to you more than once a week, so a correctly sized nitrogen storage, delivery and dosage system must be designed to meet that goal. Bulk storage vessels are generally available in two forms, larger bulk tanks and smaller portable tanks called dewars, featuring double-walled construction with a vacuum space between the two walls. That vacuum space allows the tank’s outer surface to remain at ambient temperatures while the inner area can contain and hold the proper cryogenic temperatures. Affected piping systems should be similarly insulated and use the same double-walled, vacuum-spaced design to maintain efficiency. The larger bulk tank installations are predominantly located outside the production structure, while the smaller, portable-style storage units are kept inside the winery, closer to where they are needed.

Alternatively, on-premises nitrogen generators offer on-demand nitrogen when needed. Connecticut-based On Site Gas Systems offers precision-engineered nitrogen and oxygen generators across numerous industries. The company notes that although costs associated with setting up a generator on site are higher initially than other options, their long-lasting nitrogen generators typically recover those initial costs many times over in the long run. An on-site generation source simplifies business and increases workplace safety for wineries currently using nitrogen in their winemaking process or looking into the prospect of nitrogen use. Wineries with nitrogen generators on-site can expect to save between 40 to 80 percent compared to the costs of delivered nitrogen, depending on price fluctuations. Additionally, when sustainability is at the forefront of every decision, eliminating the need for diesel delivery trucks helps to reduce your winery’s overall carbon footprint. How a winemaker ultimately chooses to obtain and access a nitrogen supply is a decision that is unique to each winery and generally dependent on specific qualifiers, such as the size of the winery, production numbers, the amount of nitrogen the winemaker will use, expected cost and return on investment offered by the different choices.

For example, The Cave Vineyard and Distillery, located in historic St Genevieve, Missouri, runs a 20,000-bottle-a-year operation and does not offer single-serve options. Even though they would like to have their nitrogen source on-site someday, their current production and packaging operations don’t warrant the expense. Instead, like many smaller wineries, they use portable dewars for their nitrogen source. With four dewars on the premises at all times, they use two for purging empty bottles and clearing headspaces of oxygen before sealing. The remaining dewars are used as additional storage to prevent the winery from running out.

Alternatively, the award-winning Augusta Winery in Augusta, Missouri uses nitrogen in all phases of its winemaking and has its own nitrogen generation system on-site to produce nitrogen on demand. While admittedly being costly upfront, the winery says the system paid for itself within three years. Their expanded nitrogen use, including running nitrogen in all related lines to reduce the oxygenation that occurs during routine and standard liquid transfers, helps keep the harmful effects of oxygenation out of their wines at every phase of production, movement, filling and packaging.

Safety Is Always Key

Safety precautions in a production setting are always the primary priority, and the use and handling of LN2 are no different. Nitrogen displaces oxygen-rich air in enclosed spaces, so any enclosed area with a nitrogen leak can create an oxygen-depleted atmosphere. Enclosed spaces always demand specific protocols that must be respected and adhered to by any employee or contractor entering those designated spaces. Wineries and production facilities that use nitrogen in their processes should always use monitors, portable sensors and any other available means of dangerous gas detection technology designed to warn of oxygen deficiencies.

Chateau Chantal:

A Unique Experience in Northern Hospitality

By: Nan McCreary

Chateau Chantal, one of Northern Michigan’s earliest wineries, is raising the bar for wine lovers looking for more than just a wine tasting, but rather an immersive wine experience. Not only is the winery rated as one of Michigan’s best, but it combines a vineyard and a winery with spectacular views over Lake Michigan’s Grand Traverse Bay. There are also five-to-seven-course wine dinners, cooking classes, a luxury B&B, a Founder’s Trail and a tasting room with events that range from individual and group tastings to the weekly summer Jazz at Sunset experience.

“There’s something for everybody here,” winemaker Brian Hosmer told The Grapevine Magazine. ‘Public expectations have changed; people are not visiting and buying cases like they used to. Rather, they’re coming for an experience. We’re responding to what’s happening in the industry today.”

This commitment to inviting guests to enjoy a shared experience inspired French CanadianAmerican founder Robert Begin and his wife, Nadine, to purchase 60 acres of cherry orchards on the Old Mission Peninsula and build a Europeanstyle winery chateau. Robert, a businessman in the construction industry, and Nadine, a teacher, were a former priest and nun, respectively. Their years spent serving others provided a natural foundation for entering the hospitality industry.

Between 1984 and 1991, they transitioned the property from cherries to grapes, planting their first grapes — chardonnay, riesling and pinot noir — in 1986. During this time, they completed plans for a French-style chateau, and in 1993, they opened their doors as a B&B and vineyard estate. In the following years, they added more rooms to the B&B and expanded the cellar and tasting room, paving the way for today’s agri-tourism industry. Chateau Chantal is the second-oldest winery on the Old Mission Peninsula (one of Michigan’s five AVAs). With its scenic vistas and friendly hospitality, it is one of the most popular wineries in the area.

With the goal of providing an ultimate wine experience, it’s only natural that a primary focus of Chateau Chantal would be to offer quality wines to its visitors. And, despite the northern climates, excellent wines by anyone’s standards are available in Michigan. “The lakes make it possible,” Hosmer said. “We’re located between the East and West Grand Traverse Bays — two large bays on Lake Michigan — and the water acts as a buffer to the cold temperatures. In the summer, the water warms up, which extends the growing season. Even in the winter, the water stays warm and radiates the heat inland. Also, we get a lot of snow, which acts as insulation.” With this terroir, Chateau Chantal can grow Vitis Vinifera grapes, including riesling, chardonnay, pinot noir, pinot grigio, pinot noir, pinot blanc, cabernet Franc, Gewürztraminer and Blaufränkisch. Other wineries in the area are growing similar grapes.

One of the favorite wines at Chateau Chantel is pinot gris. “These grapes do really well here,” Hosmer told The Grapevine Magazine. “The sandy soils and the cool climate push really bright aromatics out of the glass, with more floral flavors than you’re used to seeing.” Also popular are two red blends: Naughty, a blend so versatile that it will pair with simple fare like burgers and pizza, as well as seafood; and Nice, a semi-sweet that, when chilled, makes a great warm weather sipper.

Besides still wines, Chateau Chantal makes four sparkling wines, including a semi-dry they’ve made since the 90s. Recently, they began producing the sparklers in-house rather than at another winery. To offer still more variety to its visitors, the winery collaborates with a 55-acre vineyard in Mendoza to produce a rich, red malbec.

For some, the star of Chateau Chantal’s line-up is its ice wine. Ice wine is made from grapes picked — by hand — while frozen on the vine and then pressed when they’re still frozen. The result is an incredibly sweet and fruity wine that’s highly valued among some wine connoisseurs. Michigan is one of the few regions in the world able to produce ice wine. Making ice wine is, in fact, a risky proposition. The grapes need a long growing season to ripen and a cold spell to freeze. If temperatures are too warm, the grapes won’t freeze. If the freeze is too severe, then no juice can be extracted. Chateau Chantal is among Michigan’s oldest ice wine producers and has been making the “liquid gold” since the early 1990s. Typically, the Chateau makes ice wine from riesling grapes, and in some years, it can make juice from cabernet Franc. The wines are always in demand. “Making ice wine is tricky,” Hosmer said. “Sometimes we have to wait until January so that it’s cold enough to pick the grapes, and then we may be walking in one to two feet of snow.” “We’ve had years where the temperature didn’t cooperate, but in my 15 years, we’ve only had to skip two.” This year, Chateau Chantal celebrated its fourth annual Ice Wine Festival, a daylong event where families enjoy snowman building, snowshoeing through the winery’s walking trails, roasting treats by an open fire pit and, for adults, samples and flights of the different varieties of ice wine. The event is billed as a celebration of the winery’s “unique ability to grow, harvest and produce one of the rarest products in the wine industry.”

For Chateau Chantal — and their neighbors on the Peninsula — the challenge to quality winemaking is to produce consistency in the wines when there is so much variation in vintage. In general, warmer climates tend to yield more consistent harvests. Napa, for example, may experience a five percent variation in heat accumulation, whereas the vineyards at Chateau Chantal can have plus or minus 30 percent swing from average in any given year. “Our viniculture depends on the vintage and what comes through the door,” Hosmer explained. “We have beautiful years for every grape because we grow so many varieties; we may have a ripe cabernet Franc and pinot noir in one year, aromatic whites in cool years, and everything in between. We just need to figure out the best way to get the best version of what the grapes give us.” Intervention in the cellar may include adding tartaric acid to adjust the pH, playing with different yeasts or treating the must with malolactic fermentation. “It’s really important to understand both warm- and cool-climate winemaking,” Hosmer stated. “Every year is different.”

As Chateau Chantal looks to the future, the winery — like many others around the world — is exploring options for new varieties that may be more adaptable to climate and resistant to disease. Currently, Chantal is working with a group of investors that brought four new grapes from Germany’s Geisenheim and Freiburg breeding programs to custom grafting specialists, Amberg Grapevines.

In Clifton Springs, New York, the varieties are monarch, a frost-hardy grape that is resistant to powdery mildew and downy mildew; muscaris, a disease-resistant grape that’s a good choice for

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sparkling wine; helios, resistant to both powdery mildew and botrytis and similar in flavor to MüllerThurgau; and johanniter, a white grape that’s resistant to frost and mildew. All four grapes are children of the riesling grape and have been crossed and recrossed with vitis vinifera rootstock to create varieties that are 99 percent vitis vinifera and one percent hybrid.

Two years ago, Chateau Chantal planted the first commercial plantings of all four grapes after quarantine and will be ready to make trial wines with the grapes next year. “We’re looking for wines that may be of interest to wine lovers, and easier to grow in a more sustainable fashion,” Hosmer told The Grapevine Magazine. “Breeding grapes for genetics is becoming more sophisticated all the time, and I think we’re going to see more and more varieties coming out.”

In addition to experimenting with new grape varieties, Chateau Chantal is applying advanced principles of soil management into its vineyard practices, a farming system they introduced 20 years ago. As Hosmer explains, this practice involves adding compost to the soil, which provides a direct input of organic matter that improves soil health. “With the compost, we build a biological population where fungi and bacteria continually cycle nutrients so they are available throughout the year rather than just when we add them,” Hosmer said. “We continually monitor this population and change the compost mixture as needed.” Not only does this limit the need for fertilizer, but soil management also plays a key role in fruit development and can impact the quality properties of grapes and wine.

The vineyard team also plants cover crops that add nitrogen to vines, as well as organic compounds that provide nutrients or aeration to the soil. According to Hosmer, soil management can also play a role in water retention. For example, in areas where there is a low water table, the cover crops will create a canopy in the soil to maintain moisture. “Our sites are very diverse, so we adapt depending on the availability of water at the time,” he said. “This buffers the extremes, so plants do well in dry periods, as well as in wet periods.”

Driven by technology as well as hospitality, Chateau Chantal is well-poised to accommodate the growth of tourism in Michigan. In the winery, the Chateau is expanding its capacity to meet the growing demand for its wines. Currently, they produce 20,000 to 25,000 cases per year, with distribution in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin and Illinois. In the hospitality sector, the founder’s daughter, Marie-Chantal Dalese, has taken the reins of the company to continue her parents’ legacy of offering a premiere wine experience to guests. In 2021 and 2022, the Chateau Chantal B&B was named one of the “10 Best Wine Country Hotels” by USA Today. Joe David, author of “Gourmet Getaways – 50 Top Spots to Cook and Learn,” wrote, “An American version of a modern Loire Valley chateau, Chateau Chantal is more than just another stunning bedand-breakfast – it is a retreat for gourmets who seek a food and wine holiday.”

Indeed, at Chateau Chantal, there is something for everybody. Whether you prefer dry wine, sweet wine or sparkling wine, a spectacular setting overlooking vineyards and the vast expanse of Grand Traverse Bay, a six-course wine dinner with wine pairings, a hands-on themed cooking class or a night or two of luxury in a French-style chateau, any or all of the options are available to the adventurous wine lover interested in totally unique wine experience.

For more information, visit Chateau Chantal at www.chateauchantal.com