Must-Transfer Pump Boosts Productivity, Cuts Maintenance Costs
Founded in 1900, Beaulieu Vineyards (BV) in Napa CA has 1,100 acres of vineyards in production. In 2000, they won the coveted "Winery of the Year" award from a prestigious wine magazine. BV owns most of its acreage, giving the winery direct control of its crops. During a recent harvest, the winery processed 5000 tons of white grapes and 3500 tons of red grapes. Throughout crush, they typically operate two shifts a day, seven days a week.
The starting situation
In years past, BV had been experiencing high maintenance costs and sluggish throughput capacity with the rotary-lobe pumps it was using to transfer white and red grape must from receiving hoppers through crusher-destemmers to one of the winery's four heavy presses. The problem was twofold: 1. Material other than grapes (MOG) would, on occasion, cause major damage to a pump (dry grapes would create air-locks, blocking product flow through the pumps), and 2. the units could not transfer must fast enough to keep pace with BV's crushers, causing delays to trucks coming in from the vineyards, which had to wait extra time at the winery before unloading their grapes.
The solution
Vineyard management turned to R.F. MacDonald Company, a regional fluids handling firm based in Hayward, CA, which supplied the vintner with a type BT 130-6L seepex open hopper progressive cavity pump. With a rated capacity of 300 gpm (75 tons per hour), the unit has a (300) stainless steel housing and rotor, and a resilient stator.
The benefit
The new must-transfer operation at BV now proceeds smoothly and efficiently. There have been no major maintenance problems since the seepex pump was installed. The new pump has also sped up throughput. The rotary-lobe pumps had been slowing down production because each unit could transfer only 40 to 42 tons per hour, less than a crusher's 50 ton per hour capacity, which the pc pump handles with ease. This translates, according to BV personnel, into a gain of 2-3 hours per day per truck driver; the driver's last load is typically at 4 p.m. rather than 7 p.m.
Beaulieu Vineyards reports that the practically "failsafe" seepex pump paid for itself in its first 24 months of operation because of increased productivity, more efficient use of manpower and fewer equipment repairs.
