Defy frost to protect precious vineyard produce

The region of Bordeaux is internationally acclaimed for its wine. It is adored around the world, so when a vineyard in this region needs help to protect its stock, it affects much more than just the vineyard owner.

This is exactly the situation that unfolded when a vineyard owner in Bordeaux faced the very real situation of losing a large portion of its stock. Seasonal frost was biting hard at the flora and fauna in the area and the grapes that promised plenty of delicious wine were at the mercy of the cold temperatures.

Our mobile, modular temperature control and power has gained a strong reputation for good reason. We can deploy quickly and our decades of expertise is always put to good use, to devise and implement a solution that is effective for our customers.

We were called by the vineyard owner to see if anything could be done to keep their fruits in optimum condition. In order to do that, our technicians knew that reaching and maintaining the right temperature was key.

To manage this over a wide spread of land is always tricky, so it helps that our ancillaries and equipment can be transported and placed in all manner of sites. We plotted the best spots for our 300 kVA, 320 kVA and a 30 kVA generators and hooked them up to the customer’s existing heating cables. The 30 kVA would be dedicated to a distribution panel, which would handle the customer’s automation processes and allow them to constantly monitor and adjust the output of heating. Finally, one of our 500 kVA generators was deployed on another part of the vineyard.

Lastly, our ARM (Aggreko Remote Monitoring) ensured that the temperature was closely scrutinised at all times, ensuring peace of mind toward the vineyard’s produce.

Our solution was tremendously effective at fighting off the freeze and this helped the vineyard’s grapes stay in prime condition. Our customer could still keep up their production levels and keep their own customers happy, which would keep their reputation for wine excellence intact.

The expertise our engineers had, enabled us to find the optimum placement for our equipment, which was the key to evenly distributing the heat around the vineyard and focusing on the key spots where the frost was hitting hardest.

Our solution is flexible too. Our customer can choose to fuel our solution with either B100 or HVO (Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil), which would lower emissions.