Barrelwise Creates a Better Bung

Barrelwise Creates a Better, Smarter Bung

By Ronda Payne

Even for a small winery, barrel management can be a time-consuming hassle of removing the bung, taking samples, testing, waiting and topping up. It’s incredibly labour-intensive and Paul Gardner, proprietor of Pentâge Winery in Penticton, knew there had to be a better way. At 120 barrels, Pentâge is a relatively small winery, but its process of testing and topping up could still take upwards of 40 hours each test period. Fortunately, Gardner came across the work of BarrelWise, a project which was conceived by the minds of UBC students, including Jason Sparrow and Artem Bocharov.

“It’s something I’d been trying to solve,” Gardner says. “Some BC kids have solved the problem. It’s been really neat to work with them over a year or more and see the evolution and the dedication.”

Sparrow, BarrelWise’s CEO, explains the team that came up with the concept wasn’t from the wine industry, so they had no preconceived notions about the industry that they had to kick to the curb. They spent time learning about the industry and listening closely to winemakers.

“We’ve been able to create everything we have now, based on what we were hearing from the wine industry,” says Bocharov. “We have a product almost built by the winemakers themselves.” The system includes specialized bungs for each barrel and a unique cart. A hose with a head unit runs from the cart and attaches to each bung to take measurements while also allowing for topping up in a single visit. Currently the BarrelWise team is crunching the data behind the scenes so winemakers get an autonomous experience, but as Bocharov explains, the system will soon be fully automated.

“What we’re building on top of this is the sensing. We had to start with this first system,” he says. “We were in trial phase with several wineries for a while. Now their cellars are fully outfitted with BarrelWise bungs.” Pentâge is one of those wineries, and Gardner is enjoying the reduction in labour and the increase in speed at which each barrel can be processed. He’s always tested every barrel for free SO2 levels, but as he explains, larger wineries previously didn’t have that option due to the time required. Some wineries test as few as five to 10 per cent of the barrels, randomly sampling some each month without a predetermined pattern. “Every month, the barrel is having evaporative losses [known as the Angel’s share] that has to be topped,” Gardner says. “If you’re already going to top them, at the same time you may as well test them and correct the free SO2 level.”

Without BarrelWise, testing would take more than 15 minutes a barrel, making it impossible to test every barrel in many cellars. With BarrelWise, barrels stay in

BarrelWise co-founder Artem Bocharov working on barrels in a BC winery.

place and data is collected through sensors on the head unit. The accuracy of the optical method for free SO2 measurement is comparable to aeration-oxidation measures. As the next stage of development is rolled out from BarrelWise, additional measures will be added to the roster giving winemakers even greater knowledge and control over their product.

The ability to test every barrel removes the risk inherent in large batches. “Information and decisions can be made on a rich dataset based on each barrel,” says Sparrow. “It gives the winemaker the ability to much more precisely control the sulfites in the wine. We can take a measurement in about a minute. There’s lots of efficiency and more information to make their decisions.”

Artem Bocharov, Jason Sparrow, Miayan Yeremi, Adrien Noble and David Sommer.

BarrelWise bungs installed in barrels at Kelowna's Sandhill Winery. He adds that there can be significant variations in sulfite levels between barrels. Without measuring each one, wine can be creating undesirable flavours. “Two barrels can be sitting next to each other, but measure the free SO2 and they can be vastly different,” he says. “Most winemakers want to limit the amount of sulfites they use. You really have to carefully keep an eye on it.” The challenge with a system like BarrelWise is proving the Return On Investment, or ROI, to those who hold the purse strings. It’s easy to illustrate the reduction in labour and the direct correlation in cost savings. It’s a little harder to prove the financial value in data measures, but the team is working towards that.

“In the coming months, we’ll be able to summarize this in factual cases so that the labour and the quality can have definitive information,” Bocharov says. “We can go out to the industry with the proof.” Those like Gardner already have all the proof they need to appreciate the value and the ROI of the system. “It’s just a no-brainer. I believed they could do it and they’ve demonstrated the ability of that now,” he says. “You have a lot of money tied up in red wine and a lot of money tied up in barrels. They’re sleeping time bombs you just want to get right.” 