Wine filtration addresses unappealing murkiness or deposits, a process that goes back to the origin of wine. Over the centuries, the means of filtration have evolved from fabrics to industrial filters to sedimentation, filtration plates, and membranes. Conventional filtration moves the juice or wine perpendicularly through the filter. This transversal filtration leads to the accumulation or caking of microorganisms and particles that result in cloudiness on the filter, which increases hydraulic resistance and reduces output volume.

Bucher Vaslin, a producer of high-end winery processing equipment sold worldwide, recently introduced the latest iteration of its cross-flow filtration machinery, the Flavy X-Treme 3-in-1. This innovative and unique machine allows winemakers to filter wine, juice lees, and wine lees in a single machine. Additionally, it recovers a significant portion of previously wasted lees, increasing the quantity of saleable wine. Utilizing these recovered lees, cross-flow retentate and centrifuge sludge also enhances the wine’s aromatic and phenolic profile.

Bucher Vaslin North American (BVNA) is headquartered in Santa Rosa, while the parent company, Bucher Vaslin S.A., remains firmly planted in France's Loire Valley, where it was founded in 1857. It first developed the Flavy line of cross-flow filtration machinery in the early 1990s and has continued to add to the initial range of filters while improving process and efficiency. The Flavy X-Wine has a well-established reputation for the best flow rates for even the most difficult wines. The Flavy FGC, recently launched as a filtration machine for large industrial or semi-industrial facilities, has a low carbon footprint thanks to its Eco-Energy process, which reduces electrical power consumption by up to 95%, depending on the wine profile.

The Flavy X-Treme 3-in-1 goes beyond the X-Wine and FGC machines’ wine filtration with a unique versatility allows it to handle all winery filtration needs year-round. During harvest, a juiceless filtration can enable winemakers to return at least 85% of their lees to the process instead of losing them. Since every drop counts, especially for high-price grapes, having a method to recoup lees instead of throwing them away contributes to lowering the net cost of production. It can also filter the thick, sticky sediment that collects in the bottom of the barrel during aging, further improving the wine’s quality. The Flavy X-Treme 3-in-1 versatility allows it to be used during wine filtration before bottling.

The Flavy X-Treme machine’s 3-in-1 option is simple to use. No dismantling of the modules is required. Instead, the user can simply select the filtration option on the built-in control screen and leave the fully automatic filtration to run for almost 20 hours without stopping the machine, undertaking intermediate rinsing, or making regular changes to the process parameters as needed. Winemakers can even connect two tanks to the Flavy X-Treme and specify the number of gallons to send to each tank.

“The winemaker can come in the morning, attach the wine hose to the inlet, connect the outlet to the clean tank and enter the data with the number of gallons they want to filter that day,” says Sébastien Marquet, BVNA’s Pacific Northwest Sales Manager and the Flavy expert in the USA. “The machine will start processing and filtrating. When the pressure begins to increase, the machine will automatically initiate a back flush to release the retentate and put the accumulation back into circulation. The winemaker can go to the office and check progress over wifi with a remote app.”

The Flavy X-Treme 3-in-1 tracks the pressure, gallons per hour, and the number of back flushes, sending an alert to the winemaker if there’s a problem, a rare occurrence. The machine works until filtration is complete, then automatically shuts itself down. It also triggers a cleaning program so the machine is ready to filter another tank the next day. This design, which already has the lowest water consumption in the industry, further reduces its environmental impact by making the water from the last filter rinsing available for reuse in the cellar, such as cleaning vats or floors.

Marquet points out that Bucher Vaslin’s R&D engineers are constantly working to innovate a better system with technology that is respectful to the wine. The example he gives is the patented scraper that rotates on top of the stainless steel module containing the Flavy X-Treme 3-in-1 capillaries to free the entry and return the retentate to circulation. The Flavy X-Treme 3-in-1 filters the juice lees and wine lees using 3 mm capillaries, compared to the 1.5 mm capillaries used by the Flavy X-Wine, which can only filter wine.

“More and more people are investing in a cross flow filtration system,” says Marquet. “All the large wineries have cross flow filtration, and they are just as suitable for small and medium-sized wineries. What we are most proud of is our Flavy X-Treme 3-in-1 machine’s ability to do the three types of filtration — wine, juice lees and wine lees. Most wineries need to buy two or three different machines to filter all three, while our machine is the first that can do everything. So winemakers are investing in it, and they gain a return on their investment very quickly — in less than three or four years.”

For more information on the Flavy X-Treme, contact Sebastien Marquet at sebastien.marquet@buchervaslin.com or call (707) 547-3677.