Famille Ravoire: Oxygen Management at the Heart of Quality Initiatives

The Famille Ravoire company, trading at nearly 5 million bottles per year, has been closely examining oxygen management during bottling.

Why?

Because its goal is to preserve the quality of its wines, especially those under screwcap, like its rosés, and avoid uncontrolled oxygen additions to the bottle.

Identifying critical steps of oxygen pickup in wines through an audit

The company then invested in state-of-the-art equipment that removes dissolved oxygen from the wine just before bottling, while readjusting dissolved carbon dioxide levels in the wines. To limit the dissolution of oxygen during filling, the company switched the way it dried the rinsed bottles, and moved from an air system to a nitrogen-based system. This allowed Famille Ravoire to improve results in the wines after a few months in bottle, but they were still not completely satisfied.

Controlling dissolved oxygen at bottling is not enough

With screwcaps, the headspace volume (the space between the wine and the closure) is larger and a higher source of oxygen in the bottle. “We looked for a system to control and limit gaseous oxygen pickup in the headspace. This led us to invest in the Nomaline, a system that inerts with nitrogen both the bottle headspace and the inside of the screwcap just before capping. The important thing is to be able to control the inputs, which the system does. However, it is also important to be able to precisely measure the headspace oxygen and make sure the concentration is the one expected,” explains Gaubert. With this new system, the Famille Ravoire company now has complete oxygen control solutions for screwcap bottling and has already seen improvement in its wines.