For wineries small and large, inert gas plays an essential role in protecting the quality and integrity of all types of wine, but little is known about its proper use. By blanketing their storage facilities with nitrogen, E & J Gallo Winery wish to drop their current specifications of dissolved oxygen in their wines to ensure overall quality is not compromised and at the same time avoid reworking oxidized wines and as a result increase overall wine quality and total revenue. This project investigates inert gas blanketing, with a focus on nitrogen blanketing in particular, at Gallo Winery Modesto. The purpose of this paper is to document the volume of nitrogen required to blanket a wine storage tank, analyze the effectiveness of top and bottom purge methods, document the required amount of nitrogen needed to support a site wide nitrogen blanketing system, and determine if nitrogen blanketing is a feasible option for Gallo.

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Gworek, Jeffrey David
• Chuk, Michael Joshua

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• 05D003M

Advisor

• Kazantzis, Nikolaos K.
• Nowick, Henry W.

Year

• 2005

Date created

• 2005-01-01

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Chemical Engineering

Rights statement

• In Copyright