July 26th – Copper Cane Wines & Provisions recently hosted over fifty (50) wine industry professionals at their bottling facility in Rutherford, California to view a variety of innovative factory automation solutions from EMS Group. Participants also sampled wine and discussed how they could improve their wineries’ efficiency with the implementation of automation.
The tour began with a demonstration of a unique wine filling line consisting of a fully automated, EMS Group, bulk depalletizer and bottle aligner (single-filer) inside the facility. Empty bottles continue traveling on conveyor through an opening in the wall of the building to a mobile truck outside, where they are filled, labeled, capped, or corked. EMS Group also supplied the equipment needed to complete the packaging process, including conveyors, carton erector, case packer, partition inserter, and case palletizing equipment.
The tour also consisted of a demonstration of a fully automatic line EMS Group designed to dip full bottles into wax to create a visually appealing, high-end finish. The line consists of six (6) robots, including a robotic system to dip bottles into melted wax then into a chilled water tank, a robotic case depalletizer/ case palletizer combination, a robotic case packer, and other equipment required to fully automate the line.
Joe Wagner founder of Copper Cane Wines & Provisions told the visitors: “I don’t think we would be able to break the 100,000 case mark (on Belle Glos) without a system like this. (EMS Group) put in a line that met our needs at the time and very good percentage above that. We have actually outgrown this line, so we are doing a bit of hand waxing again, which is a great problem to have but none-the-less, the vast majority of what we do is here at this line running 24 hours per day. We don’t need to worry about it going down because it gets good service. When it comes to reprogramming, it is a very easy process. It’s just amazing what automation can do. Having companies like (EMS Group) bring (their) technology here (to the USA) really help us go to the next level, I think it’s phenomenal.”
The tour finished with tastings in the barrel room, as well as a hand dipping station where guests were able to manually apply wax to their own bottle of Copper Cane’s Belle Glos, which they kept as a gift.
