Our Trip to Winexpert

On Monday, May 5th the Wine Sense Management Team took a ‘field trip’ to the Winexpert plant in Port Coquitlam B.C. The goal of the trip was to expand our knowledge of th

products we sell by seeing the wine kit manufacturing process.

Tim Vandergrift lead us on this exclusive behind the scenes tour and it was very educational. We were fortunate to see the whole process- from the blending tanks to the box assembly and shipping.

Outside the tank farm- it looks small from the outside but is huge inside!

The plant produces about one million kits a year. To do this they need an incredible volume of grape juice and concentrate. They keep 1.5 million litres on site in their refrigerated tank farm which consists of about fifty 27,000L tanks. This does not include the off site storage that is held by juice producers and brokers. to the fill line to the final sealing and packing of the kits and the loading of the skids for shipping to our stores.

We also witnessed the receiving of a tanker truck of Sonoma Valley Pinot Noir juice from one of their California growers- the juice will be destined for the Eclipse Sonoma Valley Pinot Noir kits. Before any juice is received a sample is taken and tested in the on-site wine lab to ensure it meets the specifications of the raw material they ordered. If it doesn’t the order is refused.

Selection California Chardonnay kits being filled

The underlying focus of the Winexpert plant is quality assurance. There is non-stop testing going on during manufacturing of the kits with samples being drawn and tested while kits are being produced. Upon completion two kits are held for quality assurance and samples of each finished kit are fermented by the wine lab and held in their wine library for down stream product comparison.

It was an extremely valuable trip for all of the Wine Sense Managers and gave us a more complete understanding of the products we sell, which we are passionate about and which are backed with a 100% guarantee.

Cheers,

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