Finger Lakes Winery Invests in New Winemaking Equipment

DUNDEE, N.Y., Feb. 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- When the Missick family purchased Bellangelo Winery in 2011, they purchased an existing, operational winery, but in many ways, had to start from scratch when it came to cellar equipment.  With only a couple stainless steel tanks, the family knew it would take heavy investment to acquire the machinery necessary to produce premium wines.  No stranger to investing in equipment, for the 2012 vintage, a new de-stemmer, crusher, must pump, tanks from Vance Metal Fabricators in Geneva, NY, and a gently used press were in place.  A new robust chilling system, and forklift were also added.  In anticipation of the 2017 vintage, the Missick family has made a series bold investments in the future of their wines and their winemaking program.

The 2017 harvest will enable Bellangelo winemaker, Chris Missick, to work with some of the finest equipment for handling Finger Lakes fruit.  New investments include an additional forklift, Armbruster Rotovib destemmer, a mechanized hopper, a brand new Willmes Merlin Press, and a new GAI bottling line, with other equipment and infrastructure improvements to be announced shortly.  "We wanted to bring in some of the best, gentlest new equipment available to the wine industry.  I'm also someone who thinks in terms of building in redundancy, and this will allow us to do that.  Should a major piece of equipment go down during crush, we will only be set back in the time it takes to start another piece of equipment," said Greg Missick.    

"We wanted to take every precaution to ensure premium fruit is processed by premium equipment," Chris Missick added, "from the crushpad to the bottle, we also wanted to make sure that quality control could be micromanaged at every stage of a wines development, once the fruit reached the winery."  With exciting expansion plans looming in 2017 and 2018, the Missick family is poised with their many regional projects to handle their winemaking needs, and more.  With new premium equipment, redundancies, and a "crushpad to bottle" approach, the family may seek out additional opportunities through custom crush and alternating proprietorships.  2016 witnessed the family make processing improvements with the introduction of steam for cleaning and sanitizing, producing dry ice for gassing and cooling, and using enzymatic spectrophotometric analysis for rapid juice and wine testing. 

Working with local companies and sales representatives from Prospero Equipment Corp. and Scott Labs, among others, such investments also further the Missick family's goal of working with local knowledge base experts to grow the Finger Lakes wine industry and the regional economy. 

Bellangelo is a family owned winery beautifully situated in the Finger Lakes on the West side of Seneca Lake, one mile south of the Herman J. Wiemer Winery.  Bellangelo wines are distributed in New York State and throughout the country by Monsieur Touton Selections.  The Missick family operates Finger Lakes wine country lifestyle boutiques for wine and foods as Branch, currently located in DestinyUSA in Syracuse, NY and Geneva, NY. 

Release Contact: Maryann Mari, Villa Bellangelo Winery, [email protected], 315-325-4314

SOURCE Villa Bellangelo Winery