Avondale Sky Winery finds a mobile solution to bottling wares

Avondale Sky Winery was trying to meet overwhelming demand for their wines in summer 2017.

They had the tenacity and the popular product, but the Newport Landing location realized bottling it was a challenge. It was something wine-maker Ben Swetnam wanted to remedy.

The winery began growing grapes in 1987 and shortly after Ben came on board in 2008, the new owners decided they wanted to produce wine. This was followed by a winery that opened in 2011 and a restaurant that was launched five years later.

With all the innovation, the Niagara College wine-making grad began to look at ways to grow the business. “The wine industry has been quite successful, and I suppose we grew faster than we planned,” he said. “Bottling equipment is really expensive and to invest $1-million in a 4-to-6 week bottling practice would have been really difficult.”

Ben knew Perennia specialists through industry events and found out they had a mobile bottling truck to help local wineries with bottling.

“This is an incredible service for emerging and established wineries. Before Perennia came along, it would have taken six days to bottle our Tidal Bay wine, so supplying the liquor store with an order was becoming a real challenge. But now we can do 11,000 bottles of wine, capped and labelled in a day-and-a-half with Perennia’s mobile bottling unit.”

He says their solution helped him and many other wineries in the area. “Perennia has been great to work with. Everyone there is so kind and patient and we’re always finding solutions together,” he said.

Ben is now looking forward to the mobile cross-flow filtration system Perennia has coming this year.

“For filtering and bottling, this means we can be so much more efficient. Normally we can’t bottle until April or May. With this crossflow system, that can happen so much sooner,” he said. “We can bottle cleaner and more stable wine several months ahead of where we’d be otherwise. Avondale is really looking forward to it.”

“This is an incredible service for emerging and established wineries. Before Perennia came along, it would have taken six days to bottle our Tidal Bay wine, so supplying the liquor store with an order was becoming a real challenge. But now we can do 11,000 bottles of wine, capped and labelled in a day-and-a-half with Perennia’s mobile bottling unit.”

Ben Swetnam, Avondale Sky Winery