Our new Macrobins are here! These heavy duty plastic containers are used by vineyard owners and winemakers the world over and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. They’re versatile and stackable, which is nice because they do take up a lot of floor space! At larger wineries, you’ll see these stacked as high as their forklift can reach when not in use.
The shorter, slotted bins measure about 4 x 4 feet square and are slightly more than 2 feet tall. Each one holds roughly 800 pounds of grapes. They are used for transporting just-harvested grapes to the winery and holding them until they can be processed. A forklift will dump the contents of the bin onto a conveyor belt, where the grapes will be sorted before being crushed and destemmed.
The larger, solid-sided bins are 4-foot cubes and will serve as our primary fermentation vessels. After being crushed and destemmed, the grapes will drop directly from the machine into these bins, which can hold about 1-¾ tons. After the grape must has fermented, the contents will be dumped by a forklift into the press.
