Mattei France has provided a both efficient and effective solution for the production site in Carcassonne belonging to the prestigious Uccoar/Vinadeis Group.
For the global wine production, France is historically one of the areas of excellence in terms of both volumes and quality.
Right in the core of this tradition, the business activities of the Vinadeis Group, one of the most important winegrowers in the South of the Country, take place. Since its foundation forty years ago, the Vinadeis Group has acquired an always more central role in the wine production in France, virtuously synthesizing the values of two entities in strong competition among each other for years, Val d’Orbieu and Uccoar. The figures speak for themselves: there are more than 2,000 winegrowers referring to Vinadeis, 120 workers organized in cooperatives, and 400 group employees.
The strength of the vinadeis group: Organizational innovation and sound values.
The majority of the holding (58%) is held by the cooperative Les Vignerons du Val d’ Orbieu, based in Narbonne, the heart of the number one winegrowing region in the world, Languedoc Roussillon. Almost 1,600 producers with 11 winemaking cooperatives and 55 castles and estates are part of it, producing every year about 550 thousand hectolitres of DOC wines full of history and tradition. The remaining 42% is divided into equal parts among the agricultural group EVOC and InVivo Wine. The EVOC society controls Uccoar, based in Carcassone, and owns the cooperatives Cave du Razès and Cave la Malepère: with approximately 50,000 hectares of vineyards in Aude, it produces wine for the large scale retailing, as well as flavoured wines and non-alcohol wines. InVivo Wine, instead, is a division of the InVivo group trading and exporting wine to 28 different Countries in the Regions of Europe, Asia and South America. At the three sites of Narbonne, Béziers and Carcassonne, every year, 180 million bottles are produced, 18 million Bag-in-Boxes and Cubes, 20 million Tetra Pak containers and 1 million barrels of wine originating from 17 thousand hectares of vineyard and being vinified in 11 centres. In addition to figures, making Vinadeis an example of excellence, there is also the merging of values that distinguishes this group, which is able to combine the strong passion for wine and the land, and a supply chain that integrates all operations taking the wine from the vineyard into the glass. Within a vision based on sustainable development, Vinadeis has built up a structured organization in order to guarantee product traceability, safety and quality, care for the environment and valorisation of biodiversity, solidarity and safety for those working, product and process innovation, efficiency and cost control.
Accurate need analysis leads to a customized project.
It is right in terms of efficiency and cost control, where the technology of Mattei vane compressors has played an important role, so that it has been chosen for the compressed air supply of the plants at the Uccoar production site in Carcassonne.
Many are the reasons for this choice, but determining has been the thorough preliminary analysis of the needs of the production complex, performed by Mattei France: “As a rule, when approaching a new potential customer, we study in depth the special usage requirements for compressed air within the production cycle,” Mr. Philippe Cluchague, General Manager of Mattei France explains. “Only through an accurate study of the performance required, a precise profile of the needs for compressed air and energy can be defined, identifying the machines that best adapt to the type of use for every customer. With Uccoar, this method has made the difference compared to our competitors and led us to win the contract.”
In order to ensure the most suitable system to support the winery’s machines and equipment, above all those destined for the numerous bottling lines, a customized solution has been tailored enabling operation at full capacity or at 3/8 of the maximum power. “For this specific need,” Mr. Philippe Cluchague carries on, “we have actually proposed Uccoar the installation of two Mattei compressors: an industrial compressor MATTEI AC 37 L as main compressor, and a second one with variable speed, OPTIMA 90, as complementary machine”.
Customer satisfation: reliability and service.
“During two years of operation, we have been able to appreciate both the robust-ness and reliability of Mattei compressors that have never come up with the slightest issue,” Mr. Pierre Rainier, Head of Maintenace at the Uccoar site in Carcassonne, says. “What is more, we have also been able to perceive an effective reduction of energy consumption weighing on the company’s general costs, and as a result, on the final cost of the product. The performance of Mattei compressors well combines with the requested efficiency and the service provi-ded by Mattei France, which did not only manage the installation and commissio-ning of the compressors, but also trained a technician, who had already been in charge of maintenance at our company. Actually, a good example of cooperation and service customization.”
Optima Compressors
OPTIMA 90 is part of the Mattei series of electronic compressors at variable speed thanks to the use of an inverter. This technology, based on an electric circuit that is able to change the number
of compressor rotations and to modulate the power, enables to automatically adjust operation as to the load profile, so that the air emitted by the system does always correspond to the request in real time. They also have an elastic element directly coupling motor and compressor, ensuring quiet operation and reducing the need for maintenance. The compressors of the OPTIMA series ensure optimum air quality thanks to a filtering system with 99% efficiency and a significant reduction of energy consumption up to 35% due to the automatic adjustment of the rotary speed based on demand fluctuations. Also OPTIMA 90 is fitted with the MaestroXS microprocessor electronic controller.
Air Centre Compressors
Having a direct coupling through elastic joint with a 1:1 ratio, the AC series compressors feature an oil cooling group with two aluminium radiators and a three-phase oil separator. This ensures a high quality of the compressed air that is continuously at constant pressure.
Particularly silent, they have a sound-proof cabin in coated sheet steel and covered inside with sound absorbing material, fire resistant, with large hinging doors and demountable panels for complete accessibility during maintenance stages. The IP54-class-rated control panel with electronic MaestroXS microprocessor controller and LCD semi-graphical display enables machine operation in continuous, automatic and modulating mode.