Optical Grape Sorting Machine with Air Jet Rejection for Winemaking
In winemaking, removing unwanted material such as leaves, stems, insects, and unripe grapes is essential to ensure consistent fermentation and final wine quality. Optical sorting systems allow wineries to automate this step with high precision and throughput.
Detect and remove defects from grapes before crushing
The X-Tri optical sorter from Protec is designed for sorting grapes after destemming, ensuring that only high-quality fruit enters the crushing and fermentation stages.
After destemming, grapes are distributed onto a vibrating feeder, which ensures even product spread onto the inspection belt. A high-speed optical vision system analyzes each grape in real time, detecting defects such as leaves, stems, insects, foreign materials, and unripe grapes based on color differences.
Once identified, unwanted material is removed using targeted air jets, allowing defective elements to be separated without interrupting the product flow. Accepted grapes continue directly to the crusher, maintaining a continuous processing line.
Sorting parameters can be adjusted via a touchscreen interface, enabling operators to define which defects should be removed depending on grape variety, ripeness, and desired wine profile.
The system is available in multiple configurations with capacities up to approximately 15 tons per hour, depending on grape characteristics and defect load.
Benefits
- — Removes leaves, stems, insects, and unripe grapes before crushing
- — Air jet rejection ensures fast, non-contact defect removal
- — Adjustable sorting criteria via touchscreen interface
- — Optimizes grape quality for fermentation and wine consistency
- — Capacity up to ~15 t/h depending on grape conditions