Safeguard Your Grapes with Temporary Winery Refrigeration Hire

Protecting Quality From the First Pick

The moment those grapes are picked, the countdown begins. Ensuring their quality before they even hit the fermenter is crucial, and that’s where effective refrigeration comes into play.

While many focus on fermentation control, it’s important to remember that refrigeration is vital at every step of the winemaking journey — from the harvest to maturation and even during storage of the final product. This is why winery refrigeration hire is such a key strategy for maintaining quality.

In our previous blog about under-capacity in winery cooling, we discussed how a heatwave or a bumper crop can really stretch your cooling system to its limits. And in “Winery Cooling Failure: What’s Your Backup?”, we looked at the consequences of a chiller breaking down right in the middle of harvest.

Temporary refrigeration is your safety net, helping you avoid both extremes by providing the necessary cooling when your fermenters, systems, or infrastructure just can’t keep up.

Beyond the Glycol Chiller

While a glycol chiller is crucial for controlling fermentation, winemaking requires more than just cooling tanks. Grapes, must, barrels, and bottled wine all need protection from heat and fluctuating conditions.

Winery refrigeration hire gives you a flexible solution to fill those gaps — offering cold storage and environmental control exactly when and where you need it.

Key Applications for Winery Refrigeration Hire

• Trailer-mounted Cool room hire: Keep those hand-picked grapes cool in bins before processing to maintain their delicate aromas and minimize oxidation risks.
• Cold Soaks: Utilise temporary refrigeration to chill unfermented must, allowing you to extract colour and flavour compounds while postponing the start of fermentation.
• Barrel Hall Cooling: Ensure stable, cool conditions during maturation to protect the wine’s structure and prevent spoilage.
• Finished Goods Storage: Use 20ft/40ft Reefer Containers for dependable storage of bottled wine before it goes out for distribution, ensuring the product remains stable.

The Aircon Rentals Refrigeration Fleet

At Aircon Rentals, we offer a full range of temporary refrigeration solutions tailored to support wineries at every stage of their production process:

• Mobile cool rooms in a variety of sizes – temperature is minus 18 Deg c for a freezer or plus 4 deg c for a Fridge. Designed for easy transport and maintenance, our units operate quietly while delivering consistent cooling.
• Refrigerated reefers for storing bulk or finished goods – 20ft and 40ft
• Commercial Fridges and freezer Hire for cellar door operations and winery events.

Our fleet is built for quick delivery and easy setup, ensuring that your grapes, must, barrels, and bottled wine stay protected, no matter what the weather throws at you.

Case Study in Action: Protecting Premium Pinot Noir

During a particularly warm harvest in the Mornington Peninsula, a boutique winery encountered the challenge of storing several tonnes of hand-picked Pinot Noir grapes over several days.

With the hot daytime temperatures putting the fruit at risk, the winery turned to Aircon Rentals and brought in two temporary cool room hire solution.

By keeping the grapes consistently chilled before processing, they were able to preserve the delicate aromatics that make their Pinot Noir so special.

The outcome was a vintage that retained its signature finesse and freshness — a quality that would have been jeopardized without dependable refrigeration.

A Versatile Tool for Quality Control

Winemaking is all about precision at every step — and refrigeration plays a crucial role in that.

By integrating winery refrigeration hire into your harvest and production strategy, you gain flexible, reliable cooling that protects quality from grape to glass.

Ready to protect your grapes with temporary refrigeration?

Check Out Our Winery Refrigeration Hire Solutions

Call our 24/7 Emergency Hotline: 1800 626 996