Fanagoria’s cooperage has purchased two new machines – a
stave-cutter and a rolling lathe, both made by the Slovenian company Ledinek,
the world’s leading manufacturer of woodworking equipment.
Head Cooper Vladimir Prisiazhniuk was quoted as saying that
the new machines will help considerably improve the productivity of labour,
reduce losses of wood, and what is most important upgrade the quality and
appearance of the oak barrels.
“If the barrels are assembled from staves processed at a
cutter, they become marvelously leakproof and attractive,” said Mr.
Prisiazhniuk. “Not everyone knows that each stave has its own size and
thickness. What is more, it’s quite hard to achieve the required shape of the
stave – for it narrows towards the edges and widens in the middle, and – let me
stress it again – each one has its own width and thickness.”
The new stave-cutter enables to craft staves with a really
intricate preciseness, and it planes them according to an adjusted curvature.
As far as neither nails nor grooves are used in the production of wine barrels,
whose staves must be adjusted to each other, entire impermeability is
considered one of the main qualities of a good wine cask. The new machine makes
it possible to reduce the stave’s width down to 35 mm, rather than 55 mm as it
used to be before. In its turn, that positively affects the taste and aroma of
the wine seasoned in such barrels.
The second machine is a rolling lathe, used to have a
precise angle after the iron hoops have been rolled.
Ledinek is a Slovenian company with a 109-year experience,
and Fanagoria Estate Winery is 59 this year – excellent figures, aren’t they?
