Why Concentrate?

The Memstar concentration process treats grape juice or wine to increase flavour intensity, colour and body. It does this by using reverse osmosis to remove a portion of the grape juice or wine as permeate.

Grape juice (or must) concentration by reverse osmosis has been used for many years for the removal of water to increase sugar and flavour concentration. It is ideal for treating juices and musts that have become heavily diluted as a result of rain just before harvest. It is a superior technique for alcohol augmentation compared to the addition of sugar (chaptalisation) but has limited benefits where the grapes are green and under-ripe.

Wine concentration after fermentation is the preferred option when sugar levels are already high but the concentration of flavour, colour and other quality components is low. Concentrating the juice in this situation, results in increased sugar levels. These in turn lead to excessive alcohol levels in the fermented wine. Concentrating the wine instead does not increase the alcoholic strength significantly because alcohol passes through the membrane into the permeate and is not concentrated.