Australia’s Winery Engineering Association earlier this year cancelled its annual conference and exhibition planned for the Barossa, but is continuing with its New Zealand conference and exhibition in Marlborough on September 16 and 17.
The WEA’s Australian conference and Exhibition has taken place annually for more than 20 years, but the association has only in recent years come to New Zealand.
The Association said its committee believed that the economic conditions facing the Australian industry earlier this year were such that the “most responsible action “in the best interest of all members, suppliers and presenters was to call off the Barossa Valley event.
However, it says after a very successful conference and exhibition in New Zealand in 2008 the Winery Engineering Association is doing it all again. The Brancott Winery will again host the two-day event, which will provide a forum for new ideas and engineering solutions tailored for the wine industry.
The exhibition brings together New Zealand and international suppliers and providers. The exhibition is being run in parallel with the conference and organisers are encouraging New Zealand wine industry people to at least view the exhibition, even if they cannot attend the full conference.
The first day of the conference will see delivery of various technical papers, with a chance to view the exhibition and network when the main conference programme ends at 5pm. The conference dinner will be held from 7pm.
The second day has a similar programme but will include optional ‘technical’ visits to sites near the conference venue.
Topics for the technical papers include processing, maintenance, the environment and sustainability CO2 recovery, tartrate stabilisation, cross-flow filtration of lees, refrigeration and benchmarking.
The patron sponsor is Programmed Property Services, and major sponsors are Rockwell Automation and Transfield Worley.
Other sponsors include Atlas Copco, Burkert Fluid Control Systems, Crown Sheetmetal, HD Process NZ, Pall New Zealand, Taylormade and SIKA (NZ) Ltd.