A deeper understanding of the qualitative consequences of food pumping: A case study of wine

The consequences of pumping on food quality are poorly understood, and wine is a good example. Therefore, the present paper examines the use of four pumps and the application of inertization on wine quality. We develop a novel, physical qualitative index (PQI), which is the ratio between pumping specific energy and the net positive suction head, and examine the correlation with wine quality characteristics. Four pumps (a flexible impeller pump, a lobe pump, a peristaltic pump, and a rotary piston pump) that are widely-used in wine cellars were compared over a wide array of chemical-physical variables, during conventional racking, with and without inertization. The analysis found a correlation between the PQI and some quality variables, and this finding was confirmed by a conventional statistical analysis (ANOVA-GLM). Overall, the flexible impeller pump performed slightly differently compared to the other pumps with respect to some color-related parameters. All pumps behave differently as a function of inertization (or not). Inertization was effective in minimizing volatile losses.