Tamburlaine bottling line for Packamama bottles. Image courtesy Packamama
Packamama and Tamburlaine Organic Wines have announced the launch of a new bottling facility in NSW, equipped with a GAI monoblock bottling line designed specifically for the eco-flat bottles.
Situated in Cudal in the heart of the Orange Wine Region, the purpose-built winery (pictured above) has been a cornerstone in supporting the region’s wine production expansion over the past two decades.
The facility serves as a contract packing hub, allowing wine producers, brand owners, and retailers to leverage Packamama’s eco-flat bottles in Australia. At the heart of the facility is a monoblock bottling line, featuring functionalities like nitrogen purging before filling, a 32-head filler, and Novatwist application with nitrogen in the headspace before capping. The labeller enables precise labelling across the flat panels, accommodating a variety of shapes and sizes. Automation efficiently packs bottled wines into 9-litre cases and palletises them.
The bottling line has demonstrated its capabilities by successfully filling around 100,000 Packamama bottles already, at a speed of approximately 4,000 – 4,500 bottles per hour.
Tamburlaine’s new Lizard Drinking organic wines in the eco-flat bottles are the first to be bottled at the facility. Mark Davidson, managing director and head of grape and wine production at Tamburlaine Organic Wines, said that since launching the rPET packaged wine range in October, the customer response had been “overwhelmingly” positive.
“This is in stark contrast to the initial low rate of consumer acceptance of screw caps versus cork more than 20 years ago,” said Davidson. “After commissioning the new line, the first runs were impressive, achieving necessary commercial speeds and delivering wine quality in the bottle.”
Santiago Navarro, CEO and founder of Packamama, was present for the bottling over several days, commented on the opening of the new facility.
“It is motivating to see how a new bottling line designed specifically for our bottles can run them through smoothly, speedily, and consistently. We are looking forward to collaborating with Mark and his team at Tamburlaine to leverage their facility to accelerate our growth in Australia.”
The facility is open to wine producers, brand owners, and retailers across Australia that are capable of sending their wine in bulk to Cudal, to ensure that the bottling facility is accessible to a broad spectrum of industry participants.
Are you a Daily Wine News subscriber? If not, click here to join our mailing list. It’s free!
