Seeley International helping wineries keep barrel angels at bay

Seeley’s Climate Wizard technology is helping wine companies, including listed giant Treasury Wine Estates, save huge sums of money through temperature control.

Seeley International CEO Jon Seeley at Barossa Valley Estate. Picture: Kelly Barnes

There’s a poetic turn of phrase in the liquor industry, known as “the angels’ share”, for the amount of wine or spirits lost to transpiration through porous barrels.

Across large operations however, the reality of the situation loses its poetic charm, and it’s an issue which airconditioner manufacturer Seeley International is now helping about 50 wineries around the world address.

Seeley managing director Jon Seeley said some of the wine companies involved include listed giant Treasury Wine Estates – which has Seeley’s Climate Wizard technology in operation at the Bilyara Estate facility in the Barossa Valley, high-end winemakers Torbreck, Shaw and Smith and Bird in Hand, as well as Bosman Wines in South Africa.

At Bilyara Estate, where the barrel hall has a capacity of 100,000, those pesky angels can cost Treasury real money if issues around heat are not addressed.

Mr Seeley said that as well as saving about 80 per cent on power costs, it also meant companies could invest less in power infrastructure, and temperature and humidity levels could be finely controlled.

“Wineries now tend to contact us because they talk to each other,’’ he said.

Mr Seeley said the company’s Climate Wizard technology was “uniquely high-performing in this space’’.

“It performs at a much higher level than the industry is accustomed to and it’s well proven,” he said. “We’ve been selling that technology for over 10 years now around the world, with thousands of installations.

“It’s well-proven but it’s still not mainstream yet. Our goal is to get much wider adoption.’’

Mr Seeley said the company had recently bought a small company in Denver, Colorado, and had high hopes for further expansion into the US, particularly states such as California which shared similar climatic conditions to Australia, as well as a very large economy.

“We have plans to significantly grow the US market over the next three years,’’ he said.

“We are targeting in particular the California market for significant growth.’’

With hot and dry climate conditions and its own wine industry of note, particularly in the Napa Valley region, there was plenty of room to grow, Mr Seeley said.

“Their focus on energy efficiency and renewable energy is also probably the highest in the world so energy is expensive and they are committed to no new net generation, so they invest a lot of money into improving efficiency.

“They also realise that airconditioning is one of the single biggest energy users across their built environment, the same as it is in Australia.’’

Seeley has also designed a rooftop-mounted product specifically for the US market, which was similar in shape and specifications to existing airconditioning solutions, in older to increase rapid take-up.

Mr Seeley said the Climate Wizard technology was applicable to both commercial and residential applications but the large commercial sector presented the biggest opportunity for the company.

Seeley is headquartered in South Australia and now employs about 500 staff.