The Basket Wine Tank is a unique patented design by Westec Tanks.

How Clay Mauritson Uses the Basket Tank

"We have been working with the 2 ton basket tanks for over three vintages and they have become an integral part of our high end, small lot winemaking program.

"The basket tanks are completely covered with a glycol jacket for easy and quick chilling and heating. They can be easily moved around in the cellar for optimal location placement.

"We have greatly enjoyed the versatility with which they can be filled: either by direct fill 100% gravity or pumped into over the top. Easy access to the juice because of the interior basket allows for a variety of cap management techniques to be used: manual punchdowns and/or use of any pump type: air pump, Waukesha, centrifugal.

"The interior basket also eliminates any confined space dangers because the forklift directly lifts up the skins held within the basket and then the basket is immediately dumped into the press. We have noticed that you can even eliminate the draining component before pressing by pulling up the basket with the skins and let it drain via gravity back into the tank.

"We have successfully completed native fermentations in these tanks and find the extraction to be on the lighter side allowing us to often include 100% of the press fraction back into the freerun lot thus increasing our yields per ton. The 2 ton size has proven to be extremely useful for awkward sized vineyard blocks when you don’t want to throw it into a T bin where temperature can not be controlled. These tanks are awesome. 😊"

Clay Mauritson
Mauriston Wines