PILOT SCALE VINIFICATIONS (100 L).I THE CONTROLLED FERMENTATIONS FACILITY AT THE INRA IN PECH ROUGE.

Oenological experiments face numerous constraints. In the winery, they are intricate because of the grape harvest seasonability (one or two months per year) but also the very difficult implementation of thorough experiments: (i) this would require working with large volumes thus complicating the realization of proper controls or duplicates, (ii) lack of personnel to assist experiments during this period… Conversely, small scale experiments allow to better control the working conditions and raw materials would be readily available for longer periods, but the applicability of results obtained can be questionable, especially with regards to the characteristics of the wines produced. Therefore, pilot scale studies would appear to be a good compromise, whose oenological advantages, however, have not been well discussed.