The present invention relates to a stopper for racking-off operations.

It is known that in the case of quality wines, such as for example sparkling wines, it is necessary to perform the so-called "spilling out" operation.

The spill-out operation seeks to eliminate the sediments that have formed in the wine during fermentation and maturation; these sediments are known as lees.

Lees elimination, which is required for many wine-making methods for which said lees are also aesthetically unacceptable, currently occurs carrying out a process that is now commonly used.

Said methods entail keeping the bottles upside down to make the lees deposit.

The racking-off process then entails placing each bottle, still upside down, in a refrigerating machine, which produces in practice an ice plug by cooling to a low temperature a region of the bottle that substantially corresponds to the neck.

The lees, which have deposited beforehand by gravity, once the ice plug has formed, and once the bottle has been uncorked, are expelled from said bottle almost automatically, due to the pressure of the gases present inside the bottle.

Although the ice plug avoids the escape of the wine, which moreover, as mentioned, is usually under pressure (commonly 3 to 10 atmospheres), it cannot avoid a certain loss, which must be compensated by means of a replenishment operation to be performed before the bottle is corked again.

The process, despite having by now been tested extensively, is particularly complicated and requires the above-mentioned replenishment.

In particular, uncorking and corking the bottle again causes a considerable waste of time, and it is furthermore necessary to provide for the presence of reservoirs for the replenishing wine.

US-A-4 947 737 discloses a twin-chambered stoppering arrangement for riddling fermented bottled wines, which collects sediment produced during fermentation of the wine in a remote chamber of the arrangement. The remote chamber is automatically sealed by a plug which is urged by the internal pressurized bottled wine. The remote chamber is then removed from the arrangement and disclosed with the collected sediment therein.

A principal aim of the present invention is to provide a stopper for racking-off operations that solves the drawbacks entailed by current spill-out devices and methods.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a stopper that allows a racking-off operation that does not require wine replenishment.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a stopper that allows racking-off without uncorking the bottle.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a stopper wherein the bottle is efficiently closed again, after racking-off, so as to contain the considerable pressures that might form inside it.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a stopper the cost whereof is competitive with currently commercially available stoppers.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a stopper that can also be used in bottles for quality wines.

In accordance with the invention, there is provided a stopper as defined in the appended claims.

The particular characteristics and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of an embodiment thereof, illustrated only by way of non-limitative example in the accompanying drawings, wherein:

• figure 1 is an axonometric view of a stopper according to the invention;
• figure 2 is a sectional view, taken along a diametrical plane, of the stopper according to the invention, when installed;
• figure 3 is a side view of the stopper according to the invention, when installed;
• figure 4 is a diametrical sectional view of the stopper according to the invention after the spill-out operation has been completed.

With particular reference to figures 1 to 4, a stopper according to the invention is generally designated by the reference numeral 10.

The stopper 10, which in this case is made of plastics, comprises a body 11 substantially mushroom-shaped and constituted by a tubular cylindrical element 12, which is externally smooth in this case but can also be ribbed, and is adapted to enter the neck of a bottle 13 and close it, and by a head 14, the diameter whereof is greater than that of the cylindrical element 12 and is monolithic therewith.

The stopper 10 furthermore comprises a container 15, which is substantially cylindrical in this case and extends monolithically from the head 14 in the opposite direction with respect to the cylindrical element 12.

The container 15 has an opening 16 at the head 14 that is connected to a through duct 17 formed therein and also connected, in turn, to the internal cavity 18 of the cylindrical element 12 and thus, when installed, to the inside of the bottle 13.

In particular, the container 15 has, at the coupling to the head 14, a tapered region so as to form a neck 19.

The internal surface that forms the cavity 18 is furthermore tapered at least proximate to the head 14.

In practice, operation is as follows: spill-out is performed when the bottle 13 is already upside down, and therefore the lees, by gravity, have already descended through the cavity 18, the duct 17, and the opening 16, into the container 15 to deposit on its bottom.

Once the complete deposition of the lees has been checked, the neck 19 is heat-sealed and cut.

This cutting and heat-sealing operation, however, must occur after freezing a portion corresponding to the neck of the bottle 13, thus preventing the wine from flowing out.

In this operation, since the bottle actually is never substantially open because cutting is followed immediately by heat-sealing (or vice versa), replenishment is absolutely unnecessary.

Furthermore, in order to conceal from sight the heat-sealed part, which is usually aesthetically unsightly, it is possible to provide a metallic covering 20 or a covering of another type, arranged above the head 14, these coverings being of the type normally used.

In practice it has been observed that the present invention has achieved the intended aim and objects.

In particular, it should be mentioned first of all that racking-off occurs by performing a plurality of operations that never entail uncorking the bottle.

Furthermore, it should be noted that the stopper never needs to be replaced, since it always remains coupled to the bottle.

Once spill-out has been performed, it is then possible to restore full closure of the stopper with operations (cutting and heat-sealing) that are particularly simple to perform and automate.

It should also be noted that another operating difficulty that is fully eliminated is the one related to the replenishment operation, which entails significant costs in large runs.

It is also noted that any aesthetic shortcomings of the heat-sealing operation can be easily concealed by means of the conventional methods for covering the head of the stopper, without requiring other covering methods.

It is envisaged that the stopper can also be associated with a cork covering.

The materials and the dimensions may be any according to the requirements.

Where technical features mentioned in any claim are followed by reference signs, those reference signs have been included for the sole purpose of increasing the intelligibility of the claims and accordingly such reference signs do not have any limiting effect on the interpretation of each element identified by way of example by such reference signs.