Blulog equips the warehouse of Compagnie Medocaine des Grands Crus with its wireless temperature monitoring system

Locates close to Bordeaux, (400 miles away from Paris), Compagnie Medocaine des Grands Crus has established itself as one of the most respected merchants in the Bordeaux wine trade, both at home and abroad. A fully-owned subsidiary of AXA Millesimes, the wine arm of AXA.

The compagny, which employs 27 people, mainly sells to traditional channels (restaurants, hotels, wine shops) and to wholesalers and quality supermarkets.

Each year, 3 million bottles of their warehouse are distributed in 54 countries.

A challenge : to control temperature and humidity of storage warehouses

On February 2015, Compagnie Medocaine des Grands Crus wanted to find an innovative solution to control temperature and humidity in its warehouses. Caroline Bru, purchasing manager, looked for reliable tool in order to monitor the temperature and the humidity of the warehouse with to remote and real-time access to the database.

Today, the 3 Blulog wireless data loggers have passed the test phase and have been monitoring temperature and humidity of the 5000-Sq-Ft warehouse in real time for more than a year.

An innovative way to ensure the quality of the wine

Credit-card size, the Blulog data loggers are provided with the a holder for easy wall installation.

Thanks to the Plug & Play system, the installation is particularly easy. Equipped with a wireless data transmission, the RF data loggers have a range of 700 meters in open fields.

Thanks to hellopro, which is a marketplace displaying thousands of products b2b, Caroline Bru looked for a provider to control the temperature and the humidity of the warehouse. The Blulog data loggers were the only one to perfectly fulfill the requirements she was looking for, ie be wireless, in real-time and with a reach for the 5000-Sq-Ft warehouse.

Initially, Compagnie Medocaine des Grands Crus had tried a solution provided by a competitor but was not satisfied with the results.

Conversely, they appreciated the responsiveness of Blulog, characterized by its speed and efficiency of implementation.

Temperature is a key factor in the conservation of the wine, but more important than temperature itself, it is its variation which is decisive. Indeed, thermal shocks are extremly harmful for wine, says Caroline Bru. Humidity is another very important factor for the proper conservation of wine. Indeed, too dry basement can cause irreparable damages to the winequality. Therefore, we were looking for a wireless, reliable and real-time solution to save time in everyday life. After the test phase, we realized how the wireless solutions Blulog were optimal and consistent with our expectations.

Reliability is also a key point: 0.2 °C precision between 0 and 30 °C and 0.5 °C on the rest of the range -40 °C to +70 °C. Moreover, all data is secured and encrypted using the key AES128.

The autonomy, memory and calibration of the data loggers have a 3 years warranty - the entire life cycle of the battery.

The Blulog radio frequency data logger measures and stores the temperature in a given location every 10 minutes (every 15 minutes for the version with humidity).

Temperature data is sent to the hub along with an UTC time indicator (using ISM - industrial, science anf medical - radio signals).

And then, the hub transfers the encrypted data to a secure server, located in France.

While all other temperature monitoring systems are wired and underperforming, Blulog system distinguished itself by RF wireless system that covers larger areas. In addition, its precision and performance revealed insulation problems in the warehouse that we will handle very soon. " says Caroline Bru, Director of purchasing.

A real-time web application that remotely monitors the warehouse

The solution is connected to the cloud via Ethernet, Wi-fi or GPRS and enables real-time monitoring from anywhere in the world. It also allows the sending of real-time alerts via SMS or email if the temperature exceeds the limits set by the user.

caroline Bru, who is in charge of the proper conservation of wine storage, wanted to remotely check and real time the proper functioning of the air conditioning. She particularly enjoys monitoring the temperature excursions from home during the week - end or at night.

"It is essential to respect the proper wine storage temperature to provide the best conditions for tasting. Thanks to Blulog, I do not have to worry about potential failures of air conditioning when I'm out, because I would be notified immediately," says Caroline Bru. I also really appreciate the temperature pdf reports available on the web application that I send to our Chateaux partners to inform them of the good treatment of their bottles."

Future prospects

The two months test phase has resulted in the deployment of solutions in the warehouse.

Convinced by the interest and benefit of the Blulog solutions, Medocaine Compagnie des Grands Crus eventually plans to equip their trucks during the transportation of the bottles from Chateaux to the warehouse with the NFC system of the company.