The race for innovation in the winemaking and bottling machinery sector continues rapidly, driven by digitisation and automation. This trend will be highlighted at SIMEI (Fiera Milano Rho, 17-20 November) by the traditional “Lucio Mastroberardino” Innovation Challenge. The awards honour the most interesting innovations for the wine and beverage supply chain.

This year’s edition highlights an increasingly decisive use of artificial intelligence to make production processes more precise and automated, achieving overall efficiency that also translates into sustainability. Packaging is also evolving, prioritising safety, recyclability and the protection of wine.

The 2026 edition awards 4 Technology Innovation Awards, 4 Green Innovation Awards and 12 New Technology mentions. The winners were determined by a Technical-Scientific Committee composed of university professors, technicians and representatives of user companies. The awards will be presented on Tuesday, 17 November at 11 am in Hall 4 during the inaugural ceremony of the 31st edition of the leading international exhibition for winemaking and bottling machinery.

Technology Innovation Award 2026

The “concrete balance between quality, efficiency, flexibility and sustainability” earns the Elyra project by Bertolaso of Omnia Technologies the most coveted prize. Elyra is a bottling system with a compact tank and redesigned valves capable of reducing water consumption during washing, simplifying maintenance and managing different types of products without impacting quality.

Gai Macchine’s Disgorging Valve stands out for its “design ingenuity.” This multi-function valve integrates excess wine removal, dosing and levelling operations in a single device for sparkling wines.

Intelligent fermentation control earns Luigi Scavone’s HTS Enologia an award for IntraSense, a sensored probe with real-time measurement and localised physical intervention, alongside MetaFerm, an adaptive management system that uses data from previous fermentations to optimise subsequent ones.

Finally, Omnia Technologies’ Virtual5 is a digital system for industrial automation. The system integrates cloud, 5G connectivity, Artificial Intelligence, IoT and Digital Twin to manage and monitor production plants, including through virtual simulations. The Committee valued its “vision, research and the ability to transform technology into value for the industry.”

Green Innovation Award 2026

Among the sustainability winners is the Flavy FGCM filtration system by Bucher Vaslin, which filters musts and raw wines with high concentrations of suspended solids, reducing water and energy consumption. The Logichem GoLo wine de-alcoholation system allows for a 70% reduction in power consumption thanks to vacuum evaporation with an integrated heat pump.

On the packaging side, Altair by Astro is a tamper-proof capsule that facilitates the removal of aluminium from the bottle before delivery, promoting recycling. The Crealis Group’s Virtuo is a capsule in 100% recycled tin, reducing CO₂ emissions in the production cycle by 61%.

New Technology 2026

The New Technology section recognises: the optical grape sorter Enovision by 3U Vision; the label finishing system Sitratura Universale by Acmi Labelling; the technical cap LiOX VT by Diam Bouchage; the Ekinsa App for barrique washing control; the CR Racing Press by L.A.S.I.; the AMHS System by Nortan; the Smart Valve System by Parsec; the Pop Guard Safety Ring; the Clear Flow flotation system and Pressatura Pulse by Puleo; the Nomasense CO₂ C2000 by Vventions; and the Winegrid DataDriven platform by Watgrid.

Organised by the Unione Italiana Vini, SIMEI is a biennial international exhibition and the leading reference event for technology applied to the wine supply chain. The 2026 edition marks the debut of Bevertech, dedicated to Liquid Food & Beverage, created in collaboration with Ipack Ima.

 SIMEI 2026 offers a unique opportunity to witness how AI, digital twins and sustainable materials are reshaping production. As the Technical-Scientific Committee noted, the winning solutions demonstrate “the ability to transform technology into value for the industry”.