Apple Wine Plant Machinery & State Excise Licence Requirements
By Raghav Food Machinery Company · 07 Sep 2026
Short answer: an apple wine line needs an apple washer, a crusher, a juice press, a storage tank with a mixing system to ferment in, and a filling machine with capping and batch coding. But the machines are the easy part — the licence is the hard part, so start there.
Read this first: you cannot make wine without an excise licence
Alcohol is a state subject in India. Making apple wine commercially requires a winery or fruit-wine manufacturing licence from your State Excise Department, and there is no way around it — no food licence, no MSME registration and no company structure substitutes for it.
What that means in practice:
- Your state decides your business. Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra and Karnataka have fruit-wine policies designed to help growers add value. Other states are far more restrictive. Where you build matters more than what you build.
- Excise supervision is continuous. Expect bonded storage, production registers, and excise staff with oversight of your stock. This is ongoing operational reality, not a one-time form.
- Labels and sales are controlled. Label approval, brand registration, duty, and who you may sell to are all governed by state excise rules.
- Start the licence before the machines. Licensing runs in months. Order equipment in parallel, not after.
Rules differ by state and change, so take your position from your State Excise Department or an excise consultant — not from this or any other article.
The machines you need
1. Apple washer machine
Orchard apples carry soil, spray residue and leaves. A bubble washer uses air agitation to tumble the fruit clean without bruising. For a continuous line an automatic conveyor washer washes and feeds the crusher directly.
Sort on an SS working table before crushing. Rotten fruit carries spoilage organisms and off-flavours straight into your ferment, and once they are in the tank there is no fixing it. Windfall and bruised fruit is fine — actually rotten fruit is not.
2. Apple crusher
Whole apples will not press. They have to be broken into a pomace first so the press can get the juice out. A fruits and vegetables crusher does this.
Crush coarse rather than fine. A pulp that is too fine turns into a slippery mass that blocks the press cloth and actually gives you less juice, not more. You want broken fruit, not puree.
3. Apple juicer machine
This machine decides your yield, and for wine it also decides your clarity.
A hydraulic juice press is the right choice for wine. It presses in batches under high pressure and gives both a better yield and a cleaner juice with less suspended solids than a continuous screw machine. Less solids in the tank means a cleaner ferment and less work clarifying later.
A screw type juicer is the continuous alternative where throughput matters more than clarity. A hydro extractor also has a role in juice recovery.
Plan on roughly 600–700 ml of juice per kg of apples with a good press. Yield rises if the fruit is ripe and the crush is right.
4. Storage tank with mixing system — your fermenter
This is where wine is actually made, and it is the machine most first-time producers under-specify.
A 500 litre SS storage tank holds the must through fermentation. What matters:
- Food-grade stainless steel. Must is acidic. Mild steel and copper contaminate it and ruin the wine.
- Headspace. Never fill past about 80%. Primary fermentation throws a vigorous cap of foam, and a full tank will overflow onto your floor.
- An airlock. CO2 must escape while air stays out. Air turns wine into vinegar.
- A mixing system to disperse sugar, yeast and additives evenly, and a bottom outlet for racking off the lees.
Where a batch needs heating — pasteurising juice, or dissolving a large sugar addition — a mixing steam jacket kettle handles it with controlled heat and a stirrer.
5. Filling, capping and coding
Wine is thin, so a manual liquid filling machine handles it well. Close the bottle with a crown corking machine, or a heavy duty crown corking machine for continuous runs.
Batch number, date and your excise details go on with a price codder. For alcohol these markings are an excise requirement, and your label artwork usually needs approval before you print.
The process, and the numbers that matter
- Wash and sort. Remove rotten fruit.
- Crush to a coarse pomace.
- Press to juice. About 600–700 ml per kg.
- Adjust the must. Apple juice comes in around 11–13 Brix naturally, which ferments out to only about 6–7% alcohol. For a table wine at 11–12% you add sugar to reach roughly 20–22 Brix. The working rule: Brix × 0.55 ≈ potential alcohol %.
- Add potassium metabisulphite to suppress wild yeast and bacteria, then wait a few hours before pitching.
- Pitch a wine yeast. A known Saccharomyces cerevisiae wine strain gives you a predictable ferment. Wild fermentation is how hobbyists work and how commercial batches get lost.
- Primary fermentation — roughly 7–14 days at 18–24 °C. Temperature control is what preserves apple aroma; a hot ferment blows it off and the wine tastes flat.
- Rack off the lees into a clean tank for secondary fermentation and maturation.
- Clarify and filter until bright.
- Bottle, cap, code.
Sizing your line
| Apples per day | Juice | Typical setup |
|---|---|---|
| 500 kg | ~300–350 L | Bubble washer, crusher, hydraulic press, 500 L tanks, manual filler, crown corker |
| 1–2 ton | ~600–1400 L | Conveyor washer, larger crusher and press, multiple fermentation tanks, heavy duty capping |
Remember that wine occupies tank space for weeks, not hours. Your capacity is set by total tank volume, not by how fast the press runs. Most new wineries buy enough pressing capacity and not enough tanks.
Apple harvest is also seasonal, so the washer, crusher and press sit idle much of the year. Many units run them on other fruit juice in the off season — the same three machines make apple, pear and citrus juice.
Frequently asked questions
What machines are needed to make apple wine?
An apple washer, a crusher, a juice press, a stainless steel storage tank with a mixing system to ferment in, and a filling machine with capping and batch coding. The press and the fermentation tanks are the two that decide your quality and your capacity.
Do I need a licence to make apple wine in India?
Yes. Alcohol is a state subject and you need a winery or fruit-wine manufacturing licence from your State Excise Department, with ongoing excise supervision, bonded storage and label approval. States with fruit-wine policies such as Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Maharashtra are considerably easier than states without one. Start the licence before you order machines.
How much juice do I get from a kilogram of apples?
Roughly 600–700 ml per kg with a good hydraulic press. Yield depends on ripeness, on crushing coarsely enough that the press does not blind, and on the press itself — a hydraulic batch press out-yields a screw press and gives cleaner juice.
Why do I need to add sugar to apple wine?
Apple juice is naturally about 11–13 Brix, which ferments to only 6–7% alcohol — below table wine strength and less stable. Adding sugar to about 20–22 Brix gives roughly 11–12% alcohol. The working rule is Brix × 0.55 for potential alcohol percentage.
Why should the fermentation tank not be filled completely?
Primary fermentation throws a vigorous foam cap. Fill past about 80% and it overflows. The tank also needs an airlock so CO2 escapes while air is kept out — oxygen exposure turns wine to vinegar.
What does an apple wine plant cost?
It depends on your daily fruit volume and, above all, on how much tank capacity you need, since wine occupies tanks for weeks. Tell us your volume and target batch size and we will put an itemised list against it. Current pricing for each machine is on its product page, or download the full catalogue.
Talk to us about your line
We manufacture the washing, crushing, pressing, tank and filling equipment for fruit wine and juice lines, and install and commission them across India with operator training and GST invoicing. Tell us your daily fruit volume and your state, and we will tell you which models fit.
Browse juicers and presses, SS tanks and tables and washing machines, or send us your requirement.
Related guide: tomato sauce and ketchup unit, which uses the same washing and pulping front end.