Company testing wines for level of undesirable qualities caused by smoke
Have your wine grapes been impacted by smoke from fires?
–Tastry, a sensory sciences company, is leveraging its state-of-the-art laboratories to assist farmers and winemakers in identifying the level of damage caused by recent wildfires in California. “We are committed to lessen the load of testing requests experienced by other labs by identifying the presence and concentration of various compounds related to smoke damage,” said Tastry Founder & CEO, Katerina Axelsson.
Tastry is currently providing tests for guaiacol and 4-methylguaiacol only on post-primary fermentation samples and expects to be providing added visibility into other compounds including syringol, 4-methylsyringol, m-cresol, p-cresol, and o-cresol. The company says it is focusing on these compounds as they are the key contributors to undesirable sensory characteristics described as smoky, burnt, charred, salami, ash, smoky bacon, medicinal and ashtray.
“Given the tremendous increase in volume of requested tests by the industry, we wanted to focus our efforts where they would do the most good,” said Axelsson. “Some of these volatiles present as bound glycosides, and are most easily quantified post-fermentation; that is to say that as the sugar in the wine is consumed during a micro-fermentation, many more of these bound phenols are released providing for a more accurate evaluation. By testing micro-fermented samples instead of juice, the growers and wineries can more granularly understand the potential impact on the final wine.” The company is currently providing results within 48 hours, but as the volume of requested tests increases, delays may be inevitable, they say.
Learn more at Tastry.com.
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