Steve Byrne and Greg Howell Vintessential Laboratories Introduction Ethyl acetate has long been associated with wine spoilage, imparting a distinct nail polish remover aroma to affected wine. Although a common taint, it has not traditionally been a very common test in our labs. One reason for this may be due to misconceptions about how it […]
pH ELECTRODE CARE Never leave the electrode in juice or wine for longer than it takes to get a stable measurement of pH. Tannins, proteins etc in the sample can build up on the membrane and cause a sluggish response. Take the measurement, then rinse the electrode immediately with distilled […]
Greg Howell and Carly Gamble, Vintessential Laboratories Introduction The flotation process was originally developed in Australia and has been in use in the mining industry for over a century. It has been used in the wine industry for the clarification of juice for several decades and appears to be gaining renewed popularity due to recent […]
Introduction There has been a lot of research done recently on the use of mannoproteins in winemaking which has led to the release of several new products into the marketplace. These new products are making quite an impact on the sensory properties of sparkling, white and rosé wines. Mannoprotein products are being used in large […]
It’s winter and it’s cold. But it needn’t be in your lab. Having well maintained heating and cooling systems in your lab is necessary to keep the temperature as close to 20˚C as possible. This not only makes for a comfortable and safer working environment, it can be critical in achieving accurate results. Here are […]
The level of dissolved carbon dioxide in a wine can greatly effect the taste of the wine, too little and the wine can seem flat and flabby and too much can cause a wine to taste harsh and tannic. Measuring carbon dioxide in the winery can be done a number of ways but the quickest […]
Many wine labs now have improved quality control systems in place and routinely analyse samples in duplicate and run the same control wine sample each day, plotting the results on control charts. These are great ways to monitor repeatability and reproducibility, two very important quality parameters that indicate how precise a method is. A third […]
With an increasing number of labs upgrading from benchtop spectrophotometers to automatic discrete analysers for their enzymatic testing, it is worth noting that the major difference between the two approaches (apart from speed!) is in the calculation of the sample results. A discrete analyser calculates a calibration curve from a series of known standard solutions. […]
Introduction Commercial strains of malolactic bacterial cultures have been available for many years. Until recently, these cultures were added after the completion of the alcoholic (yeast) fermentation. New research has enabled the development of strains of bacteria that can be added at the same time that yeast is added (co-inoculation). The advantages of co-inoculation are […]