Tip: Conducting micro testing without a micro lab

In a perfect world a winery micro lab would be established in its own room, separate from any other winery or lab activities. It would have a laminar flow cabinet and dedicated personnel trained in aseptic techniques.
In practice, space and budget constraints don’t  always allow for this, but that shouldn’t prevent labs from adding some basic micro plating methods to their testing range. Here are a few tips on setting up a space for micro within your current lab:

• Create a clean bench space, free of any open wine samples or other testing and away from walkthrough traffic.
• Sanitise the bench surface by spraying with a 70% ethanol solution.
• Use a Bunsen burner or other burner to create a flame and work as close to this flame as possible, it creates a dome of sanitised airspace.
• Use a micropipette tip to dispense 100µL of homogenised wine sample onto the agar plate.
• Take a glass pastueur pipette with a thin tip and hold it over the flame such that the tip bends at a 90˚ angle. Use this to spread the applied wine over the agar plate.
• Work quickly to minimise the time the open plate is exposed to air.
• Use the ethanol spray and flame to sanitise the spreader in between sample applications.