Wines & Vines

40 WINES&VINES Collector's Edition COLLECTOR'S EDITION Filtration Improved technology led to better, cleaner wines Prior to the development of plastics, crossflow filtration was not possible. In the late 1950s, materials scientists began to develop polymer flat sheets that could let liquid pass through the sheet. In the course of polymerization, the polymer process could be stopped, which left holes in the sheet. An epiphany came to an engineer (who must have played pinball ma- chines) that changed filtration forever. A thin sheet of plastic does not have the depth to build up solids, and so the material to be filtered blinds the sheet too quickly for that sheet to be an efficient filter. However, when the direction of product flow is changed from perpendicular to horizontal, the "cross" flow keeps the potential blinding materials from blocking the holes in the plastic sheet. Since molecules can be envisioned as pinballs flying across the sheet of plastic, when a molecule gets "trapped" by a hole, it falls through and is removed from the product. Sheets evolved from stacks to "jelly roll" as- semblies and finally to hollow fiber. It took until the 1980s for crossflow technology to mature and be adapted for the wine industry. Tangential- flow filtration encompasses processes that range from reverse osmosis, which separates molecules as small as water from salts like sodium chloride, to nano-filtration, which separates particles 0.2 µ and smaller from all the rest. Peter Meier, an engineer with Millipore, introduced this technology to the wine indus- try. Subsequently, companies such as Amicon, General Electric, Memstar and others have developed a panoply of membranes that can separate various combinations of molecules, based upon size and other factors. Membrane filtration has transformed wine filtration for more environmentally sound practices and better quality of wines at lower prices. Fetzer and Bonterra Mendocino wineries showed the way for organically grown wine grapes The Fetzer family were modern-era pioneers in California's Mendocino County and started a large and profitable brand that continues today under the ownership of Chilean wine company Concha y Toro. They also did much to champion organic and later biodynamic grapegrowing in the county and as an example for the whole West Coast. Barney and Kathleen Fetzer purchased a ranch in the Redwood Val- ley section of Mendocino in 1958 and raised their 11 children there, while also founding the Fetzer Vineyards brand of mostly value- priced varietal wines that were unusual at the time. One son, Jim Fetzer, spearheaded certi- fied-organic grapegrowing on their property along with a large organic garden at the win- ery's hospitality center. After selling the winery and brand to Brown Forman in 1992, family members branched out to continue growing grapes and making wine under new brands. Meanwhile, Brown Forman moved ahead with a new brand under the Fetzer umbrella, Bonterra Vineyards, that used exclusively organically grown grapes in all its wines. In recent years, the strategy has paid off, with sales over 500,000 cases and a leadership position in the organically grown segment for U.S. wines. Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter Insect that spreads Pierce's Disease forced industry to fight back The glassy-winged sharpshooter was, and is, a devastatingly effective delivery vehicle for Pierce's Disease, caused by the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa. Spread by the sharpshooters, Pierce's Disease destroyed a large chunk of the vineyard acreage in California's Temecula Valley in the mid- to late 1990s and threatened to spread and infect larger wine regions to the north. The insect was so feared by growers and winemakers that in 2000 they levied a tax on themselves for the first time in decades. The tax funded a re- search and prevention program, the Pierce's Disease Control Program under the California Department of Food and Agriculture, on how to beat back the sharpshooters and the plague that they vectored. The research soon bore fruit in terms of practical ways to slow or prevent the disease's spread with detection and biological control programs. The program has been very effective and impressed growers and wineries so much that they have continued to vote to renew the funding of the program, and it has expanded to target other pests and diseases. Louis Gomberg First to analyze data for wine industry clients Gomberg, Fredrikson & Associates was founded in 1948 by wine industry pioneer Louis R. Gom- berg (1907-1993), who was the first to track and analyze statistical data relevant to the wine business. Owned and operated by Wines & Vines and BW166.com since 2016, the firm now monitors monthly and annual comparative shipments of leading California wineries and wine imports by country. Its reports also provide commentary on and analysis of current business conditions and trends shaping the market. Gomberg was an editor at the San Francisco Chronicle when, in 1935, Leon Adams, then in the process of organizing the Wine Institute, hired him as an executive. The two began a number of institute programs that were long running, including a technical advisory com- mittee, statistical data service and a series of member publications. Jon and Eileen Fredrik- son took ownership of the business in 1983. Mary Ann Graf Set an example for women winemakers and entrepreneurs Mary Ann Graf is the first woman to earn a degree in enology from the University of Cali- fornia, Davis and one of the first women en- trepreneurs to start a wine industry service company. It was a harbinger of change in the male-dominated wine industry when Graf re- ceived her B.S. degree in fermentation sciences in 1965. She went to work as a chemist and assistant winemaker in the Central Valley and Sonoma County, working largely on fruit wines and becoming a quality-control expert. She joined Simi Winery in 1973 as the winemaker, and was mentored there by consulting enolo- gist André Tchelistcheff. Graf left Simi and with Marty Bannister co-founded the Vinquiry wine laboratory, now Enartis USA, a business that specialized in providing analytical and consult- ing services to the winemaking industry. She JACK KELLY CLARK

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