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April 2015 WINES&VINES 21 WINE INDUSTRY NEWS S t. Helena, Calif.—An optical sorter could easily be the next de rigueur ac- cessory on the well-financed crush pad of a premium winery, but some winemakers aren't convinced. The inaugural Innovation + Quality confer- ence held March 4 at Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena featured a panel discussion by wine- makers as well as a comparative tasting of wines made with fruit that had undergone optical sorting versus control wines made from g r a p e s t h a t d i d n o t p a s s t h r o u g h t h e machines. Billed as the first "forum for ultra-premium wineries," the event, which was produced by Wine Business Monthly, drew a crowd of more than 1,000 exhibitors and winemakers. In ad- dition to a tradeshow, the event featured sev- eral sessions about viticulture, winemaking and the latest academic research. Wines & Vines and Wine Business Monthly are both part of Wine Communications Group. The tasting and panel discussion, held in Krug's barrel room, featured Dan Kosta, founder of Kosta Browne Winery; Bob Bertheau, head winemaker at Chateau Ste. Michelle; Doug Fletcher, vice president of wine- making for Terlato Wine Group, and Stacy Vogel, winemaker at Miner Family Winery. Vogel said she rented a Pellenc optical sorting machine from Walsh Vineyard Management to use for a trial on Pinot Noir from the Santa Lucia Highlands AVA in Monterey County, Calif. The resulting wines do not taste that much different, she said. During sorting, the optical machine kicked out mostly raisins, and Vogel said the rejected material filled about one bin out of 20 total. "There actually wasn't a whole lot that was taken out," she said. Bertheau said the Vitisort machine manu- factured by Key Technology was particularly valuable when a vineyard had been struck by a hailstorm that ravaged grapes on one side of the trellis. The machine accurately spat out all the grapes that had been punctured and dehy- drated by hailstones. "It's a perfect use for hail-damaged fruit," he said. But like any piece of equipment, Bertheau said it takes some time to get to know how best to operate it. He said vintage conditions as well as variety and vineyard all need to be taken into account when calibrating a sorter. Fletcher also rented a Pellenc machine for the 2014 harvest. He said he wanted to deter- mine if the machine was necessary when there hadn't been any challenges in the vineyard. He said during the 2010 vintage an optical sorter had been a "godsend" when it handled grapes that suffered severe sunburn. "Do we need to optical sort in a good year? That's our ques- tion," he said. During his trial, Fletcher set the machine to be as selective as possible to remove every raisin, jack or other piece of MOG on a lot of Cabernet Sauvignon. The two wines tasted slightly different, and Fletcher said the opti- cally sorted wine tasted a bit fruiter. "The les- son for us is, maybe we won't stress about stem-jacks so much," he said. —Andrew Adams Winemakers Debate the Merits of Optical Sorting "Do we need to optical sort in a good year? That's our question." —Doug Fletcher, Terlato Wine Group © 2015 StaVin Inc. Seven years ago, we told the world we could replicate the fl avors of a French oak barrel by alternative means. Experts balked, then proved our point in blind tastings, actually choosing our fl avors over those of prestigious French barrels. We didn't stop there. Today we're offering the tools to recreate fl avor profi les of a whole range of different barrels. Whether they come from France or Kentucky, Hungary or Spain. Never before have winemakers had such a wide array of fl avor controls at their command. StaVın Inc, P.O.Box 1693, Sausalito,CA 94966 (415) 331-7849 f (415) 331-0516 stavin.com ®