Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/62516
WINEMAKING how to translate them into action in the winery requires someone with a good deal of training, as does knowing for sure that the numbers are correct—a topic we'll get to shortly. The analytical horsepower built into automation testing can eliminate many forms of human error in the lab setting. The technology ensures that samples get similar preparation and treatment, tem- perature gets controlled and no harried under-assistant-winemaker has to eyeball one red color shift after another in a test tube. When these machines are on their game, winemakers sleep better. Smaller wineries, naturally, have Before automated testing rigs, winemakers were lucky to sample one barrel out of 10. Test every barrel at little extra cost M ost smaller wineries, con- strained by time and budgets, do a lot less testing than they would like to do. They do what they can in-house, or send samples out, or most often do a mix of both. Automated testing technologies can narrow the gap between what wineries would like to know and what they can currently manage. ished wine, all with one tiny wine sample and no need for reagents. Jessup Wiley, a product manager at Gusmer, which distributes, installs and calibrates the Oenofoss systems, says they are making a concerted effort to appeal to wineries producing less than 50,000 cases. At the moment, he estimates that there are less than 100 units in operation, in win- eries from very small to very large. Geof- frey Anderson, president of Unitech, which distributes the Chemwell, says their equip- ment is also in a range of wineries produc- ing 15,000 cases and up. Potential benefits Prices and features vary, but as a group, these high-powered machines have the po- tential to make life easier for wineries that do a high volume of testing. The amount of testing done annually is a better indi- cator of need than sheer case output: A Instead of sampling one barrel out of 10, hoping to get an average volatile acidity measurement, automated testing rigs make it possible to do every barrel at hardly any additional cost. Sampling and testing of the basic wine chemistry of multiple loads of incoming fruit can be done in an hour or two, not a day or two. T.P. 10,000-gallon tank needs one sample for testing, as might each one of hundreds of 60-gallon barrels. Wineries that make small batches of many different wines be- come good candidates. Crushpad, a micro- custom crush specialist now ensconced in facilities in Sonoma County, is an extreme example: Enologist and lab manager Justin Rose says that in 2009, they ran something around 22,000 tests on several hundred separate wines, most of them in single- barrel lots. Along the line, they invested in an Oenofoss. The machinery holds out the prom- ise of making testing simpler, faster and easier: Many samples can be run at once, or many aspects of a sample can be tested at the same time, or both. Most of these machines make sample preparation easier, doing some of the work staff normally does by hand. Knowing what to do with all those numbers, of course, and deciding smaller staffs, often with everyone wear- ing multiple hats. Perhaps the biggest payoff from simplifying and speeding up routine testing could be that skilled, experienced, highly trained winemak- ers can get out of the lab and onto the winery floor, sniffing and tasting and poking the grapes, fine-tuning the treat- ments for different lots, finding ways to implement particular stylistic goals on a torrent of fruit. With all those potential advantages in mind, working out the comparative costs is a complicated exercise. But the combination of saving money on re- agents, being able to do more testing, cutting out some potentially expensive errors and freeing up skilled staff can add up to a powerful argument for cer- tain smaller wineries. "Whites differ in testing from reds, sweeter wines from dry, and even wines from area to area." —Michelle Bowen, vinquiry Quantity and quality So far, two of our three criteria seem fea- sible: Automation cuts down on muss and fuss, and for wineries that do a high vol- ume of testing, the math could work out. That leaves just one question: Can you trust all those results, and what do you do with them? Fancy technology always carries with it an aura of invincibility. The more your lab starts looking like the CSI lab, the greater the presumption of correctness. With all the research and development that goes into these machines, you would think they Wines & Vines nOVeMBeR 2011 101 AGNE27