Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/66137
Inquiring Winemaker TIM P A T TERSON Analyzing the DNA of Your Wine from a mile away. Just in case, every winery performs a battery of basic lab tests, and the ones that can afford it get into plating and peering through microscopes as well as running tannin assays. This arsenal of measurement techniques supports the production W Patent # 7357069 of a huge amount of good to great wine every year, but it's so 20th century—and some of it even 19th century. If you really want to know what's in your wine, or what's on the leaves and berries in your vineyard, you need to get with the pyrosequencing program, inemakers have many tools for figuring out what's in their wine. They get amazing mileage out of just sniffing and sipping, can be uncannily accurate in predicting degrees Brix, acidity and pH simply from chomping on grapes, and are able to spot unwanted malolactic fermentation analyzing the DNA of every last critter that's in there or on there. These techniques—broadly lumped together as PCR analy- sis—are not yet ready to be rolled out to your garden-variety 5,000-case winery, but they are on their way and destined to move from research labs to commercial wineries in the not-too- distant future. The technological power is expanding rapidly, and the costs are dropping even faster. No lab test is the silver bullet for making perfect wine, but genetic sequencing is opening up a whole new world of possibilities for understanding what's going on in that vineyard, that fermentor and that bottle. DNA in the news I got a peek at 21st century lab work with a roomful of other folks at the annual RAVE (Recent Advances in Viticulture and Enology) QualityStainless_Apr05 3/9/05 11:12 AM Page 1 Quality - Value - Experience Quality Stainless Tanks Inspired Design Our spirals made from Premium, American or French Oak deliver 100% new barrel flavor (8 months) in as little as six weeks. Now you can boast authentic oak flavor using neutral barrels or tanks – with rapid, controllable and predictable results. www.InfusionSpiral.com (800) 201-7125 • Professionally crafted • Perfomance guaranteed • Custom designs & features • Quick & competitive pricing • Repairs & modifications • Special application tanks • Stainless winery equipment • Tanks in stock for immediate shipping from 500 to 10,000 gallon capacity West Coast–New York–Texas Len Napolitano (805) 712-4471 len@thebarrelmill.com 50 Wines & Vines JULY 2011 Four toast levels Economical Sustainable Time-saving Quality Stainless Tanks 510 Caletti Avenue • Windsor, CA 95492 Phone: 707.837.2721 • Fax: 707.837.2733 Toll-Free: 877.598.0672 www.qualitystainless.com winetanks@aol.com Fabricated Stainless Cooperage Custom