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22 WINES&VINES July 2018 Here's What Works Y ou bottled 1,000 cases of 2016 Chardonnay over two days. Near the end of the run, your sterile filter plugs, with about 80 cases left to bottle. You grumble about using another expensive filter cartridge. You have an eight-person bottling crew waiting around, so you rush the filter preparation process and skip bubble testing. Three months later, you learn that you've had a few customer complaints of cloudy wine that's also a little fizzy. You're worried that you have a giant problem and might need to recall the entire vintage from the market and your warehouse. A scenario such as this will test your quality-assurance and lot-traceability systems. For many, lot traceability is considered another "have to" of useless government paperwork or is easily dismissed because wine isn't cheese. It can't kill you. Siemens is Europe's largest industrial manufacturing com- pany, making everything from skyscraper fire-safety systems to medical diagnostic devices to industrial-automation equipment. Its quality standards are among the highest in the world, and if the company makes things incorrectly, it can kill you. On Siemens' website, Lot Traceability is defined as the "readily available access to the complete history of all manufactured lots, batches and serialized units, spanning production in mul- tiple plants. It includes materials consumed, processes and equipment utilized, parametric and quality data collected, exceptions, rework, dates and times, and electronic signatures." Sounds as if they gave this some thought. The 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act has put a new focus on lot traceability, requiring wineries to keep records of all materials that went into the wine. In addition, the FDA has stepped up winery inspections and audits to ensure actual compliance. But even if it wasn't required by law, there are many good reasons to institute a real lot-traceability program. In interviewing a diverse group for this column — winemakers at a small premium winery with an outstanding brand; an expert with an enormous wine conglomerate; a leading expert in bottling quality-assurance processes; and a manufacturer of packaging- identification systems — it became clear that improving quality assurance and lot trace- ability will provide significant value to any winery. The single most common theme in all interviews is that your bottle's label does not de- fine a "lot" according to Sie- mens' definition and that a proper approach reduces the winery's economic risk exposure in the event of a post-bottling problem. Going back to our hypothetical 1,000 case Chardonnay bottling: Without a good lot-traceability system: Ron Varner, director of bottling and technical services for G3 Enterprises — an in- tegrated "grape to glass" packaging and services supplier in Modesto, Calif. — said, "If you don't have the ability to isolate the problem within the run, then you have to assume the prob- lem affected 100% of the 12,000-bottles." If it turns into a product recall and you have only the "2016 Chardonnay" label as your lot identification, then you have to recall the entire run. At $20 per bottle, the potential loss is $240,000. With a good lot traceability system: You can have the problem bottles returned (or even just get a photo of the inkjet bottle code) and identify exactly when these were filled; what tank and sterile-filter cartridges were used; and the specific lots of glass, closures, capsules and labels by vendor, production date, etc. In addition, you'd have notes from the bottling days. With bottle codes, you'd quickly be able to narrow down the problem to that new sterile filter and read the line operator's notes that there had been some concerns about the filter. You'd recall only 1,000 bottles, or 8% of the run, while 92% remains on the market with good confidence the problem has been isolated. At $20 per bottle, the potential loss is reduced from $240,000 to $20,000. "You can still ship the balance of the wine," Varner said of using a robust traceability system. "You can be precise. It's al- ways better to remove just the tumor instead of an entire limb." In addition, the financial impact of a quality problem goes beyond the direct loss of product. Kristin Belair, head wine- maker for Honig Vineyard & Winery in Rutherford, Calif., reminds us that even "a few bad bottles can do a lot of damage to a brand," and anyone who has poured a "bad bottle" for a key account or reviewer would agree. Starting the process Installing proper lot traceability seems daunting, as the typical small winery has no dedicated quality- assurance manager or purchasing manager and likely doesn't use a big JD Edwards enterprise software system. Your week is already jampacked with getting your barrels topped, bot- tling supplies ordered and making a Costco run to get more toilet paper. (The Costco comment hon- ors the life of my friend, wine- maker Dave Stevens, whom we all miss dearly.) n ANDY STARR Lot Traceability and Quality Assurance to Reduce Risk