NZ polymer douses smoke taint in wine

A billion-dollar problem, wildfires are an ongoing threat to vineyards. Wines made from grapes exposed to smoke result in an acrid, ashy aroma, taste and mouth feel that compromises quality and reduces value to the point that it is oftentimes unsaleable.

Ideally, to remediate smoke tainted wine, the molecules responsible need to be reduced, without removing desirable elements that contribute to the wine’s composition, colour and flavour.

Professor of Oenology, Kerry Wilkinson and her colleagues have successfully tested a method to lessen smoke taint in wine, validating the use of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) to target removing the volatile phenols responsible for the smoke taint.

Researchers added MIP beads to smoke-impacted wine which selectively bound and removed the target compounds, ameliorating the wine’s sensory profile. MIP specialists, amaea developed the MIPs used in the Australian government funded study.

“The selectively of MIPs made the science worth considering as a method to reduce volatile phenols. We exposed the wine to MIP beads imprinted with billions of binding sites complementary to the target compound’s molecular properties, such as size, shape and chemical characteristics – which allows the MIPs to specifically target, capture and remove the offending phenols,” says Wilson.

The research showed the MIP technology was successful at removing 35−57% of the volatile phenols from the sample wines which included guaiacol, 4-methylguaiacol, cresols, and phenol. The findings were recently published in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

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Dr Aaron Low, chief technical officer amaea says that removing smoke taint from wine has long been a challenge for winemakers as often more is stripped away than desired. Low says not every smoke-impacted wine is the same.