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Smoke Taint Analysis
The impact of wild fires on grapes can cause substantial undesired sensory affects on the resulting wine. With California's fire season in full swing, many vineyards and wine makers are requesting smoke taint analysis on grapes in order to help manage harvests and wine making decisions. We are here to help our community navigate these difficult times, by adopting a smoke taint analysis test for grape and wine. We utilize a method used in multiple publications to offer reliable results from our ISO 17025 accredited lab.
Free guaiacol and 4-methylguaiacol
Our smoke taint panel tests for free guaiacol and 4-methylguaicol by GCMS. The two volatile phenolic compounds are the primary markers for smoke taint in wine. To help understand the impact on vineyards berries can be directly screened for these two markers. Small batch fermentation can also be used to further asses the impact of wine and may be a more reliable indicator.
It is imperative to obtain a representative sample when assessing smoke taint in berries. We recommend that the sampler takes 30 random clusters throughout the block and strip the berries from the cluster. We ask that you submit 200 - 400 berries for analysis in an appropriate plastic container. To help reduce sample prep costs and sample prep times we ask that you do not submit clusters.
If wanting to test wine please submit 200 mL of wine in a sealed bottle.
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