Purfresh Wine’s CEO Christian DeBlasio takes me on a deep dive into the world of the dreaded smoke taint and explains his method of removing it from grapes pre-crush.
What with the decidedly worrying prevalence of wildfires/bushfires threatening the vineyards of Australia, California, Oregon, Washington, and Western Canada as of late, talk of smoke taint and its subsequent removal has been somewhat heated.
With my laughably basic understanding of the science, I approached Christian DeBlasio, CEO of California’s Purfresh Wine and asked him to breakdown the compounds and variables that lead to smoke taint, explain the various methods used to treat grapes/must/wine impacted by smoke taint, and why he feels that the controlled use of Ozone to treat affected grapes is the way forward.
He went on to show an admirable amount of patience as I tried to get my head around smoke taint chemistry, and for that I must heartily thank him.
So if, like me, you don’t really know your 4-methylguaiacol from your o-cresol (or your free volatile phenols from the same but in their glycosylated form, for that matter), this is a must watch.
Look out for Part 2 next week.
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