Fanning the Flames, Understanding Smoke Taint w/ Dr. Anita Oberholster

With four years of extreme fire season in Northern California, the study and importance of smoke taint is at all-time highs.  Leading the charge is Dr. Anita Oberholster of UC Davis, who is collaborating globally to better understand the chemistry of smoke exposure and taint, how to measure it, what to do about it, and how to create new solutions to monitor and manage it.  This episode packs everything you’d ever want to know about smoke taint in 50 minutes! 

Detailed Show Notes: 

• Dr. Oberholster is an Extension Specialist in Oenology at UC Davis, which means she interacts more with industry than teaches, lots of applied research
• From South Africa, she studied Biochemistry and has a Ph.D. in Wine Chemistry from South Australia
• Definitions: 
  • Smoke taint - overpowers the wine, makes it one dimensional, and reduces the quality
  • Smoke exposure - can have different levels of exposure, no index yet exists to track, but academics are collaborating on it
• Smoke exposure is less about proximity, but how fast the smoke gets to you => very fresh, dense smoke = higher risk of smoke taint
• Volatile phenols decay in the atmosphere, if it’s more than 24 hours old, there’s less risk
• The ultimate goal - have a low-cost sense that detects volatile phenols to determine the smoke risk
• Vineyards are most susceptible when there are berries on the vine
• There’s no carryover effect from prior year fires
• Testing grapes vs. wine - wine tests are more accurate because there are more free volatile phenols vs. bound with sugars
• ~20-25% of people aren’t sensitive to smoke taint
• Testing is expensive and laborious, requires a gas chromatography, mass spectrometer
• Crop insurance - covers grower if smoke exposure is above a certain level; it’s heavily subsidized by the government
• There’s no correlation between thin and thick-skinned grapes and smoke taint
• Alcohol (if >10%), sugar (if >3g/L), and phenolic compounds mask smoke character, and green character enhances the smoke character
• Rose - gets ~30% of the volatile phenols vs. red wine but may still show taint relative to the lower concentration of compounds
• Carbonic maceration - one of the worst for smoke taint
• Sprays to prevent taint - results very variable so far
• When there’s wetness/oiliness on berries, then to absorb more smoke taint
• Washing fruit - unclear if this has any impact
• Most wineries will not take the brand risk to release smoke tainted wine
• Best practices for growers and wineries: 
  • Buy crop insurance for growers
  • Contracts between growers and winery need to be as clear as possible, with a cutoff for smoke taint

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